Transactional Data: The Missing Link

As a location ad tech company, we have had many dialogues with customers on the art and science of customer segmentation. Location tells us stories – about lifestyle needs, demographics, income, relationship status and more. It even gives you an indication of the effectiveness of your advertising and customer outreach.

But is location or web browsing history enough to truly profile such large consumer sets? Far from it. That is why we brought transaction data into the equation to work with more wholesome data points when assisting our brand and advertising customers with segmentation. Transaction data provides far more accurate targeting efficiency. It also makes advertising measurement that much more precise.

Top Three Insights Transaction Data Can Provide

Who Are Your Most Loyal Customer Groups?

Transaction data can reveal which customers spend most money on your brand or brands like yours. This information can help shape your marketing as well as customer service outreach simply by identifying which groups are most likely to buy from you.

What They Are Going to Need Next?

Transaction data reveals a lot of information about your target consumers' current and future lifestyle needs. Let's say they booked a ski vacation two months from now. That information can be extremely useful in pushing customized, personalized advertising to them about winter wear, ski gear etc.

Are They Spending More at a Competitor's Brand?

The mindshare of customers who are already engaged in your product and service category is easier to capture. The information can help you design attractive offers and deals customized for them – a great way to get potential customers to switch brands!

And these are the most obvious use-cases of transaction data. At LifeSight, the analytics allows you measure much more. Spends followed by a campaign are an excellent measure of campaign effectiveness in the real world, far away from proxy, grey measurement tools such as CTR. Footfall + transaction is the only right way to measure campaign effectiveness in the new world.

Engaging Single-Time Visitors

Transaction data allows brands to better understand and engage the habitual single-time visitors. They form a whopping 70% of footfalls – a large number that brands have not been able to engage effectively so far. These are customers who try every brand, restaurant, and outlet once and will return only if offered a reason for it – like a promotion or discount. Capturing these customers for return visits can elevate the brand's loyalty numbers significantly.

Key Metrics from Transaction Data

• Amount spent at a brand outlet gives you a picture about pricing and affordability
• Basket size is an indication of average spends at a brand outlet or product category
• Product SKUs reveal insights about up and coming promotions
• Promotions also allow you to take a peek into product or category performance
• Frequency of visit and/or purchase to a specific outlet is an indication of brand loyalty as well as insights about the retail location as a USP

Similar to these, there is a lot more insights that analytical mining of transaction data can bring. Combined with location data, it forms a powerhouse of information that can allow your brand to be truly valuable to potential and existing customers.

Privacy and Data Partnership

But like all great things, this too comes with a bit of a grey area. Transaction data is basically financial information. There are privacy concerns around it. Therefore, it is crucial that you partner with legitimate data companies who understand in depth the nuances and legalities of transactional data mining. Your data partner must be able to verify the authenticity of data as well as only share what is legally sharable from the perspective of consumer privacy.

Another concern is the sheer number of middlemen brands and advertisers must deal with now that data sources for segmentation are so widespread – web browsing and search histories, location data, and now even transactional data!

LifeSight, our trademark ad tech platform fills this gap in the market in two ways:

1. We source transactional data directly from the legitimate source
2. We combine all possible data points under our DAAS umbrella to provide wholesome, comprehensive yet anonymous customer segments on demand

Are you ready to take your customer segmentation a notch higher?