SAN FRANCISCO – They may have come to regard their own customer and prospect data as closely-guarded information.

But retails have plenty to gain from sharing their customer data with other organizations.

New software allowing that to happen in a way that respects both user privacy and client confidentiality now promises to unlock those benefits.

Brand benefits

In this interview with Beet.TV, Alice Stratton, LiveRamp’s global MD for Safe Haven, talks about the development.

Safe Haven is the suite LiveRamp launched in March to enable secure data sharing between brands and their partners.

Stratton says three use cases are typically on offer to brands:

  1. 360-degree insights view: For example, including campaign insights, recommendations, customer journeys, consumer insights and audience recommendations, online and offline trade, product and promotions, price performance.
  2. Media activation: Enabling audience refinement, using natural data sharing relationships to create new customer experiences, plus outcome-based optimization in campaign mid-flight.
  3. Measurement: Analyzing things like sales uplift, trade impact, touchpoint analysis.

Safety in sharing

Ideas like Safe Haven have emerged in the last couple of years as privacy legislation like GDPR and CCPA, as well as moves to reduce tracking by browser makers, have moved the advertiser focus from indiscriminate targeting toward real audience relationships.

“We’re really seeing LiveRamp customers lean into their own-first party data or assets, and also that of their trusted partners,” Stratton says, explaining the rationale behind Safe Haven.

“What we were kind of hearing from our customers there was that there was this need and desire to be able to collaborate and leverage each others first-party data assets to unlock new use cases, but there wasn’t a neutral and secure environment in which both parties could feel comfortable releasing their data assets to enable those use cases to be activated.

“The role that LiveRamp came to play in that engagement was to be that neutral intermediary, hence the name Safe Haven, that enables both parties to come together and ensure that both parties can feel comfortable and confident that LiveRamp is managing the permissions and the data access controls, so that their data is only available to the partners and for the use cases that they’re comfortable with.”

‘What’s your data strategy?’

Citing a 2017 Harvard Business Review article she says was influential, Stratton says brands need two kinds of data strategy:

  • Offensive: “Making sure that you’re leveraging data to enable supporting business outcomes.”
  • Defensive: “Minimising risk and making sure that, as the regulation landscape changes, you’re not only keeping up with best practises there, but also doing things from very customer-centric perspective

You are watching “First Party Data: Driving Media Investment and Accountability,” a Beet.TV leadership video series presented by Target’s Roundel  For more videos, please visit this page.  The views shared on this series do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Target and Roundel.

By Robert Andrews on    @robertandrews