Experian received top ranks for hashed emails (HEMs) and demographic data from Truthset Data Collective
Advertisers, technology partners, and agencies are all chasing accurate data to power their marketing strategies. Turns out, not all data is created equal and unless you’re working with the right partner, high-quality data can be hard to find. That’s because accuracy can vary widely across the industry and the partner you choose is important. A recent study conducted by data validation company Truthset showed that 51% of the data used for ad targeting and audience measurement is wrong, with average accuracy rates ranging between 32%-69% across data providers.
The data quality challenge
The lack of high-quality data poses multiple challenges in the advertising world:
- Wasted ad spend: without accurate data at the start, marketers can’t reach the right audiences, resulting in wasted impressions.
- Privacy and compliance: in an increasingly privacy-centric world, advertisers need to be especially mindful of accurate targeting to avoid putting their brand reputation at risk.
- Poor campaign performance: low-quality data skews metrics and attribution models, making it difficult to measure campaign success and optimize spend.
Low-quality data can come in different forms like inconsistent or outdated information – think demographics (age, gender) and interests (dog versus cat lover) or simply the wrong relationship can be made between datasets. Data records can be incomplete or duplicative and data segments could be misclassified or inaccurate. For example, a kids snack food company may think they’re targeting a 35-year old man, who lives in the suburbs with his young family when in fact it’s a 65-year-old woman who moved to the city after her kids went to college. It’s wasted dollars!
Build the data foundation
Data quality needs to be addressed if advertisers and advertising technology partners want to fulfill consumers’ demand for personalized marketing. Per eMarketer, more than 75% of internet users worldwide said they were willing to share their email address, brand interest, and name in exchange for personalized experiences. Without accurate data, marketers won’t be able to provide the level of personalization that consumers desire.
Validation can help advertisers evaluate third party data and help build trust across the ecosystem. Companies like Truthset review and provide an unbiased evaluation of data fidelity and quality on a regular basis.
“As cookies and mobile ad identifiers continue to phase out, consented, durable identifiers (hashed email, postal addresses) are going to serve as the foundation for identity solutions of the future,” said Chip Russo, President at Truthset. “And the only way to ensure you are transacting on the highest quality identity and demography data is to actively validate the data you rely on with a third party.”
Not all data is created equal: Experian leads the way
In Q3 2023 Truthset reviewed Experian’s marketing data – as well as several other large data providers – and found:
- Experian is the #1 data provider in terms of largest volume of high-accuracy hashed e-mails (HEMs) with demographic data
- Experian ranks #1 in accuracy for 15 marketing data attributes, including but not limited to Age, Gender, Home Owner/Renter, Geography, Education, Presence of Children, and Pet Owner
- Experian consistently has the largest number of HEMs with demographic data that are 90% or more likely to be accurate
“As a member of the Truthset Data Collective, Experian received top ranks across a variety of categories for its data,” continued Russo. “The entire digital advertising world runs on data, but focusing on data accuracy is going to drive the next phase of innovation for the industry, enhancing ROI for advertisers, CPMs for publishers, and relevant experiences for consumers.”
As Truthset’s recent study highlights, the data matched between hashed e-mails and postal addresses is crucial, underpinning everything from targeted ads to TV audience measurement. Highly accurate HEMs linked to high-quality demographic data should be the foundation of any marketing plan. Advertisers are able to overcome the complexities of identity resolution by tying online and offline touchpoints together to deliver a consistent message across channels.
Companies are striving to eliminate marketing waste and provide consumers with personalized marketing and the advertising industry can have confidence that Experian’s marketing data has been externally validated as being highly accurate. The accuracy of our data will power smarter marketing initiatives, like insights, targeting, identity, and measurement.
Let’s start a conversation about how we can fully realize the potential of data-driven advertising together.
Latest posts
If the time spent on the Internet for personal computers was distilled into an hour then 27 percent of it would be spent on social networking and forums across the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. In the U.S., 16 minutes out of every hour online is spent on social networking and forums, nine minutes on entertainment sites and five minutes shopping. Global comparison In the UK, 13 minutes out of every hour online is spent on social networking and forums, nine minutes on entertainment sites and six minutes shopping. Australian Internet users spend 14 minutes on social sites, nine on entertainment and four minutes shopping online. Across all three markets, time spent shopping online grew year-over-year, but the UK market emerged as having the most prolific online shoppers, spending proportionally more time on retail Websites than online users in the U.S. or Australia. British Internet users spent 10 percent of all time online shopping in 2012, compared to nine percent in the U.S. and six percent in Australia. This was in part due to a bumper winter holiday season in the UK where 370 million hours were spent shopping online, 24 percent higher than the monthly average. Consumption of news content also increased across all three markets with Australian users emerging as the most voracious consumers of news online. Six percent of all time spent online in Australia in 2012 was on a news Website, compared to five percent in the UK and four percent in the U.S. Meanwhile, the time spent on social media proportionate to other online activities declined across all three regions. The U.S., which has been the most dominant market for social media consumption in the last three years dropped from 30 percent of all time spent online to 27 percent. In Australia time spent on social dropped from 27 percent to 24 percent while in the UK it dipped from 25 percent to 22 percent year-over-year. This highlights the rise in access via 3G and 4G networks as consumers spend increasingly more time online while on the move. "Understanding consumer behavior across channels is more important than ever as more visits are being made on the move, particularly among social networking and email,” says Bill Tancer, general manager of global research for Experian Marketing Services. "With smartphones and tablets becoming more powerful, our data clearly indicates the difference between mobile and traditional desktop usage further enabling the ‘always on’ consumer mentality. Marketers need to understand these differences, as well as regionally, to ensure campaigns can be tailored for better and more effective engagement.” Mobile browsing When looking at the U.S. browsing data for mobile devices, email accounted for the largest time spent on average, for the same categories for Q1 2013. Email made up 23 percent of time spent on mobile devices for Q1-13, while social networking accounted for 15 percent. Entertainment had the third highest time spent with 13 percent, followed by shopping with 11 percent and travel with 9 percent. The mobile data does not include app usage, but does include mobile browsing within an app. Read more of the latest consumer trends in The 2013 Digital Marketer Report Learn more about consumer online behavior by visiting our Online Trends page Learn more about the author, Matt Tatham
The generation of 18- to 34-year-olds known as millennials is an increasingly influential group that impacts many aspects of the American lifestyle, including fashion, technology, entertainment and beyond.
What marketers need in order to lay the groundwork for success in their online advertising campaigns.