Originally appeared on Total Retail
Retail media networks (RMNs) continue to demonstrate how they can be a powerful monetization driver for retailers, creating a win-win-win for everyone involved. Retailers can monetize their valuable first-party data as well as their online and in-store inventory, while customers benefit from timely, relevant content that enhances their shopping experience. At the same time, advertisers can reach highly targeted audiences at critical moments near the point of purchase
Achieving this type of success requires overcoming challenges around fragmented and incomplete first-party data, which can limit a retailer’s ability to organize and use their data effectively. Additionally, many RMNs lack the analytical capacity to generate customer insights, build addressable audiences, and accurately measure success. To realize the full potential of their platforms, RMNs need partners that provide complementary data, strong identity solutions, and the expertise to transform insights into actionable strategies. This allows RMNs to drive winning outcomes for themselves, marketers, and their customers.
Here are the five steps an RMN should consider when selecting the right partner.
1. Build an identity foundation
First, the right partner needs to be able to organize and clean customer data. Given the millions of customer records and data points that a retailer has, RMNs need to make sure their data is highly usable. Whether it is a known customer record or an unknown customer with incomplete data, partners should fill in missing information and connect fragmented customer records to a single profile. For example, RMNs need to know that a purchase made in-store is by the same customer who bought online. The best partners will then organize those profiles into households since targeting (and purchasing) is often done at the household level. Without a strong identity foundation future steps of segmentation, insights, audience creation, and activation will not be successful.
Experian identity
Experian’s identity solutions provide RMNs with a comprehensive and accurate view of their customers across both offline and digital environments. We clean an RMN’s first-party data and organize their customer records into households since targeting is often done at the household level and purchases are made at the household level.
Using Experian’s Offline and Digital Graphs we work with the RMN to fill in the missing information they have on their customers (e.g. name, address, phone number or digital IDs like hashed emails, mobile ad IDs, CTV IDs, Universal IDs like UID2 or ID5 IDs). This ensures that the retailers’ entire customer base can be reached – and measured – across devices and channels.
2. Segment your customers
An RMN’s ability to segment its customer base and derive insights depends on the availability and usability of their data assets – not to mention some serious analytical chops. Some RMNs will split their customers into different product segments based on what’s relevant to an advertiser. For example, a home improvement retailer may segment customers by who is buying DIY supplies versus improvement services. Other RMNs may develop custom segments from their customer data and third-party data sources, so that advertisers can personalize their marketing based on life stage, age, income level, geography, and other factors. Either approach is effective but requires working with a partner who has high quality data and deep analytical expertise to develop those segments.
Segment with Experian
Experian Marketing Data helps an RMN learn about their customer beyond their first-party data. With access to 5,000 marketing attributes, RMNs can fill in the holes in their understanding of a customer. We provide them with demographic, geographic, finance, home purchase, interests and behaviors, lifestyle, auto data and more. RMNs can use this enriched data set to create addressable audience segments.
3. Generate actionable insights about these segments
Once the RMN determines how they will segment their customers, they can utilize demographic, attitudinal, interest, and behavioral data from a trusted partner to develop a customer profile that compares its customers against a relevant sample of consumers. Here, the RMN will gain insight that will help them answer questions about its customers. Examples include:
- What age and income groups are more likely to purchase my product?
- What is the current life stage of my customers – do they have children, are they married, are they empty-nesters?
- Is price or quality more important to customers in their decision-making process?
- What sort of activities do my customers enjoy?
- How frequently do my customers shop for similar merchandise?
- What media channels do my customers use to get their information?
Expanded insights with Experian
With Experian’s advanced customer profiling, RMNs can go beyond basic customer segmentation. We build detailed customer profiles by utilizing accurate, attribute-rich consumer data, so RMNs can gain a more comprehensive understanding of their customer’s preferences, life stages, and purchasing behaviors. Having this insight enables the RMN to:
- Design a targeted email campaign promoting home essentials to recently married new homeowners.
- Develop a social media post announcing the opening of a new hardware store to users within a specific location interested in do-it-yourself products.
- Create brochures and flyers at a local community event tailored towards parents with small children that promote equipment for youth sports leagues.
4. Create high quality lookalike audiences
The RMN now knows what distinguishes their customers from other consumers and can create audiences that enable advertisers to run personalized marketing campaigns at scale. RMNs can do this in several different ways:
- Work with a data provider who can create custom audiences for the RMN (e.g., Ages 40-49 and Leisure Travelers and past purchase of travel item)
These custom audiences are created by joining multiple first- and third-party data attributes found to be significant in the customer profile or using machine learning techniques to develop a custom audience unique to the advertiser.
Custom audiences with Experian
With an enriched understanding of their customers, RMNs can create addressable custom audience segments, including lookalike audiences, for advertisers.
5. Expand addressability of audiences and activate on multiple destinations
Once audiences are created, RMNs will want to increase a marketer’s reach across on-site and off-site channels. With the right identity graph partner, an RMN can add digital identifiers to customer records that enable activation across media channels, including programmatic display, connected television (CTV), or social. RMNs should work with identity providers that are not reliant on third-party cookies. They should select partners that offer more stable digital IDs in their graph like mobile ad IDs (MAIDs), hashed emails (HEMs), CTV IDs, and universal IDs like Unified I.D. 2.0 (UID2).
Experian powers data-driven advertising through connectivity
Using Experian’s Digital Graph, RMNs expand the addressability of their audiences by assigning digital identifiers to customer records. Marketers will be able to reach an RMNs customers onsite as well as offsite since Experian provides several addressable IDs.
Audiences can be activated across an RMNs owned and operated platform as well as extended programmatically to TV and the open web through Experian’s integrations across the ecosystem.
Maximize your RMN’s revenue potential with Experian
Organizing customer data, segmenting customers, generating insights, creating addressable audiences, and activating campaigns are all critical steps for an RMN to realize that revenue potential. RMNs should select a partner that provides the data, identity, and analytical resources to create the winning formula for marketers, customers, and retailers.
Experian’s data and identity solutions are designed to help RMNs maximize their revenue potential.
Reach out to our team to discover how we can support your path to RMN success.
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The partnership between Experian and Fusion92 exemplifies how collaboration can deliver real marketing impact. This article explores the ways Fusion92 relies on Experian’s data to sharpen its audience targeting, streamline engagement across channels, and achieve measurable success. A need for unified audiences When Fusion92 set out to advance how their clients connect with precise audiences, they needed a data partner that could deliver comprehensive and actionable insights. Enter Experian. By using Experian’s marketing data and digital identity graph as a core source of data, Fusion92 built a solid foundation for their tools, DIOS (Data Input Output Solution), DAX (Data Advertising Exchange), and NoMi (pronounced “Know Me”). These powerful technologies enable Fusion92’s clients to control audiences more precisely, connect with the right people across optimal channels, avoid wasted impressions, and measure results with confidence. 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Solution Fusion92 combined the park’s first-party buyer file with Experian consumer data and custom geographic boundaries, built an advanced targeting model, and used Experian’s channel-preference insights to prioritize the media mix. The unified audience was then delivered omnichannel through Fusion92’s in-house proprietary DAX activation technology, with Experian’s identity graph supporting attribution. Result The marketing conversions beat the park’s stretch goal by 70%, confirming that accurate data and coordinated activation drive revenue lift. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a beginner or an expert. Experian will help you make the best use out of an incredible set of data assets.”Dave Nugent, EVP of Data Science & Strategy, Fusion92 Using marketing data to power omnichannel marketing Tools built by Fusion92 that meet client needs Fusion92’s suite of tools handles every essential phase of a campaign. DIOS starts by creating audience definitions and setting a foundation for strategy. Once these insights are established, DAX takes over, activating consistent, controlled engagement with tailored messaging. Detailed performance metrics throughout help optimize strategy along the way, ensuring campaigns remain impactful and cost efficient. DIOS in action DIOS eliminates guesswork, combining Experian’s data with advanced analytics to create precise audience models. This capability enables Fusion92 to define customer segments with accuracy, providing businesses with a roadmap to success from the outset. While currently in use as a managed service by Fusion92, a public-facing SaaS version is expected to be released in 2025. Activating every channel through DAX The campaign execution phase is pivotal, and DAX ensures smooth delivery and transparent measurement across channels. By incorporating Experian’s identity graph, DAX provides a clear picture of cross-channel behaviors and preferences, and how they impact business goals. This holistic approach enhances personalization, connecting online and offline interactions to create campaigns that resonate with consumers and drive ROI. Getting to know NoMi NoMi offers next-generation audience intelligence, empowering businesses with audience profiles built from behavioral insights, like transactional activity or in-market signals. This ensures that campaigns connect with people authentically and at scale. With NoMi, Fusion92 clients streamline targeting efforts, improving efficiency while reducing wasted spend. Thinking about your own transformation? Whether you’re tackling siloed activation, enhancing attribution models, or aiming for improved targeting, Experian’s data solutions can help amplify your efforts – just ask Fusion92. Explore how we can help you target smarter, engage better, and measure success confidently. Connect with an Experian representative today About our experts Dave Nugent, EVP of Data Science & Strategy, Fusion92 Dave Nugent, EVP of Data Science & Strategy at Fusion92, has over 27 years of experience in data-driven services, helping organizations better understand and target their audiences through predictive modeling and segmentation. Before joining Fusion92, he spent 11 years at American Spirit Corporation as VP of Data Solutions and co-founded Market Reason, where he secured a patent for an identity technology known as "identity solutions." Dave’s expertise bridges traditional, digital, and social advertising, offering innovative approaches to data utilization. He also shares his knowledge as a guest lecturer at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Crystal Jacques, VP of Enterprise Partnerships, Experian Crystal Jacques is the VP of Enterprise Partnerships, leading Experian's go-to-market team across all verticals. With over ten years of experience in the Identity space, Crystal brings a wealth of expertise to her role. She joined Experian in 2020 through the Tapad acquisition, following her successful stint as the head of Global Channel Partnerships for Adbrain, which The Trade Desk later acquired.