This week, Experian announced a solution for retail media networks (RMNs) to improve the ability to identify customers within its network, help advertisers reach these customers and measure a campaign’s impact. Additionally, it is designed to find patterns in audience behavior to improve campaign performance.
Why we care. RMNs saw 16.3% growth in the U.S. last year as more advertisers took advantage of retailers’ deep connection with shoppers. Data-rich Experian is a valuable partner in providing identity resolution in a privacy-compliant way to advertisers and RMNs. This helps advertisers deliver more relevant messages to customers in the RMN and increases retailers’ ad revenue by making their networks more attractive. Also, many RMNs include ad opportunities within their owned channels (website, app, in-store) and “offsite” ways to connect with customers through CTV and third-party sites. As RMNs expand, identity resolution becomes even more important.
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RMN solution. The Experian solution includes five offerings:
- Identity resolution: Uses the Experian Graph (126 million households; 250 million individuals) to expand the understanding of customers based on first-party data.
- Expanded insights: It can generate detailed customer profile reports to help find high-value customers and develop accurate look-alike audiences for campaigns.
- Create audiences: Helps enrich first-party data using Experian Marketing Data or Experian’s Partner Audiences network.
- Maximize reach and distribution: Using Experian’s adtech partners, RMNs can expand campaigns beyond their owned channels to programmatic, CTV and social media.
- Measurement: Measure campaign effectiveness by connecting ad exposures in one channel to purchases and other actions online or in-store.
Advertisers benefit. “Advertisers are under increasing pressure to justify media investments as the availability of reliable performance data diminishes,” Andrew Frank, VP distinguished analyst with Gartner for Marketing Leaders told MarTech. “Identity solutions can help tie conversions to ads, which is essential to proving their value. They also offer new customer insights with strategic value.”
Frank added: “However, while it’s tempting to use identity resolution (IDR) to retarget visitors who have recently expressed interest in a product, this is where controversies associated with cross-site tracking become most visible. Advertisers need to carefully consider tradeoffs involved in using IDR for behavioral targeting separately from measurement, insights, and optimization.”
Proving RMN value. Experian’s entry into the market “signals that RMN viability is on the rise as an alternative to relying exclusively on the largest walled gardens for performance marketing,” said Frank.
Although Google just issued a head-spinning reversal on third-party cookie deprecation for the Chrome browser, advertisers are seeking transparent, privacy-compliant alternatives that keep up with customer expectations and data regulations.
“RMNs need a way to measure and optimize ad performance to prove their value to marketers,” Frank said. “But they also need to be cautious about privacy, which favors working with partners experienced in compliance and staffed with legal expertise.”
