Tag: Experian Marketing Services

The largest industry disruptor was a surprise to everyone. Where bets may have been placed on digital transformation, automated decisioning, or better omnichannel programs, no one foresaw the global pandemic of COVID-19 and the corresponding economic fall out that ensued. As financial institutions have spent the past two months scattered and then regrouping, whether with pivoted downturn contingency strategies or with a business-focused Hail Mary, some might argue that the dust is beginning to settle. While the world and the majority of businesses are working to manage and stabilize a new normal against a background of some form of chaos, once federal and state regulations are loosened, the world – and financial institutions in particular – will need a plan forward. So, what comes after COVID-19? With stimulus checks and what everyone hopes will soon be a re-stimulating of the economy, consumers will seek credit. And when that influx comes, there will be a need to strategize what is the right offer for the right consumer. How do you take on more customers while minimizing risk? Non-existent and/or shrinking budgets Many marketing budgets were already small prior to the global pandemic, so coming out of it, to say every marketing dollar counts is an understatement. Traditional prescreen, while a pillar in acquisition operations, is an antiquated strategy. Using hyper-segmentation via a true end-to-end marketing service, pumped up by the right data for decision making, enables financial institutions to not only build the right audience but tailor quality experiences that increase engagement and loyalty. That means ultimately reducing operating costs while improving experiences and take rates. Work from home turned life from home Going virtual has gone viral. Seemingly overnight, most brick and mortar operations went online. Some versions of digital transformation became a need to have, versus a nice to have, and the gap between the financial institutions who were equipped to pivot online, versus those who were not, spread further. As the vast majority of consumers are at home – whether by way of work from home or furlough – our society has quickly embraced everything being online. Reach your consumers where they are, in the digital-first channels to which they have become familiar with and accustomed. As consumers are at the center of every marketing strategy, engaging omnichannel delivery enhances reach across critical touchpoints. Inclusive of social media, email, direct mail, TV, and more, the campaign should provide a seamless experience, all working together in a synchronized fashion. Consistency has always been key, but especially during these volatile times, to reflect stability, empathy and constant messaging is an undertone that can only help strengthen consumers’ view of your organization. Learn fast, grow faster For marketing financial products, it’s a matter of connecting the dots between consumer touchpoints and results data. By making these critical connections, financial institutions will be better positioned to identify the most effective elements in the campaign. By gleaning more insights from campaign performance, organizations can optimize future campaigns and minimize wasted ad spend. These key learnings, delivered at the end of every campaign cycle, help your organization to remain nimble, pivot quickly and execute campaigns that get increasingly better ROI as you hone in on the nuances revealed by data on consumer behavior, preferences, motivations and more. Changing times and even faster-changing needs There’s always been a need for faster decisioning and more results with increasingly fewer resources. The need for speed has been put on hyperdrive as the economy has entered the current environment. How do you keep up with the changing needs of your consumers? Get your marketing right from the start and see results through to the end. Incorporating the right data, advanced analytics and constant access ultimately enable more strategic focus and shorter campaign cycles. As we all navigate the ever-changing “normal,” offering the right support to your consumers is the right thing to do for them and for you. Managing rising consumer needs, while also minimizing risk to your bottom line, is also the right thing to do for your business. Once plans move from managing business operations through the crisis to moving forward, make sure your marketing – how you are reaching out to existing customers and prospective customers for the next steps in their financial journey – is data-driven. To learn more about how Experian can help you execute data-driven marketing that fuels customer acquisition, visit our website. Learn More

There are many factors attributing to the success of dealerships. When it comes to dealers, empirical guidance is a great way to study effective advertising. Experian brought Auto, Targeting, and the Dealer Positioning System capabilities together in a nationwide study to answer the ultimate question: what drives sales? The answers can be found in Experian’s 2018 Attribution Study. This is a wide-ranging, dealer-focused sales-driven attribution study that analyzed a few key variables. We deployed 187,701 tracking pixels to devices in 41,012 distinct households, focused on 15 digital metrics to learn about shopper behavior, and tied that digital shopping data to 2,436 vehicle sales. An industry first, Experian’s ability to combine automotive registration data, sales data, and website analytics and online behavior data puts us in a position to do something that very few companies can do. We use the household identifiers to not only see who bought a car and who bought specifically from a participating dealer, but also how they shopped the dealer’s site. Our ability to accurately identify a household’s digital behavior is based on the fact that we are a source compiler of the data and have it sitting under one roof.  Others that attempt to provide this type of insight need to contract out for registrations, sales data imports from the dealership, website analytics, household identifiers, or all the above, which generally adds time to the insights. Using our sales-based approach, we can deliver unbiased attribution. Sales-based attribution is attributing credit to different advertising sources/campaigns based on actual vehicle sales – including those targeted consumers that may have purchased outside of the dealership. This is the Holy Grail of attribution for car dealers since it ties an offline activity such as buying a car back to the online advertising that’s taking up most their budgets every month. Because of that offline-online disconnect, sales-based attribution is difficult. Other automotive attribution models are typically focused on website conversions or website behavior – “what advertising can I attribute website leads to” (conversions) or “what advertising is driving users who follow the behavior that I think shows they’re likely to buy from my dealership” (website behavior.) What are the takeaways?   We found three takeaways from our study. First off, we look at shopper behavior instead of isolating KPIs. Later we will discuss how traditional website metrics do not tie-in to sales. Second, we look at optimizing your paid advertising. Finally, we look at third-party investments. Although third parties drive sales, they may not be your sales. Looking at shopper behavior, not isolated KPI’s Traditional website metrics don’t tell the sales story for dealers. Traditional conversion stats are equal for buyers vs. all traffic such as VDPs or page views What this means is on average, buyers converted at a lower rate than overall website traffic. Looking solely at form submissions, hours and directions pageviews, and mobile clicks-to-call, don’t give the best view of what advertising is driving sales. With that, 98% of buyer traffic never submitted a form or went to the hours and directions page. This is a typical website conversion that dealers, vendors, and advertising agencies focus on.  Since traditional web metrics don’t tell the story, there is another way. These are called High-Value Users, or HVU. They purchase at a 34% higher rate than overall traffic although they make up 11% of all traffic.   High-Value Users are an Experian derived KPI. What makes someone an HVU are four different measurements. They must visit a website at least three times Spend at least six minutes on the site in total View at least eight pages in total View at least one VDP High-Value Users correlates to sales better than Vehicle Detail Page or VDP metrics. In this study, the correlation for VDP was measured at .595 which is rated a medium correlation. Meanwhile, HVU scored a .698 which is rated a high correlation. Looking at many different behavioral KPIs, like we do with our High-Value User (HVU) metric, correlates better to sales than just looking at how many VDPs you had. Driving more VDPs won’t necessarily help sales. But driving more HVUs is more likely to correlate with more sales. This also gets back to the attribution discussion above: Experian sales-based attribution is the best, and Experian’s HVUs are a good method for web-based attribution. From this attribution study, High-Value Users are a vital group for dealers to utilize. In our next post, we will go over the second and third takeaways from the attribution study: optimizing paid advertising and evaluating third-party investments.

Reactivation campaigns make economic sense. They build on a brand’s previous investments, targeting customers who already are aware of and previously have engaged with your brand. Use these 4 steps to build a successful reactivation framework: 1. Analyze subscriber data to identify reactivation segments to target. 2. Identify subscriber activity to divide customers into at least 3 unique segments. 3. Develop messaging strategies for each segment. 4. Integrate or suppress inactive subscribers based on whether they re-engage. Reactivation campaigns can deliver significant incremental revenue and position inactive subscribers for further engagement in future campaigns. Download report>

When it comes to buying a vehicle, we found that consumers who owned a Certified Pre-Owned (CPO) used vehicle are most loyal to the original vehicle manufacturer — to the tune of 75% — when purchasing another CPO used vehicle. Consumer buying patterns show that the loyalty rate to the manufacturer is also high when: Moving from a new vehicle to another new vehicle (60.9%). Switching from a CPO used vehicle to a new vehicle (54.1%). By understanding loyalty rates and other key market trends, manufacturers, dealers and resellers can make smarter decisions that create more opportunities for themselves and in-market consumers. More insights>  

The best way to increase email open rates? Include a subscriber’s name in the subject line. A recent Experian study found that in addition to higher open rates, personalized subject lines have a27% higher unique click rate, an 11% higher click-to-open rate and more than double the transaction rates of other promotional mailings from the same brands.  Other proven personalization tactics include: Customizing subject lines based on browsing behavior Dynamically populating product choices based on the past purchases of the subscriber Triggering emails based on Instagram or Pinterest selections, connecting social media choices to email opportunities In addition to personalization, companies should coordinate social media programs with email and mobile campaigns in order to optimize engagement across all channels. >> Consumer credit trends

Experian’s 2016 Digital Marketer Report reveals the key issues impacting marketers today. 38% of marketers rank knowing customer needs, wants and attitudes as their top challenge. Other key challenges include: Increasing visibility over competitors (35%) Staying ahead of new marketing trends (33%) Integrating multiple marketing technologies and platforms (32%) Making messages relevant/contextual (27%) Companies can increase engagement by leveraging data and technology to understand customers and provide exceptional experiences through every channel, every time. >> Download The 2016 Digital Marketer Report

For marketers, the start of a new year is an opportunity to look ahead.

With the holidays around the corner, retailers are getting ready to release their holiday campaigns.

While mobile subscriber lists typically are much smaller than email lists, mobile subscribers tend to be loyal and highly engaged customers.

According to a recent Experian Marketing Services study, 99% of companies believe achieving a single customer view is important to their business, but only 24% have a single customer view today.

According to the latest research by Experian Marketing Services, nearly a third of all Americans use at least one type of smart or Internet-connected device* (wearable fitness tracker, smart watch, smart TV, smart home technology). While smart TVs have generated the most consumer interest, at least 14 percent of homes are smart homes (connected lights, locks, thermostats, window coverings, etc). Further, the smart home device category saw the most growth during the holiday season, with interest increasing 54 percent from November to December 2014. By 2020, the number of Internet-connected devices is expected to grow to 26 billion, creating new revenue streams and opportunities for marketers. Understanding how to reach customers in this newly connected world and creating resonant messages will be critical to future business success. Source: Experian Marketing Services, The Internet of Things: Opportunities through the rise in smart devices *Does not include smartphones, tablets or computers

This season’s peak week, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving through the Tuesday after Cyber Monday, had an 18 percent increase in email volume, an 11 percent rise in transactions and a 7 percent increase in email revenue in comparison to peak week 2013. Cyber Monday provided 27 percent of total peak week revenue followed by Black Friday, which accounted for 18 percent of revenue. Marketers can design more successful holiday campaigns by staying on top of the latest email trends. View the December Holiday Hot Sheet

According to Experian Marketing Services’ holiday peak week analysis, social media proved to be a key research tool for holiday shoppers and a crucial driver of traffic to retail Websites.