Experian rolls out retail media network solution

This week, Experian announced a solution for retail media networks (RMNs) to enhance the flexibility to discover customers inside its network, help advertisers reach these customers and measure a campaign’s impact. Additionally, it’s designed to search out patterns in audience behavior to enhance campaign performance.

Why we care. RMNs saw 16.3% growth within the U.S. last yr as more advertisers took advantage of shops’ deep reference to shoppers. Data-rich Experian is a worthwhile partner in providing identity resolution in a privacy-compliant approach to advertisers and RMNs. This helps advertisers deliver more relevant messages to customers within the RMN and increases retailers’ ad revenue by making their networks more attractive. Also, many RMNs include ad opportunities inside their owned channels (website, app, in-store) and “offsite” ways to attach with customers through CTV and third-party sites. As RMNs expand, identity resolution becomes much more necessary.

Dig deeper: Marketers plan to up RMN spend

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 shoppers based on first-party data.
Expanded insights: It can generate detailed customer profile reports to assist 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 a single channel to purchases and other actions online or in-store.

Advertisers profit. “Advertisers are under increasing pressure to justify media investments as the supply of reliable performance data diminishes,” Andrew Frank, VP distinguished analyst with Gartner for Marketing Leaders told MarTech. “Identity solutions might help tie conversions to ads, which is crucial to proving their value. They also offer recent customer insights with strategic value.”

Frank added: “However, while it’s tempting to make use of identity resolution (IDR) to retarget visitors who’ve recently expressed interest in a product, that is where controversies related to cross-site tracking develop into most visible. Advertisers must fastidiously consider tradeoffs involved in using IDR for behavioral targeting individually from measurement, insights, and optimization.”

Proving RMN value. Experian’s entry into the market “signals that RMN viability is on the rise as a substitute for relying exclusively on the biggest 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 searching for transparent, privacy-compliant alternatives that sustain with customer expectations and data regulations.

“RMNs need a approach to measure and optimize ad performance to prove their value to marketers,” Frank said. “But additionally they should be cautious about privacy, which favors working with partners experienced in compliance and staffed with legal expertise.”