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.
Today, we stand at the forefront of a digital revolution that is reshaping the financial services industry. And, against this backdrop, financial institutions are at vastly different levels of maturity; the world’s biggest banks are managing large-scale infrastructure migrations and making significant investments in AI while regional banks and credit unions are putting plans in place for modernization strategies, and fintechs are purpose-built and cloud native. To explore this more, I recently had the privilege of attending the annual Reuters NEXT live event in New York City. The event gathers globally recognized leaders across business, finance, technology, and government to tackle some of today’s most pressing issues. On the World Stage, I joined Del Irani, a talented anchor and broadcast journalist, to discuss the future of lending and the pivotal role of data and AI in building a more inclusive financial system. Improving financial access Our discussion highlighted the lack of access to traditional financial systems, and the impact it has on nearly 100 million people in North America alone. Globally, the problem affects over one billion people. These people, who are credit invisible, unscoreable, or have subprime credit scores, are unable to secure everyday financial products that many of us take for granted. What many don’t realize is, this is not a fringe subset of the population. Most of us, myself included, know someone who has faced the challenges of financial exclusion. Everyday Americans, including young people who are just starting out, new immigrants and people from diverse communities, often lack access to mainstream financial products. We discussed how traditional lending has a limited view of a consumer. Like looking through a keyhole, the lender’s understanding of the person in view is often incomplete and obstructed. However, with expanded data, technology, and advanced analytics, there is an opportunity to better understand the whole person, and as a result have a more inclusive financial system. At Experian, we have a unique ability to connect the power of traditional credit with alternative data, bringing a more holistic understanding of consumers and their behaviors. We are dedicated to leveraging our rich history in data and our expertise in technology to create the future of credit and ultimately bring financial power to everyone. The future of lending After spending two days with over 700 industry leaders from around the world, one thing is abundantly clear: much like the early days of the internet, today, we are at the cutting-edge of a technical revolution. Reflecting on my time at Reuters NEXT, I am particularly excited by the collective commitment to drive innovative, and smarter ways of working. We are only beginning to scratch the surface of how data and technology can transform financial services, and Experian is positioned to play a significant role. As we look to the future, I am excited about the ways we will create new opportunities for businesses and consumers alike.
The advertising ecosystem has seen significant transformation over the past few years, with increased privacy regulation, changes in available signals, and the rise of channels like connected TV and retail media. These changes are impacting the way that consumers interact with brands and how brands understand and continue to deliver relevant messages to consumers with precision. Experian has been helping marketers navigate these changes, and as a result, our marketing data and identity solutions underpin much of today’s advertising industry. We’re committed to empowering marketers and agencies to understand and reach their target audiences, across all channels. Today, we are excited to announce our acquisition of Audigent—a leading data and activation platform in the advertising industry. With Audigent’s combination of first-party publisher data, inventory and deep supply-side distribution relationships, publishers, big and small, can empower marketers to better understand their customers, expand the reach of their target audiences and activate those audiences across the most impactful inventory. I am excited to bring together Audigent’s supply-side network as a natural extension to our existing demand-side capabilities. Audigent’s ability to combine inventory with targeted audiences using first-party, third-party and contextual signals provides the best of all worlds, allowing marketers to deliver campaigns centered on consumer choices, preferences, and behaviors. The addition of Audigent further strengthens our strategy to be the premier independent provider of marketing data and identity, ultimately creating more relevant experiences for consumers. To learn more about Experian and Audigent, visit https://www.experian.com/marketing/ and https://audigent.com/.
When it comes to cybercriminals and threat vectors, we need to expect the unexpected. Experian’s 12th annual Data Breach Industry Forecast highlights several potential trends for 2025, with AI playing a central role. This year has already seen more data breaches and impacted consumers than 2023, indicating that global data breaches are not slowing down. Some things to watch out for next year includes the potential for more internal fraud. As companies train employees on AI, there is a growing risk that some will misuse their knowledge for internal theft and sourcing sensitive information. Another trend may be cyberattackers targeting large data centers, with the growth of generative AI introducing power as a new attack vector. It’s reported that a single ChatGPT query uses significantly more electricity than a standard Google search, making data centers and cloud infrastructure vulnerable, especially in countries with varying security standards. We expect AI-related attacks to dominate the headlines next year and investments in cybersecurity will increase to tackle this emerging threat, as hackers leverage AI for phishing, password cracking, malware, and deepfakes. Jim Steven, Head of Crisis and Data Response Services at Experian Global Data Breach Resolution in the UK, anticipates that global data breaches will persist at their current rate next year. He notes that ransomware attacks are likely to become even more sophisticated with the integration of AI. Additionally, Steven predicts that threat actors will escalate their tactics to achieve greater rewards, and the misuse of consumer data to damage reputations will increase in 2025. To access the complimentary report, click here.