Loading...

Unconventional wisdom: How to use financial audiences for non-financial campaigns

Published: May 9, 2024 by Experian Marketing Services

Experian and FMCG Direct, a Deluxe Company's financial audiences

Marketing success can sometimes come in the most unlikely of combinations — reminiscent of a great chef crafting a delicious dish from ingredients rarely used together. In advertising, this type of outside-the-box thinking can give you a competitive advantage over peers who are operating within the normal limits. In this blog post, we will explore how both financial and non-financial advertisers can use consumer financial marketing data in their ad campaigns to connect with the right consumers. This type of strategic thinking will make campaigns more effective, resonate more deeply with audiences, and turn your chicken into coq au vin.

Background on Financial Audiences

FMCG Direct, a Deluxe company, in partnership with Experian, has developed financial audiences that deeply understand consumer financial behavior. These audiences are not just static lists of potential customers but are constantly updated to provide a multi-dimensional view of consumer financial habits, including investing, borrowing, credit card preferences, and more. Central to this effort are Consumer Financial Insights®, Financial Personalities® and ConsumerSpend® models. These tools are built utilizing a combination of FMCG Direct, a Deluxe company in-depth consumer research, sophisticated clustering techniques, and Experian’s extensive consumer marketing data.

FMCG Direct, a Deluxe company financial audience segments

The Financial Personalities® segments categorize consumers based on their financial behaviors and preferences, dividing them into distinct categories such as insurance, credit card usage, and investment habits. This allows for a targeted approach considering each consumer’s unique financial behavior and potential needs.

Meanwhile, Consumer Financial Insights® segments offer a detailed and tiered view of a consumer’s economic status, including insights into household deposits, investable assets, net assets, and the likelihood of mortgage refinancing, all categorized into specific tiers to reflect varying levels of wealth and investment.

Lastly, ConsumerSpend® segments provide a look at how and where a household allocates their disposable income. Broken up by nine unique categories, marketers can better understand where people are spending their money each year.

These predictive segments are built through extensive research, surveying over 25,000 consumer households across the United States. Each household’s financial profile encompasses a wide array of data points, such as total household assets, deposit balances, and investable assets.

The result? A granular understanding of consumer financial behaviors, which marketers can use to tailor their financial services offerings. However, the potential applications of these insights extend far beyond the confines of financial products and services.

Here are some ideas to help you get started.

Advertising campaigns for travel and leisure

Launch campaigns that precisely cater to different consumer segments’ unique financial personalities and spending behaviors.

A suitcase and plane icon
  • Credit Card Financial Personality: Launch digital ads for luxury travel experiences tailored to consumers known for extensive credit card usage in travel, capitalizing on their affinity for high-end leisure activities.
  • Deposits (Bank) Financial Personality: Implement advertising campaigns for budget-friendly travel options tailored to consumers with modest bank deposits and prudent spending habits. These ads could highlight affordable vacation packages, discount travel deals, and value travel bundles, catering to those prioritizing cost efficiency and practical travel solutions.

Ideas focusing on home improvement and decor

Craft advertising campaigns aimed at audiences with modest net worth, using insights into their financial profiles to promote accessible and essential products and services.

A house and settings icon
  • Net Asset Score (Lower Tiers): Develop ad campaigns for cost-effective home improvement services and budget-friendly home appliance options, targeting consumers whose net asset scores indicate more modest financial resources. These ads should highlight the products’ durability and energy efficiency, appealing to the consumers’ need for long-term savings.
  • Discretionary Spend – Home Furnishing: Design ad campaigns for upscale home furnishing collections, targeting audiences with significant discretionary spending power. These ads should spotlight your home furnishings’ premium quality, sophisticated design, and superior craftsmanship, appealing to consumers’ tastes for luxury and exclusivity.

Campaigns for consumers in entertainment

Execute targeted advertising campaigns designed for consumers with high disposable income, utilizing insights from their net asset and investable asset scores.

A music note and video play icon
  • Net Asset Score (Higher Tiers): Launch advertising campaigns for premium entertainment experiences, including exclusive concert seats, backstage passes, and custom festival packages. Target consumers whose net asset scores suggest significant disposable income to ensure your promotions reach the most likely attendees.
  • Discretionary Spend — Entertainment: Design advertising campaigns for high-profile music and entertainment events, focusing on individuals known for their significant expenditures on entertainment. Create promotions that resonate with their lifestyle, emphasizing the connection between a vibrant social life and exclusive entertainment opportunities.

As you can see by understanding and utilizing the nuances of financial data, advertisers can create highly targeted, relevant, and effective campaigns across various sectors. This approach exemplifies the innovative spirit of audience usage, proving that with a bit of creativity, data applications are as limitless as our imagination.

Financial Personalities and Consumer Financial Insight audiences and their in-platform names

Find these syndicated audiences in your demand and supply-side platform of choice.

  • Insurance financial personality – Audiences to help understand a consumer’s behavior and confidence in their ability to find the right life insurance.
    • Financial Personalities > Insurance Financial Personality

  • Credit card personality– Used to identify consumers based on their credit card usage and behaviors.
    • Financial Personalities > Credit Card Financial Personality

  • Deposits financial personality– These audiences include consumers who are likely to look for bank offers based on their spending behaviors.
    • Financial Personalities > Deposits Financial Personality

  • Investments financial personality– Audiences to help understand a consumer’s comfort and behaviors with making financial investments.
    • Financial Personalities > Investments Financial Personality

  • Home equity financial personality– Audiences to help understand a consumer’s home equity circumstances and behaviors.
    • Financial Personalities > Home Equity Financial Personality

  • Mortgage financial personality– Audiences to help understand a consumer’s behavior and preferences with mortgages.
    • Financial Personalities > Mortgage Financial Personality

  • Investable assets (FLA/Fair Lending Friendly)*– Audiences that include consumers who have available investable assets in seven total tiers with Tier 1 being the highest, and Tier 7 being the lowest.
    • Consumer Financial Insights > Investable Assets

  • Net asset score (FLA/Fair Lending Friendly)– Predict a consumers likely net asset score ranging from less than $25,000 to over $5,000,000.
    • Consumer Financial Insights > Net Assets Score (Net Worth)

  • Discretionary spend– Predicts the annual discretionary spend for the category listed in the audience.
    • Consumer Financial Insights > Discretionary Spend – Travel
    • Consumer Financial Insights > Discretionary Spend – Jewelry
    • Consumer Financial Insights > Discretionary Spend – Home Furnishings
    • Consumer Financial Insights > Discretionary Spend – Entertainment
    • Consumer Financial Insights > Discretionary Spend – Electronics
    • Consumer Financial Insights > Discretionary Spend – Education
    • Consumer Financial Insights > Discretionary Spend – Donations
    • Consumer Financial Insights > Discretionary Spend – Dining Out
    • Consumer Financial Insights > Discretionary Spend – Total
    • Consumer Financial Insights > Discretionary Spend – Clothing/Apparel

  • Household deposits/balances (FLA/Fair Lending Friendly)– Audiences that include households that have bank deposits balance in six total tiers with Tier 1 being the highest, and Tier 6 being the lowest.
    • Consumer Financial Insights > Household Deposits/Balances

  • Investment Balances (FLA/ Fair Lending Friendly)– Audiences that include consumers who have an investment balance in six total tiers with Tier 1 being the highest, and Tier 6 being the lowest.
    • Consumer Financial Insights > Investment Balances

  • Mortgage refinance (FLA/Fair Lending Friendly)– Predicts the likelihood the consumer is to refinance their mortgage.
    • Consumer Financial Insights > Mortgage Refinance

Footnote

* “Fair Lending Friendly” indicates data fields that Experian has made available without use of certain demographic attributes that may increase the likelihood of discriminatory practices prohibited by the Fair Housing Act (“FHA”) and Equal Credit Opportunity Act (“ECOA”). These excluded attributes include, but may not be limited to, race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, age, disability, handicap, family status, ancestry, sexual orientation, unfavorable military discharge, and gender. Experian’s provision of Fair Lending Friendly indicators does not constitute legal advice or otherwise assures your compliance with the FHA, ECOA, or any other applicable laws. Clients should seek legal advice with respect to your use of data in connection with lending decisions or application and compliance with applicable laws.


 

Latest posts

Loading…
Talking Taxes: Exploring trends in tax preparation and deductions

As sure as the sun rises and sets, Tax Day comes around every year, whether it falls on April 15th or a day or two thereafter. As part of the Simmons National Consumer Study, Experian Simmons collects information on the various ways Americans file their taxes. In the following post, we will explore a few tax trends in the Land of the Free as well as some deductions available to many. Software for the Hard Stuff Long gone are the days of preparing our taxes the old-fashioned way using pen and paper (and hopefully a calculator). Last year, just 8.7% of U.S. tax filers prepared their taxes manually, down from 16.4% of filers who prepared their taxes this way in 2006. Software (including both online and offline versions, such as Turbo Tax or H&R Block At Home) have risen to replace their graphite-powered ancestors. In 2005, 21.5% of tax filers said they used software to prepare their taxes. Specifically, 6.8% used offline software and another 14.7% used online software. Today, 21.5% of filers use online tax software and 7.4% use offline software, bringing the total share of software preparers to 28.9%. But tax software isn’t just replacing at-home pencil pushers. The share of filers using a CPA, a private accountant or a notary public to prepare their taxes has also declined slightly in recent years as has the share of filers that use a professional on-site service, like H&R Block of Jackson Hewitt. In 2011, 30.8% of filers had their taxes prepared by a CPA, private accountant or notary, down from 32.9% who employed this type of professional in 2006. Likewise, 17.7% of last year’s filers used a professional on-site service to prepare their taxes, compared with 19% who used such a service in 2006. Filing Trends of Business Owners Much attention in Washington has been paid to small business owners, especially when the topic of tax policy is concerned. Rest assured, we’re not going to explore the political implications of proposed tax code changes on business owners, but we will examine the way these Americans prepare their personal taxes. A business owner’s tax prep work depends a lot on how many employees they have working for them. Those who own very small companies with between 2 and 9 employees, including the owner, are the most likely to have a CPA, private accountant or notary prepare their taxes. In fact, 65% of these small business owners do their taxes this way, compared with 52% of those who own companies with between 10 and 99 employees. Interestingly, only 35% of tax filers who own companies with 100 employees or more use a CPA, a private accountant or a notary to prepare their taxes, a rate equal to that of the national average. Larger business owners are actually more likely than average to have their taxes done by an on-site professional. While few business owners do their taxed by hand, the self-employed who have no employees are actually among the few that still do their taxes the old-fashioned way. In fact, 11% of business owners who list only themselves as employees say they did their taxes manually last year, a rate 30% above than the U.S. average. Most of those who don’t to their taxes themselves have them done by a CPA, a private accountant or a notary. Fifty-two percent of the self-employed with no other employees chose this method to prepare their taxes last year, which is a rate 45% higher than the average filer.   Deduction Time Deductions are a common way for reducing one’s tax liability. Here we’ll explore how many Americans could benefit from several common deductions allowed by the Internal Revenue Service. For more information about consumer trends, visit www.experian.com/simmons.

Apr 10,2012 by

Facebook acquires photo-sharing network Instagram

Yesterday, Facebook announced the acquisition of Instagram, a popular photo sharing network with over 30 million users, for $1 billion. Visits to the Instagram website have steadily increased over the past 24 weeks and reached 3.8 million last week, up from 68,800 visits for the week ending October 22, 2012. While the majority of activity takes place within the Instagram application, the website provides links to the Apple App Store and Google Play as well as some account management tools, so the growth marks increased consumer interest. The audience for Instagram is relatively young, with over half of the visitors to the Instagram website are under the age of 35. This is an interesting contrast to the visitors of Facebook’s website, which reflects a more mainstream audience with a higher share of older users. These differences can certainly offer opportunities to promote and grow usage of each of the networks across age groups. Many users of Instagram share their photos across a number of social networks since within the Instagram application, you can link to your share photos with Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr, Posterous (recently acquired by Twitter) and Foursquare accounts. As a result of this integration and heavy use of social networks in general, social networks refer the majority of traffic to the Instagram website. Last week, 25% of the traffic to Instagram from social networks was from new visitors, most likely interested in learning more about Instagram after seeing photos within the feeds of their friends. Last week, there was considerable excitement around the launch of Instagram app for Android phones, which became available on Google’s recently relaunched digital media store, Google Play. The app reached over 1 million downloads on the first day of availability. Visits to the Instagram website increased 59% over the previous week and Google Play ranked 6th among the downstream websites visited immediately after the Instagram website. Please note this data does not include mobile traffic.

Apr 10,2012 by

Direct mail vs. Email

According to Epsilon Targeting’s latest Consumer Channel Preference Study of 5,000 consumers in North America, 60% of consumers report an "emotional boost" from receiving direct mail, agreeing that they enjoying checking their mailbox. This report showed that across all categories, direct mail continues to be a trusted source of information. It's always good to reach out to consumers via email, but the disadvantage to this is that the consumer has the ability to receive emails from you on their own terms, which may be infrequent or not at all. The use of direct mail has shown to be a pleasing emotional hook. Even with the ever growing digital world, consumers are still responding to your direct mail pieces. Don't let your businesses address contact data fall to the wayside – this is still just as important as ever to have. To ensure as timely delivery, make sure you're using address validation tools to make sure you're saving money and getting the most out of your direct mail campaigns.

Mar 27,2012 by

Subscribe to our newsletter

Enter your name and email for the latest updates

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

About Experian Marketing Services

At Experian Marketing Services, we use data and insights to help brands have more meaningful interactions with people. As leaders in the evolution of the advertising landscape, Experian Marketing Services can help you identify your customers and the right potential customers, uncover the most appropriate communication channels, develop messages that resonate, and measure the effectiveness of marketing activities and campaigns.

Visit our website

Subscribe to our newsletter

Stay up to date on the latest industry news and receive expert tips from our marketing experts.
Subscribe now!