Originally appeared on Total Retail
Retail media networks (RMNs) continue to demonstrate how they can be a powerful monetization driver for retailers, creating a win-win-win for everyone involved. Retailers can monetize their valuable first-party data as well as their online and in-store inventory, while customers benefit from timely, relevant content that enhances their shopping experience. At the same time, advertisers can reach highly targeted audiences at critical moments near the point of purchase
Achieving this type of success requires overcoming challenges around fragmented and incomplete first-party data, which can limit a retailer’s ability to organize and use their data effectively. Additionally, many RMNs lack the analytical capacity to generate customer insights, build addressable audiences, and accurately measure success. To realize the full potential of their platforms, RMNs need partners that provide complementary data, strong identity solutions, and the expertise to transform insights into actionable strategies. This allows RMNs to drive winning outcomes for themselves, marketers, and their customers.
Here are the five steps an RMN should consider when selecting the right partner.
1. Build an identity foundation
First, the right partner needs to be able to organize and clean customer data. Given the millions of customer records and data points that a retailer has, RMNs need to make sure their data is highly usable. Whether it is a known customer record or an unknown customer with incomplete data, partners should fill in missing information and connect fragmented customer records to a single profile. For example, RMNs need to know that a purchase made in-store is by the same customer who bought online. The best partners will then organize those profiles into households since targeting (and purchasing) is often done at the household level. Without a strong identity foundation future steps of segmentation, insights, audience creation, and activation will not be successful.
Experian identity
Experian’s identity solutions provide RMNs with a comprehensive and accurate view of their customers across both offline and digital environments. We clean an RMN’s first-party data and organize their customer records into households since targeting is often done at the household level and purchases are made at the household level.
Using Experian’s Offline and Digital Graphs we work with the RMN to fill in the missing information they have on their customers (e.g. name, address, phone number or digital IDs like hashed emails, mobile ad IDs, CTV IDs, Universal IDs like UID2 or ID5 IDs). This ensures that the retailers’ entire customer base can be reached – and measured – across devices and channels.
2. Segment your customers
An RMN’s ability to segment its customer base and derive insights depends on the availability and usability of their data assets – not to mention some serious analytical chops. Some RMNs will split their customers into different product segments based on what’s relevant to an advertiser. For example, a home improvement retailer may segment customers by who is buying DIY supplies versus improvement services. Other RMNs may develop custom segments from their customer data and third-party data sources, so that advertisers can personalize their marketing based on life stage, age, income level, geography, and other factors. Either approach is effective but requires working with a partner who has high quality data and deep analytical expertise to develop those segments.
Segment with Experian
Experian Marketing Data helps an RMN learn about their customer beyond their first-party data. With access to 5,000 marketing attributes, RMNs can fill in the holes in their understanding of a customer. We provide them with demographic, geographic, finance, home purchase, interests and behaviors, lifestyle, auto data and more. RMNs can use this enriched data set to create addressable audience segments.
3. Generate actionable insights about these segments
Once the RMN determines how they will segment their customers, they can utilize demographic, attitudinal, interest, and behavioral data from a trusted partner to develop a customer profile that compares its customers against a relevant sample of consumers. Here, the RMN will gain insight that will help them answer questions about its customers. Examples include:
- What age and income groups are more likely to purchase my product?
- What is the current life stage of my customers – do they have children, are they married, are they empty-nesters?
- Is price or quality more important to customers in their decision-making process?
- What sort of activities do my customers enjoy?
- How frequently do my customers shop for similar merchandise?
- What media channels do my customers use to get their information?
Expanded insights with Experian
With Experian’s advanced customer profiling, RMNs can go beyond basic customer segmentation. We build detailed customer profiles by utilizing accurate, attribute-rich consumer data, so RMNs can gain a more comprehensive understanding of their customer’s preferences, life stages, and purchasing behaviors. Having this insight enables the RMN to:
- Design a targeted email campaign promoting home essentials to recently married new homeowners.
- Develop a social media post announcing the opening of a new hardware store to users within a specific location interested in do-it-yourself products.
- Create brochures and flyers at a local community event tailored towards parents with small children that promote equipment for youth sports leagues.
4. Create high quality lookalike audiences
The RMN now knows what distinguishes their customers from other consumers and can create audiences that enable advertisers to run personalized marketing campaigns at scale. RMNs can do this in several different ways:
- Work with a data provider who can create custom audiences for the RMN (e.g., Ages 40-49 and Leisure Travelers and past purchase of travel item)
These custom audiences are created by joining multiple first- and third-party data attributes found to be significant in the customer profile or using machine learning techniques to develop a custom audience unique to the advertiser.
Custom audiences with Experian
With an enriched understanding of their customers, RMNs can create addressable custom audience segments, including lookalike audiences, for advertisers.
5. Expand addressability of audiences and activate on multiple destinations
Once audiences are created, RMNs will want to increase a marketer’s reach across on-site and off-site channels. With the right identity graph partner, an RMN can add digital identifiers to customer records that enable activation across media channels, including programmatic display, connected television (CTV), or social. RMNs should work with identity providers that are not reliant on third-party cookies. They should select partners that offer more stable digital IDs in their graph like mobile ad IDs (MAIDs), hashed emails (HEMs), CTV IDs, and universal IDs like Unified I.D. 2.0 (UID2).
Experian powers data-driven advertising through connectivity
Using Experian’s Digital Graph, RMNs expand the addressability of their audiences by assigning digital identifiers to customer records. Marketers will be able to reach an RMNs customers onsite as well as offsite since Experian provides several addressable IDs.
Audiences can be activated across an RMNs owned and operated platform as well as extended programmatically to TV and the open web through Experian’s integrations across the ecosystem.
Maximize your RMN’s revenue potential with Experian
Organizing customer data, segmenting customers, generating insights, creating addressable audiences, and activating campaigns are all critical steps for an RMN to realize that revenue potential. RMNs should select a partner that provides the data, identity, and analytical resources to create the winning formula for marketers, customers, and retailers.
Experian’s data and identity solutions are designed to help RMNs maximize their revenue potential.
Reach out to our team to discover how we can support your path to RMN success.
Latest posts
QSRs have emerged as superheroes during the pandemic, creating an entirely different consumer experience in record time by offering contactless delivery, curbside pick-up, and other innovations that have allowed them to stay open and operational when so many other businesses have shuttered. But as many states are still moving through their phased re-opening plans and more options become available to consumers, QSRs are challenged with keeping their momentum going. How can they continue to build on their success? The key is activation. Advertising on the right channels at the right time. The more QSRs can offer experiences that leverage the power of data to better speak to their customers and address their unique needs, the better chance they have of continuing to succeed in these unwieldy times. As we move into the fall and winter, and as more and more people look to QSR’s to help with their meal plans, consider the following: 1. Use data to create a more robust loyalty program. There’s no question consumers have plenty of QSRs to choose from and using a loyalty program is an excellent way to ensure they continue to view you as a preferred dining destination. But you might be surprised to learn how much of a difference it can make to your bottom line. PYMNTS reported that in 2019, Starbucks President and CEO Kevin Johnson shared how the company’s active mobile app rewards membership grew to 16.8 million users, which comprised 41% of sales in U.S. stores. The PYMNTS Restaurant Readiness Index also shows that 79.5% of QSR customers and 47.5% of QSR managers see loyalty programs as a feature that is important to a restaurant’s success. Now is a great time to review your loyalty program (or create a new one) and see if you can expand it to offer more perks, thereby enticing more customer interaction. A strong loyalty program should include a combination of your own customer data, enriched with third-party data for deeper customer insights, such as behavior, lifestyle and interests. 2. Make it easy for customers to order, purchase and pick-up with mobile ordering. Mobile ordering is no longer the wave of the future—it’s part of the new now. PYMNTS reported that Dunkin’ Brands CEO Dave Hoffmann noted on-the-go ordering experienced an average weekly sales increase of 25% year over year—and this growth was especially key in locations without a drive-through. For customers who want an easy option that allows them to order, pay and pick-up at curbside, mobile ordering is the ultimate in simplicity, and your data can help you determine who is most primed to take advantage of this option so you can push it directly to them. 3. Offer demographic and location-specific promos. The power of data can help you know a lot about your customers, from age and occupation to whether or not they have a family, how they spend their time, and how much of that time is spent at your competitor’s restaurant. This data can help you craft promotions that can speak directly to your consumer, ensure you’re advertising on the channels they prefer and frequent and get them in your door. When you know you cater to parents who are tired of a long day of homeschooling and work Zoom meetings, you can tailor and execute a promo campaign that speaks directly to their needs and deliver it to their preferred channel, encouraging them to skip cooking and order from you instead. Or maybe you have locations that are close to college campuses, allowing you to entice students with a two-for-one deal they just can’t pass up. And as offices start the slow process of opening back up, there’s an opportunity to welcome workers back to the neighborhood with a special curbside or delivery pick-up deal. 4. Ensure your customer knows your brand values. More and more, consumers are becoming conscious of who they spend their money with and why. As Longitude Design points out, this is something Ben & Jerry’s does exceptionally well, and their value message is spread across everything the brand does, from their scoop shops to their store-bought pints to their company-branded events. This is your opportunity to share what you value as a company and a brand, and how it aligns with your consumer’s lifestyle. Is your food sustainably sourced? Is your packaging environmentally friendly? Be transparent about your supply chain, share how you care for your employees, give some insight into the prep process behind your food, as these insights will help your consumer gain trust in you, which in turn creates loyalty. Social media is a great way to get the word out about your value-based operational initiatives. To learn more about how you can use data to build on and enhance the new customer QSR experience, visit our Restaurant Marketing Solutions page.
Healthcare marketers: Open enrollment starts November 1st. Are you ready? It’s that time of year again—time to promote your insurance plans to existing and potential members ahead of open enrollment. But do you know your members beyond the basics? Sure, you know their name, address, phone number and email address, but do you know what communication channels they prefer? Do you know their lifestyle, behaviors and interests? In order for member communications to be effective, they need to be data-driven—first and foremost. The problem is, the industry is fragmented—and so is its data. With individuals covered by both private and public insurance plans—many payers don’t have access to a complete and accurate view of members and their respective data. And as the industry continues to move toward digital transformation and embraces automation, organizations that aren’t leveraging data insights are in danger of missing out on the opportunity to create a more solid connection with members. Partnering with a third-party data provider like Experian to enrich your first-party data is the answer. With a reliable source of data, health plans can more easily identify members, deduplicate their profiles, and leverage accurate contact information and communicate on a personal, relevant, empathetic level. Here are 5 ways to attract new members and retain existing members: 1. Create more accurate personas for marketing needs: Whether we use your data or combine yours with ours, you can gain stronger member analysis for segmentation and modeling that can help you maintain current relationships or expand your outreach to acquire new members—and ensure the loyalty of both categories. 2. Ensure the accuracy of member data: With Experian’s identity and data solutions, you can rest assured that your member database is accurate and up to date to maximize contact rates and minimize errors. 3. Build strong communication channels with your members: Optimize your advertising efforts through preferred channels—and identify those communication channels—to effectively connect with your customers using our data identifying their lifestyle, interests, behaviors and more. 4. Understand more about your members’ needs and behaviors: We’ll help you keep your members healthy. What do your members do, need, prefer? How much can they afford for healthcare? How do they live? You could guess, or you can let unbiased data guide your decisions so you can better assist your members in their health care goals. 5. Create a better member experience: With data and insights, Experian can give you the information you need to enable a consistent member experience, allowing you to match your products in a way that complements your member’s needs and lifestyle. Experian cuts through the data overload by focusing on data that matters and drives actionable decisions. With Experian on your side, you’ll be able to leverage the largest consumer database. We’re here to help you to manage a wide range of marketing needs, including measuring your campaign impact and determining the best messages to use to connect with your audience. We can also assist with securely managing your data in a way that helps to ensure the accuracy of that data to give you the most up-to-date picture of your current member database. Ready to learn more about our healthcare marketing solutions for open enrollment? Complete our online form and an Experian Marketing Services representative will reach out to you soon.
With the long-term effects to the economy unknown, many consumers are feeling the financial impact, while others are looking for opportunities, resulting in a transformational shift in spending. Some brands are experiencing decreased or paused marketing budgets, and you may be trepidatious about making the right decisions in your efforts to grow share of wallet. Recent events have been an impetus for change and we’re seeing brands make modifications to traditional marketing strategies. Some are developing innovative technologies and utilizing new sources of data and analytics. As we look at how these changes impact marketing results, we see the gap grow between those brands who are equipped to pivot and implement new strategies quickly, versus those who are not. So what steps can your organization implement now to make the smartest choices for both your customers and your business to secure more share of wallet? Here are four ideas to accelerate the success of your next financial marketing campaign: 1. Meet your customers wherever they are: Digital-first strategies have never been more relevant than they are right now. While consumers have fully embraced online engagement, marketers are even more focused on reaching high-value segments in the channels they utilize. By using an informed, data-driven strategy that includes preferred marketing communication channels and decision-making styles, engagement increases across those channels your target audience frequents the most. For example, are they heavy social media users? Do they prefer streaming TV? Or do they tend to rely on financial advice vs. performing their own research? To drive take rates, your audience must be exposed to a tailored message, in the right channel, and possibly multiple times. 2. Use messaging that resonates: As consumers refocus priorities, their expectations of brands with whom they do business are ever-increasing. Reflecting an understanding of the current needs and interests of your customers and prospects is an undertone that can only help strengthen their view of your brand. Consumer behavior has changed and is unlikely to revert to what was, so you want to be relevant, but you also do not want to be seen as ‘tone deaf’. As a result, consider revising your segmentation strategy to leverage predictive insights, such as household economic indicators, financial behaviors, lifestyle propensities and interests to help shape your message into one that truly makes an impact. 3. Prove the worth of your campaign: New consumer journeys are being formulated and showing ROI is imperative as your marketing budget is scrutinized. Having the right industry-relevant metrics and reports to analyze and share with leadership are key. Demonstrate that your campaigns are contributing to bottom-line success—and justify future campaigns—by using data-driven measurement insights collected across multiple reads and countless touchpoints. Marketing budgets are being scrutinized now more than ever, so showing ROI is critical. Having the right metrics and reports to analyze and share with leadership are key. 4. Follow government regulations—leverage Fair Lending-friendly audiences: Whether you’re cross-selling or prospecting, now is the time to identify the right audiences with rich data insights to not only execute impactful campaigns but adhere to government regulations that protect consumers and your organization. Trusting that the data you are activating follows Fair Lending Laws, including the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (“ECOA”) and the Fair Housing Act (“FHA”) is crucial. The Federal ECOA prohibits creditors from discriminating against credit applicants on the basis of several prohibited factors. Developing people-based segments that are not derived using these factors positions you to follow these regulations. Check out our previous blog post about Fair Lending-friendly audiences here. As you transition to new operating models, access to current and accurate consumer data can provide confidence in campaign potential, help you avoid business risk, enable you to respond to market changes and make better decisions. Experian can help you implement these strategies and put your brand unique position for growth. From start to finish, we provide the marketing solutions you need to plan, build and execute successful, Fair Lending-friendly campaigns to cross-sell to existing customers and acquire new customers. Learn more about Experian’s financial services marketing solutions here. *Experian Fair Lending-friendly audiences do not constitute legal advice or otherwise assure compliance with the FHA, ECOA, or any other applicable laws. It’s recommended to seek legal advice with respect to the use of data in connection with lending decisions or application and compliance with applicable laws.