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!
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Combined technology gives marketers an enhanced view of the customer for improved planning, targeting and optimization NEW YORK, July 12, 2016/PR Newswire/ - Tapad, the leader in cross-device marketing technology and now a part of Experian, today announced a partnership with Conversion Logic, the martech industry's most accurate unified marketing attribution provider. Conversion Logic will incorporate unified cross-screen data from Tapad's Device Graph™ to identify related devices and media exposures to enhance reporting on the path to conversion. By connecting Conversion Logic's proprietary Ensemble Method, which combines numerous state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms, tuned for each customer use-case for the most accurate results, with Tapad's unified, cross-device technology, marketers will benefit from a highly scientific approach to assessing advertising effectiveness with full, comprehensive customer insights. Linking these technologies will increase marketers' real-time ability to optimize brands' marketing channel spend and creative at a more granular level. During the past six months, Tapad has rapidly grown its data business, doubling the number of companies integrating the Device Graph™ into their platforms and growing the annualized revenue run rate by 210%. Tapad's highly scalable, cross-device data has been confirmed by Nielsen to be very precise. Tapad augments platforms' and publishers' tech stacks with additional scale and relevancy, granting advertisers amplified targeting and analysis options. The growth of the Device GraphTM has allowed Tapad to provide a growing network that benefits all partners with more efficient, effective consumer engagement. "Combining highly accurate data from Tapad with our own user ID technology and understanding how devices may be related at an individual level provides additional visibility into the path to conversion," said Alison Lohse, COO and co-founder of Conversion Logic. "The more we know about the customer journey, the more effective, efficient and customized marketers can be with marketing efforts. With Tapad, we have achieved a unified customer view that helps us piece together the purchase journey while preserving proven accuracy." "Conversion Logic's Ensemble Method delivers singularly customized and precise results that are not just accurate, but actionable," said Dave Fall, COO of Tapad. "The combination of powerful technology and a user-friendly interface, plus Tapad's ability to only consider relevant and scalable components in the marketplace, creates a more concentrated and beneficial environment for both its partners and clients." Contact us today!
B2B marketers can now deliver the right message to the right user at the right time across devices and channels NEW YORK, NY–(Marketwired – Jun 1, 2016) – Madison Logic, one of the world's fastest growing companies dedicated to solving the digital needs of B2B marketers, is partnering with Tapad, the leading provider of unified and now a part of Experian, cross-screen marketing technology solutions. Now business-to-business (B2B) marketers can power targeted advertising and content syndication programs across all channels, including smartphones, computers and tablets. The increasing shift in content consumption across mobile devices makes cross-device identification and attribution a top priority for B2B marketers. The Madison Logic and Tapad partnership gives B2B marketers unprecedented reach and scale with the ability to run always-on, cross-device, account-based marketing programs targeting decision makers who are actively researching similar products and services. "Screens are everywhere and so is the B2B buyer," said Vin Turk, SVP of Audience Development for Madison Logic. "This partnership allows marketers to harness the power of Madison Logic's intent data and combine it with Tapad's cross-device solutions to connect with the most-likely-to-convert prospects with hyper-relevant content wherever and whenever they're doing their research." "Relevance is essential to the success of B2B marketers, particularly now, when breaking through the clutter is difficult," said Dave Fall, COO of Tapad. "This partnership with Madison Logic allows marketers to leverage their existing customers while identifying and reaching new audiences with messaging tailored to every device." For more information about Madison Logic's account-based marketing platform, please visit https://www.madisonlogic.com/account-based-marketing/. For more information about Tapad's cross-platform advertising solutions, please visit https://www.experian.com/marketing/consumer-sync. Contact us today!
NEW YORK, June 1, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — 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 Nordic Startup Awards. The Nordic Startup Awards' Founder of the Year Award recognizes an individual that has shown exceptional achievements in fundraising, customer growth, financial savvy, and/or leadership throughout the past year. The Nordic Startup Awards evaluates hundreds of players in the startup ecosystem, ranging from investors and founders, to developers and journalists in Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, Norway and Finland. Taking place in two stages, each country selects its nominees for consideration for the regional awards which were held in Iceland on May 31, 2016. Traasdahl is recognized for his continuous investment in Tapad as a whole, as well as his dedication to growing and developing Tapad since founding the company in 2010. He has led Tapad from startup through a steady period of growth resulting in an acquisition by the Telenor Group for $360 million in February 2016. "I am truly honored to be named Founder of the Year by the Nordic Startup Awards, among so many other remarkable leaders in the space," said Traasdahl. "That said, this has always been a team effort. We started Tapad with the goal of giving employees unprecedented growth opportunities while developing breakthrough solutions for our clients. This is a win for everyone at Tapad who has committed themselves to these principles over the past four-and-a-half years." Tapad is reinforcing its commitment to fostering entrepreneurship with the launch of their new Propeller Program. Through Propeller, Tapad will host five early-stage companies at Tapad's New York headquarters for a year to set them up for global expansion. In its inaugural year, the first participants will come from Traasdahl's native Norway. For more information on the Nordic Startup Awards, please visit: http://www.nordicstartupawards.com/. Contact us today!