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Financing my first car was a bittersweet feeling. I was thrilled at the thought of purchasing a new vehicle, yet I was dreading haggling the price with the dealer. As a millennial, I feared the rising prices for new cars, and knew that I needed to find a way to make the vehicle more affordable. That said, I decided to look at used cars. Clearly, I’m not the only car shopper going through this experience. Many consumers are exploring new options to keep their monthly payments down, whether it’s extending the length of their loan, or turning to leases. Sometimes it’s both. According to Experian Automotive’s Q2 2015 State of the Automotive Finance Market report, the average loan amount for a new vehicle reached $28,524, while the average loan amount for a used vehicle hit $18,671, a second quarter high and an all-time high, respectively. Subsequently, the increasing loan amounts also caused the average monthly payment for new ($483) and used ($361) vehicles to increase. Interestingly, the $122 difference in average monthly payment was also a second quarter high, furthering the need to make car payments affordable. As such, consumers continued to take out leases. During the second quarter, leasing accounted for 26.9 percent of all new vehicle transactions, reaching an all-time high. While leasing continues to be a popular option among car shoppers to keep monthly payments down, we’re beginning to see these consumers take it a step further. Sure 36-month term leases are still the most popular, however the percentage of leases extending past the 36 months into the 37- to 48-month range has increased by 18 percent. Furthermore, the average lease payment dropped $13 from a year ago, reaching $394. Findings from the report also showed that consumers continued to lengthen their loan terms, especially for used vehicles. The percentage of used vehicles financed for 73- to 84-months increased by 14.8 percent from Q2 2014 to reach 16.1 percent – the highest percentage of record. New vehicles financed for the same term length climbed 19.7 percent from the previous year to reach 28.8 percent. If the trend continues, we can only expect vehicles to become more expensive and harder to keep within budget. That said there are ways to keep monthly payments within reason. Just as I did, consumers will need to explore the different options available and work with the financing tool that best meets their needs. If they can do that, it will just be the sweet feeling of purchasing a car.  

New research from Experian Marketing Services, a recognized leader in data-driven marketing and cloud-based marketing technology, shows that email campaigns using the words “choice” or “choose” in the subject line are driving substantially higher engagement and revenue rates than average. As described in our recently released Q2 2015 Email Benchmark Report, these email campaigns drove 22 percent higher revenue per email, a 46 percent increase in transaction rates and a 117 percent increase in transaction-to-click rates. “Allowing customers to choose their preferred path is a smart and tangible way to increase engagement and ultimately their return on marketing investment,” said Spencer Kollas, vice president of global deliverability services at Experian Marketing Services. “Marketers know that consumers are the ones in control of their relationship today. What’s interesting about the trend our research uncovered is that consumers are responding to brands that explicitly give them that control; they are engaging and spending with brands that are taking action to empower them.” Value of mobile subscribers The Q2 2015 Email Benchmark Report features a special section on mobile subscribers that features the results of two analyses of two brands with ongoing SMS (mobile push) and MMS (mobile text) messaging programs. To conduct the analyses, Experian® attributed the brands’ transactions to their mobile campaign data on a subscriber level. In comparing mobile transaction rates to email benchmark data, Experian found that mobile transaction rates were more than 10 times higher than those for email campaigns. Further, SMS push/broadcast campaigns made up more than 95 percent of the volume, but pull messages provided much stronger transaction results. Interestingly, the results also showed that dual subscribers (both email and mobile) were 3.9 times more likely to complete transactions than email-only customers. “While mobile subscriber lists typically are much smaller than email lists, these subscribers form a loyal group of highly engaged customers,” said Kollas. “It is the sophisticated marketer that is able to use this type of information to continue to increase brand loyalty and customer engagement across multiple platforms.” Benchmarking email volume and mobile gains The Q2 2015 Email Benchmark Report details overall email marketing trends for the second quarter of 2015 as well as the key performance indicators (KPIs) that shaped the success of email programs over the past two years across six major verticals: business products and services, consumer products and services, media and entertainment, multichannel retailers, publishers, and travel. According to the analysis, email volume rose by 16.1 percent in Q2 2015 compared to the same period in 2014, yet subscriber response rates remained steady. Consumer products and services and multichannel retailers headed the surge in email volume gains. Two-thirds of the brands in these verticals increased their year-over-year volume in Q2 2015. While publishers and media and entertainment brands had an overall decrease in year-over-year volume in Q2 2015, one-third of brands under those categories actually increased their volume this quarter. Further, all of the industry verticals increased volume in Q2 compared to Q1 in 2015, except for media and entertainment. In comparing email opens and clicks by platform, Experian found that 52 percent of total email opens occurred on a mobile phone or tablet during Q2 2015, a slight increase from 51 percent in Q1. In comparing email opens and clicks by device type, Windows accounted for the largest percentage, with the iPhone® receiving the second largest number of clicks. IPhone clicks were particularly strong for media and entertainment and multichannel retailers. A complimentary download of the full report is available here: http://bit.ly/1K69bT6.

Forbes Magazine recently named Experian among the top 100 innovative companies in the world for the second year in a row. Forbes has a rigorous selection methodology that places an emphasis on what organizations’ investors see as the most innovative today, but also the companies that investors believe will continue to be the most innovative in the future; Forbes calls this methodology the Innovation Premium.  Put simply, it’s the expectation that a company will launch new products and services and enter new markets to generate growth. With this distinction, I am reminded of the many initiatives undertaken by Experian North America in the last year aimed at evolving its technologies and systems, all in an effort to deliver the highest-quality data, superior products, intelligent insights and best-in-class service to our customers. A few of these initiatives include: Experian Data Quality launched its first eCommerce offerings, allowing businesses of any size to quickly and easily see better value from their data assets. Experian Marketing Services transformed its marketing portfolio in the last two years – bringing together the synergies in the portfolio to deliver a differentiated proposition in the market. This transformation culminated with the launch of the Experian Marketing Suite, a marketing platform that unifies Experian’s unique capabilities in customer identity and recognition, consumer data, analytics and technology. Experian Consumer Services offered new apps to help consumers quickly and easily review and understand their Experian credit reports and FICO Scores. To ensure our ongoing commitment to data quality standards specific to consumer reported data, Experian created nimble technologies to identify business opportunities for clients and improve the quality of consumers’ credit reports. Experian Health introduced a number of new and innovative solutions to help hospitals, medical providers and patients address challenges, such as continuation of care, financial assistance, fraud and identity protection throughout the healthcare process. Our Business Information Services group introduced a new Global Data Network that provides businesses with insight into their international customers and vendors, enabling them to assess risk and become more competitive in the marketplace. To help companies manage risk and mitigate fraud, our Decision Analytics business recently launched a new dedicated enterprise Fraud and ID business in North America to more aggressively address the growing variety of fraud risk and identity management challenges businesses, financial institutions and government agencies face. In an effort to help its clients track loyalty rates, Experian Automotive reengineered its data sources to standardize a new loyalty measurement model at the manufacturer, brand and dealer levels. We’re proud that Forbes Magazine continues to view Experian as a forward-thinking and innovative company. But Experian isn’t resting on its laurels. We are continuing the ongoing process of looking at ways to serve our customers better by investing in innovation. In fact, Experian holds an annual innovation program that brings together talented employees from across our businesses to research, build and test new concepts that address emerging market challenges that can benefit from Experian’s data and insights. Data can be and must be used as a force for good. Match it with the proper technologies and systems, and we are in a position to help businesses, consumers, government and society overall.