Experian Marketing Data Release Notes

Below are the November 2026 Experian Marketing Data release notes along with a PDF version attached. Use the links to navigate to any sections and updates in this release.

New attributes

• Retail
• Automotive

Updated attributes

• Model enhancements
• Naming updates

Retiring attributes

• February 2027 retirements
• August 2027 retirements
• February 2028 retirements

Release notes in PDF format

This update introduces 146 new Shopper Behavior attributes focused on consumers’ likelihood to shop across specific brands, retailers, and product categories. Built using historical credit and debit transaction data and predictive modeling, these attributes estimate purchase propensity based on past spending patterns and shopping behaviors.  

The underlying data spans more than 3,000 financial institutions and 100 million cards, representing over $427 billion in annual spending. Covering apparel, beauty, groceries, home improvement, travel, dining, and other retail categories, these attributes help organizations analyze shopping preferences, enhance customer profiles, and inform competitive analysis, merchandising, and customer acquisition strategies. 

A home improvement retailer can use the Home Depot Likely Home Improvement Shoppers attribute to analyze customers’ propensity to shop with a competing retailer, helping customer insights and merchandising teams better understand competitive overlap, identify potential opportunities, and inform customer retention strategies.

This update introduces 48 new Auto attributes, including a new category, Lifecycle signals, focused on vehicle purchase propensities, financing, and leasing. These attributes help organizations identify consumers approaching key milestones, such as lease expiration, loan payoff, and positive vehicle equity, as well as those likely to purchase, finance, lease, or trade in a vehicle. With purchase windows ranging from 30 days to 24 months, organizations can evaluate anticipated vehicle needs and inform acquisition, retention, and financing strategies.

The update also expands ownership and in market attributes with additional vehicle makes and models, including electric, hybrid, luxury, and specialty vehicles, along with switcher signals. These attributes help organizations analyze vehicle ownership, assess demand, and identify potential brand switching opportunities to inform market analysis, inventory planning, and customer lifecycle strategies.

An automotive lender can use the Vehicle Lease Ending in 0-3 Months attribute to enrich customer records and identify consumers approaching a potential vehicle financing decision, helping teams assess upcoming loan demand, prioritize retention opportunities, and plan relevant financing products and offers.

This update introduces a refreshed education attainment model as part of our ongoing data lifecycle improvements, helping keep attribute data current and relevant as consumer characteristics evolve. Previously built using separate models for each education category, the model now uses a unified approach designed to provide more consistent estimates across five education levels, ranging from less than high school through graduate degree. The updated methodology also expands scoring eligibility and reduces reliance on certain demographic inputs. These enhancements help organizations analyze the distribution of education levels across customers and markets and inform customer profiling, workforce development, and relevant product and service offerings.

For example, a workforce development organization can use the attribute, Person #: Education Model V2, to enrich individual records with educational attainment to help their teams evaluate potential demand for workforce training programs and inform regional program planning. 

The rebuilt model will be associated with a new attribute with a new field ID that is launching in this November 2026 release. Because the source data has changed, the new attribute is not a direct (one to one) replacement for the existing attribute. The current education attribute, with the field ID of 189 and field name, Person #: Education Model, will be available until it retires in February 2028, but we recommend clients begin receiving both to assist with the transition.

Effective with the February 5, 2027 release, Extract 333, the alternate field names for four geographic attributes will be updated to correct an outdated naming convention that references 2000 Census data, when in fact the underlying data had been replaced with updated / current information in an ongoing fashion and many times since 2000, effectively as soon as it became available. This change eliminates confusion over the freshness of the data being provided.

This update only changes the alternative field names. No data values, field IDs, attribute definitions or content are changing. Most clients will not be impacted. However, clients who reference these alternative field names in automated processes, scripts, or downstream systems may need to update those configurations to accommodate the new naming convention.

The new field names will not go into effect until the extract on February 5, 2027. If this timing presents a significant business impact, please contact your Experian account team as soon as possible.

Experian retires data attributes twice per year. These retirements will be visible within our products and services using Experian Marketing Data attributes in the February and August extract releases.  

Moving to twice per year allows clients ample notification of retirements and avoids ad hoc changes that may cause clients and products to consume changes in multiple successive months. These two months attempt to avoid the end/beginning of year, holiday times, summer vacation season, as well as the common fall/winter code freezes that many organizations experience.  

Experian will strive to provide 1 year prior notice where possible for these retirements. The notification timeline and twice per year retirement create a regular expected cadence for clients.  

In alignment with this process, this release cycle is the next planned retirement and the fields currently scheduled for retirement are listed in this document below. New retirements of fields along with the retirement date will be communicated through future release notes. 

NOTE: Exceptions to this planning will be made due to contractual, legal, or compliance reasons. These timeframes are outside of our control but should be minimal.

If a recommended replacement attribute is available, it is noted in the release notes. In some cases, this replacement is a very similar replacement, while in others it serves as a proxy. If no recommended replacement is listed, please work with your Experian representative to determine a transition plan.

7 automotive audiences targeting in market models are scheduled for retirement in February 2027 as models are less relevant in market.

8 automotive audiences targeting in market models are scheduled for retirement in August 2027 as models are less relevant in market.

116 CAPE Retail Demand attributes will retire in August 2027. Newly rebuilt Retail Demand attributes are available now, but they are not direct replacements for the retiring fields as the underlying data has been updated. For more details, please click here.

Field 10677, a geo-code match attribute, is scheduled to retire in August 2027. This field indicates the level or type of geographic match returned during geo-coding, such as rooftop, ZIP Code, or Census tract.

Beginning in July 2026, values for Field 10677 will be derived from enhanced geo-coding software that improves location coverage and granularity. Clients may see slight differences in the data, but overall precision should improve. All legacy values except for value B, which represents Population center of the Census Block Group, will be available.

Field 10677 will be replaced by two fields. We highly recommend clients use both:

Both fields are available today, and we would encourage clients to being receiving them ahead of the retirement date for a smooth transition.

As noted in previous communications, Mosaic V7 attributes are retiring in August 2027. Mosaic V8 attributes are now available, but are not a direct replacement for V7 as V8 has been rebuilt. For more information about the 2026 Mosaic rebuild, please click here. For more information about Mosaic V8 attributes, please click here.

The Person #: Education Model attribute, which provides modeled educational attainment across levels ranging from less than high school through graduate degree, is scheduled for retirement in February 2028 as part of ongoing improvements to our education model.

This release introduces a new attribute built on the updated model that will eventually replace the existing version. We encourage clients to begin transitioning to the new attribute while both versions remain available. For more information on the updated model, please click here.

For a PDF version of the above release notes, please click the button below.