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Low-quality data can come in different forms like inconsistent or outdated information – think demographics (age, gender) and interests (dog versus cat lover) or simply the wrong relationship can be made between datasets.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
Black Friday online traffic increased 7% in 2012 versus 2011 as the top 500 retail sites received more than 193.8 million total US visits. So far this Holiday week of online traffic to the top retail sites is up 10% on average. Online retail traffic was up 1% on Black Friday compared to Thanksgiving Day 2012 traffic this year. Amazon.com remained the top visited retail site on Black Friday while Walmart was the second most visited retail site. BestBuy moved up to the 3rd most visited site while Target was the 4th most visited site. JC Penney moved up from being the 8th most visited retail site on Thanksgiving Day to the 5th most visited on Black Friday. Among the top 5 sites, JC Penney saw the biggest day-over-day growth at 26%. Looking at the top 20 retail sites on Black Friday, the Apple Store site saw the biggest day-over-day growth at 99%. Check back for CyberMonday insight and a weekly recap of this week. Learn more about the author, Matt Tatham
A few months ago, during a conversation with the Simmons team at Experian Marketing Services, we started talking about how Hispanics are influencing the mainstream. Someone threw out the “salsa outsells ketchup” anecdote we’ve all heard, and we realized that it was time to stop reusing the same examples and start trying to really prove whether or not this influence is happening. Not long after, the Latino Influence Project was born. The study leverages a custom analysis of data from the Simmons National Hispanic Consumer Study, which measures over 48,000 respondents across 60,000 variables, including language, demographics, brand preferences, attitudes, lifestyles and even political outlook. Not surprisingly, the data showed that non-Hispanics who live in high-density Hispanic neighborhoods behave, buy and believe more similarly to Hispanics than non-Hispanics living in low-density Hispanic neighborhoods, even after controlling variables such as geography, education, income, age and other factors. Some of our findings reinforced what we expected to see. For example, the data shows that non-Latinos living among Latinos: Consume and enjoy more Hispanic products, including food, music and sports. They are 5.5 times more likely to eat jalapeños and are 6 times as likely to listen to and enjoy salsa and merengue. Enjoy standing out in the crowd and being fashionable. They are twice as likely to say they like to stand out from the crowd and 70% more likely to experiment with new clothing styles. However, we were surprised to see that the Latino influence on the mainstream extends far beyond just food, sports and fashion. Non-Latinos living among Latinos also: Lead the way in technology. They are twice as likely to use their cell phones and the Internet for information and entertainment. Eat less processed food. They are twice as likely to look for organic and natural when shopping for food. Are environmentally conscious. They are twice as likely to buy recycled products. The growing Hispanic population together with the influence they are exerting on non-Hispanics that live around them means that our whole notion of “general market” is changing, and will continue to evolve. We think that’s pretty cool. To find out more about the Latino Influence Project and learn more about what we found (and what we think it all means), please join the Webinar being hosted by Wing and Experian Marketing Services on Thursday November 29th, 2012 at 2:00 EST. You can also download the Latino Influence Project report. Holly McGavock is Wing's Director of Planning, where she helps brands like Olay, Downy, Red Lobster and Radio Shack, among many others, connect with Latino consumers.
Experian Marketing Services Consumer Expectation Index shows positive outlook for 2012 holiday season Today we released the newest Experian Marketing Services’ Consumer Expectation Index (CEI) analysis of the first half of 2012. As noted in the release, during the first six months of 2012 we reported that consumer optimism has reached an all-time high over the last four years, beating 2008 by 8 index points. The CEI provides us with unprecedented insight into our economic outlook by who we are; men versus woman, age, household income and employment status, to name a few of the 60,000 variables that we have access to. What’s most striking about today’s release is that optimism is up across the board among men and woman and all age groups; even the unemployed increased their economic outlook from an index of 87.6 to 88.0 from the first half of 2011 to the same period this year. As we approach the holiday season, the latest CEI figures indicate a strong seasonal performance for retailers. The CEI figure for the week of Sept. 3, 2012, (the most recent single week for which data is available) was 7.4 points higher than it was at the same point last year and higher than it has been heading into the holiday season since 2008. This holiday season also could be very good for brands and retailers with big-ticket items to sell Further, key consumer groups are even more optimistic. On Sept. 3, the CEI of those adults who made an online purchase in the past year was 2 percent higher than the national average and 8.1 points higher than the CEI recorded for online shoppers at this time during 2011. This holiday season also could be very good for brands and retailers with big-ticket items to sell, since the CEI among adults planning to make a big-ticket purchase hit 117.9 the week of Sept. 3, 2012, compared with 103.5 the same week in 2011 and 100.5 in 2010. In fact, a CEI above 100 indicates that consumers are more confident than they were during the base line period, which was the first half of 2004, years before the recession began. Perhaps it’s all the talk of the looming fiscal cliff that makes today’s release appear to be counter-intuitive. In fact searches for “fiscal cliff” increased over ten-fold comparing last week to the week ending November 3rd. However, if we look for what people were searching for using search term variations, the top searches were “what is the fiscal cliff” and “fiscal cliff definition,” showing that consumers are still learning what the fiscal cliff is and what it means for them. Hitwise "Fiscal Cliff" Search Term Variations Rank Search Term Percent Volume 1 fiscal cliff 48.07% 2 what is the fiscal cliff 6.74% 3 fiscal cliff definition 6.58% 4 fiscal cliff 2013 6.28% 5 obama fiscal cliff 2.83% 6 what is a fiscal cliff 2.40% 7 the fiscal cliff 1.13% 8 what is fiscal cliff 1.06% 9 fiscal cliff looms 1.03% 10 fiscal cliff defined 0.77% Note – data is for the 4 Weeks Ending November 10, 2012 Source: Experian Marketing Services As the population becomes more educated on the looming crisis, we’ll keep tabs on any resulting changes to consumer optimism, specifically which demographics are most concerned. Learn more about the CEI here.