Centralized data access is emerging as a key strategy for advertisers. In our next Ask the Expert segment, we explore this topic further and discuss the importance of data ownership and the concept of audience as an asset.
We’re joined by industry leaders, Andy Fisher, Head of Merkury Advanced TV at Merkle, and Chris Feo, Experian’s SVP of Sales & Partnerships who spotlight Merkle’s commitment to centralized data access and how advertisers can use our combined solutions to navigate industry shifts while ensuring consumer privacy. Watch our Q&A to learn more about these topics and gain insights on how to stay ahead of industry changes.
The concept of audience as an asset
In order to gain actionable marketing insights about your audience, you need to identify consumers who are actively engaged with your brand and compare them against non-engaged consumers, or consumers engaged with rival brands.
Audience ownership
Audience ownership is a fundamental marketing concept where marketers build, define, create, and own their audience. This approach allows you to use your audiences as an asset and deliver a customized journey to the most promising prospects across multiple channels. With this strategy, you enhance marketing effectiveness and ensure ownership over your audience, no matter the platform or channel used.
Merkle enables marketers to own and deploy said asset (audience) so that marketers can have direct control over their audience. With audience strategy, you can tie all elements together – amplify your marketing reach, while maintaining control of your audience. Merkle connects customer experiences with business results.
Data ownership
Data ownership refers to the control organizations have over data they generate, including marketing, sales, product, and customer data. This data is often scattered across multiple platforms, making it difficult to evaluate their effectiveness. Alternatively, owning this data, which is typically housed in a data warehouse, allows the creation of historical overviews, forecasting of customer trends, and cross-channel comparisons. With advertisers and publishers both claiming ownership over their respective data and wanting to control its access, there has been a growing interest in data clean rooms.
Data clean rooms
The growing interest in data clean rooms is largely due to marketers increasing preference to maintain ownership over their audience data. They provide a secure environment for controlled collaboration between advertisers and publishers while preserving the privacy of valuable data. Data clean rooms allow all parties to define their usage terms – who can access it, how it is used, and when it is used. The rise in the use of data clean rooms strengthens data privacy and creates opportunities for deeper customer insights, which leads to enhanced customer targeting. Data clean rooms unlock new data sets, aiding brands, publishers, and data providers in adapting to rapidly changing privacy requirements.
Why is centralized data access important?
Centralized data access is crucial for the effective organization and optimization of your advertising campaigns. It involves consolidating your data in one place, allowing for the identification of inconsistencies.
Merkle’s Merkury platform
The concept of centralized data is a key component of Merkle’s Merkury platform, an enterprise identity platform that empowers brands to own and control first-party identity at an individual level. A common use case involves marketers combining their first-party data with Merkury’s data assets and marketplace data assets to build prospecting audiences. These are later published to various endpoints for activation.
The Merkury platform covers three classes of data:
- Proprietary data set – Permissioned data set covering the entire United States, compiled from about 40 different vendors
- Marketplace data – Includes contributions from various vendors like Experian
- First-party data from marketers – Allows marketers to bring in their own data
Merkury’s identity platform empowers brands to own and control first-party identity at an individual level, unifying known and unknown customer and prospect records, site and app visits, and consumer data to a single, person ID. This makes Merkury the only enterprise identity platform that combines the accuracy and sustainability of client first-party data, quality personally identifiable information (PII) data, third-party data, cookie-less media, and technology platform connections in the market.
End-to-end management of data
Data ownership and management enables you to enhance the quality of your data, facilitate the exchange of information, and ensure privacy compliance.
The Merkury platform provides a comprehensive, end-to-end solution for managing first-party data, all rooted in identity. Unlike data management platforms (DMPs) that are primarily built on cookies, the Merkury platform is constructed on a person ID, allowing it to operate effectively in a cookie-free environment.
A broader perspective with people-based views
The Merkury platform is unique because it contains data from almost every individual in the United States, providing a broader perspective compared to customer data platforms (CDPs) which only contain consumer data. The platform provides a view of the world in a people-based manner, but also offers the flexibility to toggle between person and household views. This enables you to turn data into actionable insights and makes it possible to target specific individuals within a household or consider the household as a whole.
How Experian and Merkle work together
Experian and Merkle have established a strong partnership that magnifies the capabilities of Merkle’s Merkury platform. With Experian’s robust integration capabilities and extensive connectivity opportunities, customers can use this technology for seamless direct integrations, resulting in more effective onboarding to various channels, like digital and TV.
“Experian’s role in Merkury’s data marketplace is essential as they are considered the gold standard for data. It significantly contributes to our connectivity through direct integrations and partnerships. Experian’s presence in various platforms and technologies ensures easy connections and high match rates. Our partnership is very important to us.”
andy fisher, head of merkury advanced tv
Through this partnership, Merkle can deliver unique, personalized digital customer experiences across multiple platforms and devices, highlighting their commitment to data-driven performance marketing.
Watch the full Q&A
Visit our Ask the Expert content hub to watch Andy and Chris’s full conversation about data ownership, innovative strategies to empower you to overcome identity challenges, and navigating industry shifts while protecting consumer privacy.
Tune into the full recording to gain insights into the captivating topics of artificial intelligence (AI), understanding how retail networks can amplify the value of media, and the growing influence of connected TV (CTV). Dive into the Q&A to gain rich insights that could greatly influence your strategies.
About our experts
Andy Fisher, Head of Merkury Advanced TV
As the Head of Merkury Advanced TV, Andy’s primary responsibility is driving person-based marketing and big data adoption in all areas of Television including Linear, Addressable, Connected, Programmatic, and X-channel planning and Measurement. Andy has held several positions at Merkle including Chief Analytics Officer and he ran the Merkle data business. Prior to joining Merkle, Andy was the EVP, Global Data & Analytics Director at Starcom MediaVest Group where he led the SMG global analytics practice. In this role, he built and managed a team of 150 analytics professionals across 17 countries servicing many of the world’s largest advertisers. Prior to that role, Andy was Vice President and National Lead, Analytics at Razorfish, where he led the digital analytics practice and managed a team of modeling, survey, media data, and business intelligence experts. He and his team were responsible for some of the first innovations in multi-touchpoint attribution and joining online/offline data for many of the Fortune 100. Andy has also held leadership positions at Personify and IRI. Andy holds a BA in mathematics from UC Berkeley and an MA in statistics from Stanford.
Chris Feo, SVP, Sales & Partnerships, Experian
As SVP of Sales & Partnerships, Chris has over a decade of experience across identity, data, and programmatic. Chris joined Experian during the Tapad acquisition in November 2020. He joined Tapad with less than 10 employees and has been part of the executive team through both the Telenor and Experian acquisitions. He’s an active advisor, board member, and investor within the AdTech ecosystem. Outside of work, he’s a die-hard golfer, frequent traveler, and husband to his wife, two dogs, and two goats!
Latest posts
Are Traasdahl, CEO and founder of Tapad, the leader in cross-device marketing technology and now a part of Experian, has been named Founder of the Year by the Global Startup Awards. The Global Startup Awards' Founder of the Year Award recognizes an individual that has pushed the boundaries of technology to empower new innovations and ideas. The Global Startup Awards places each year's regional category winners against each other to determine whose achievements stand out from the rest of the startup ecosystem through nomination, voting and jury evaluation. In May 2016, the Nordic Startup Awards named Traasdahl Founder of the Year. "Are is a force of nature and his creativity and passion know no boundaries, it seems," said George Tilesch, Global Startup Awards juror and U.S. managing partner of Innomine Group. "Extra kudos for the mentoring work and the Norwegian superfund plans. Are knows giving back is of the utmost importance." "Are is a superstar within the Norwegian startup ecosystem," said Kim Balle, founding partner and CEO of the Global Startup Awards. "From the jury feedback I could see that not only are his impressive achievements the reason for their rating, but also his focus and ability to give back to the startup scene played an important factor in him winning the category." "It is an enormous honor to be named Founder of the Year by the Global Startup Awards," said Traasdahl. "I am so committed to fostering entrepreneurship both at Tapad and throughout the startup space. This win is a remarkable bookend for a stellar year that began with our acquisition by the Telenor Group and continued with best-in-class product innovation, superior solutions for our clients and our Propeller Program that is so dear to my heart." Tapad's Propeller Program hosts five early-stage companies at Tapad's New York headquarters for one year to mentor them through global expansion. The participants of this inaugural program come from Traasdahl's native Norway. For more information on the Global Startup Awards, please visit: http://www.globalstartupawards.com/#gsa. Contact us today!
As my colleague Jake Davis and I were planning this blog post, we had a lengthy conversation about what we were going to focus on. If you’ve experienced even one holiday season as a digital marketer, you know there’s a ton of crucial decisions to be made about your Q4 digital endeavors. Some of our clients have been planning since the end of the summer for “prime time,” and more than a few mentioned that they earn up to 40% of their annual revenue between October and December. Jake and I are both marketers – my perspective is from the strategy and planning angle, while Jake is The Man when it comes to data and analysis. Together, we make each other better by challenging each other’s ideas and perceptions. We think this blog post captures the best of both of our perspectives. Ultimately, there are a lot of variables at play all year long, but making smart decisions about creative, segmentation, deployment time, content, etc. carries a lot more weight as you close out Q4. I am interested in volume trends and thematic changes through the holiday season; because I believe marketers truly want to be proactive about crafting their holiday plans. In the real world, however, the calendar is a living document and a moving target – if a brand is not hitting its projections, course correction at the 11th hour can happen. Our goal is to ensure that type of recalibration is more the exception than the rule (and to give you some pointers even if you find the calendar is more of a guide than a concrete plan). Jake and our analytics team do some of their most innovative analysis annually, after the holiday season. That analysis of the 2015 holiday season, along with projected trends and industry developments, is what we are using to help frame this particular piece of thought leadership. With that being said, here are four charts and some explanations that can help you win by December 31st: 1. Peak Days Black Friday and Cyber Monday still have a hold on the public’s attention and wallet, even with promotions that began at the end of October. Factor in mobile shopping, and Cyber Monday in particular could be especially lucrative: mobile first consumers are ready, willing and even more able to make purchases from virtually anywhere, not just in front of their computers or tablets. But expect a decline in email marketing effectiveness from the year before…for all of the same reasons it will be so lucrative elsewhere. 2. Send size matters Batch and blast is probably here to stay, no matter how much we preach about the long-term benefits of smaller, targeted campaigns. Even the savviest marketers will resort to some large sends this holiday season, so when you do, it will serve you well to remember this maxim: volume is negatively correlated with email KPIs. Your send size might be the only reason you see a decline in your open rate – and that’s just math! 3. Animation: a key to unlocking engagement Animation has been around for a while now, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less effective. Last holiday season, mailings that included animation were clicked on 30% more than expected based on other trends. While that might because only the best mailings get this treatment, expect animation to get your customers moving. 4. Free shipping Free shipping was the most popular offer in 2015, although slightly less effective than 2014. As recent news about an increase in shipping rates reaches consumers, free shipping could prove to be even more compelling than past years. On the other hand, marketers that offer free shipping may see their bottom line affected (so prepare for Free Shipping with higher qualifiers, and remind your consumers about all the other great benefits they’ll receive by shopping with your brand). As with last year, our ultimate take-aways included the strong Jake and Liz approved suggestion to look at performance from your digital channels in a holistic sense. How have you been communicating with your customers the entire year? Is your website mobile optimized? Is your content personalized and relevant? Are you targeting the right audience? Are you using browse and abandon behavior to send triggered emails and make product recommendations? Most importantly, do you understand the context in which you’re deploying your email? It’s a competitive world out there, and most everyone has the same tricks up their sleeves. Be creative and daring when thinking of what minor innovations could prove major to your bottom line. While the charts above describe holiday 2015 (and rest assured, they will likely describe holiday 2016), it’s the tiny variations – the curious interpretations – that will drive your program forward. And when you’re struggling to come up with that variation? We’re here to help. Read more analytics posts here.
NEW YORK, Nov. 29, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — For the second consecutive year, Tapad, part of Experian, has been listed among Deloitte's Technology Fast 500™, a ranking of the 500 fastest-growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and energy tech companies in North America. Tapad, number 147 on the 2016 Deloitte list, is the leading provider of unified, cross-device marketing technology solutions. "It is an honor to once again be recognized by Deloitte for our growth and momentum, particularly given the stature of the other technology companies on the list," said Are Traasdahl, founder and CEO of Tapad. "Our product innovation, particularly in TV analytics and measurement, is a major contributor to our progress. I'm extremely proud of our hard-working, talented team for continually executing at such a high level." "Today, when every organization can be a tech company, the most effective businesses not only foster the courage to explore change, but also encourage creativity in using and applying existing assets in new ways, as resourcefully as possible," said Sandra Shirai, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP and U.S. technology, media and telecommunications industry leader. "This ingenious approach to innovation calls for the encouragement of curiosity and collaboration both within and outside the office walls." "This year's Fast 500 winners showcase that when organizations are open to diverse perspectives and insights, they are able to create an environment for their employees and customers to see the possibilities and ingenious solutions that might lie ahead," added Jim Atwell, national managing partner of the emerging growth company practice, Deloitte & Touche LLP. "Entrepreneurial environments foster change and innovation within businesses, and we look forward to watching these companies continue to drive change across all sectors." Contact us today