In a world where outcomes-driven measurement has dominated the media landscape, the definition of outcomes has evolved significantly.
“It used to be outcomes was e-commerce because you could easily track what people were buying online,” Geno says in this interview with Beet.TV at Advertising Week New York.
“Then outcomes became store traffic because you could work with certain location data providers to understand did somebody actually go to the store?”
The focus now, however, is on a more comprehensive view of consumer spending, including competitive spending behaviours, to truly measure the return on ad spend.
A Shift in Outcome Measurement
Geno believes that understanding consumers’ spending not just within a brand but also with competitors is crucial.
“We know loyalty is a challenge in today’s marketplace, so most companies understand what happens within their four walls.
“But many companies lack the understanding of, ‘when my consumers leave me, where do they go? Which of my competitors are they shopping with and in which geographies?'” she explains.
Card Data on Tap
Affinity Solutions lately has been getting partnered by ad-tech companies who want to use its consumer purchase data to measure ad outcomes.
LG Ad Solutions, Comscore and Samba TV are amongst those to have partnered.
The company initially developed Cardlink, a model for banks that issue credit and debit cards to engage customers through targeted offers. Consumers get rewarded for shopping with certain retailers.
Now Affinity receives data from over 3,000 banks daily, over 140 million cards and over 7 billion credit and debit card transactions annually.
Affinity Solutions secured rights to provide data solutions to various stakeholders, becoming the purchase insights partner for consulting firms like Deloitte, Accenture, BCG and McKinsey.
These firms use Affinity Solutions’ data to help retailers and other businesses understand consumer behavior outside their own four walls.
“We’re connecting campaigns to conversions and helping you understand truly what is the incremental return on ad spend for your advertising investments,” says Geno.
Affinity Solutions CEO: How Purchase Data Can Fuel The Media Ecosystem
Fusing Outcome Data with Actionability
But Geno says outcomes cannot be the end – they must be barried with actionability.
“It has to be actionable,” she says. “You have to be able as a marketer to weeded through all the data and translate that into, ‘what should I do differently?'”
To achieve this, her company has curated dozens of plays to help understand loyalty, cross shopping behaviour, market share, and geodemographic profiling.
The goal is to remove friction from the equation and make data readily available and accessible within the marketing technology stack.
