In a recent blog, InfoSum's Marketing Director Lucas Pickett examined the enormous opportunity for brands to outshine their competitors and go for the gold at the Olympics and other major sporting events this year. "Summers packed with sports excitement like this don’t roll around every year," Lucas noted, "so advertisers need to bring their A-game to stand out and deliver when it counts." How? By making the most of their first-party data and "investing in data collaboration to unleash the full potential of that data."

But first, what is data collaboration, exactly? Most often, when companies collaborate, their primary incentive is to boost conversions. Brands need a return for their ad spend, after all, and using fresh data insights to tweak campaigns at or near the point of purchase can make a significant impact.

But data collaboration isn't limited to the bottom of the funnel. At InfoSum, we see it as a tool — and a state-of-mind — that can trigger massive improvements across a company's entire marketing strategy, from insights to planning, activation, and measurement. A well-thought-out and holistic data collaboration program can benefit market analysis, product development, consumer segmentation, media planning, messaging, creatives, tactics, loyalty programs, and everything in between.

Let's consider what data collaboration brings to the table at every stage of the marketing funnel.

First, a word about the marketing funnel

The marketing funnel has been around for a century now and is rooted in the notion that consumers exposed to advertising go through a hierarchy of effects: People first learn about a product (cognitive effect), then develop an interest in it (affective effect), and finally end up purchasing it (behavioral effect). Like all models, it’s an oversimplification, and everyone might not agree with the top-down premise — perhaps to you, the funnel is shaped more like an hourglass, or a loop, or even an inverted funnel — but its basic building blocks remain very helpful to study consumer response today.

They are awareness, consideration, conversion, and loyalty.

Using data collaboration to amplify awareness

Back in the day, marketers used to create brand awareness through large, indiscriminate campaigns on linear TV, radio, and print. The idea was to cast a wide net, grab people’s attention, and hope that enough would remember the brand’s name (or its logo) when they next saw the product on the store shelves. That style of brand building is still very much alive today, but the media landscape has evolved significantly in recent years. Emerging media channels such as Connected TV, gaming, and audio all have significant scale that brands can’t afford to ignore. 

Thankfully, brands today can use first-party data to better understand their targets, deduplicate their audiences across channels, and decide where best to reach them at that particular moment in time. It’s a much more efficient way to build brand awareness, but it hinges on the quality of that first-party data.

That’s where data collaboration comes in. With the right data partners, brands can enrich their customer profiles and optimize their marketing decisions. 

Take the brand Cristal, which is part of the Heineken Group. The company recently teamed up in Belgium with Ads & Data, a market-leading alliance between publisher Mediahuis, broadcaster Play Media, and national telcos Proximus and Telenet, to run a multi-channel brand awareness campaign. With InfoSum’s data clean room technology to facilitate a five-way data collaboration, the partners were able to instantly deduplicate exposure data across linear TV, addressable TV, and BVOD, and develop efficient new segments that could guarantee maximum reach. They increased incremental reach by 2.5x, brand recognition by 30%, and brand familiarity by 12% among 25-44 year-olds.

Using data collaboration to spark consideration

It’s not enough to be aware that a brand exists, though. It has to meet a need, an interest, a lifestyle, or a set of shared values. It also needs to meet an expected price range and be readily available. Marketers have many tools in their quiver to ensure their products end up in the consumer’s consideration set, but the competition is fierce, especially now that instant gratification has become the norm. How do you stand out in a world full of legacy brands and hungry digital upstarts?

There too, the answer is to utilize data better than the competitor next door. Through smart and secure data collaboration, brands can tap into rich second- and third-party datasets and gain unique insights on their customers and prospects. They can use those insights to tailor their messages to fit exciting new profiles, identify lookalikes, and improve their chances of being top-of-mind further down the funnel.

French car manufacturer Renault used the InfoSum clean room to access data from Axel Springer All Media (ASAM) and develop high-quality audience segments for a recent campaign in Germany. The partners were able to reach lookalike consumers who were 38% more likely to be in-target (prospective car buyers). That gain in targeting efficiency was directly responsible for an 18% boost in conversion down the line.

Check out our new Insights Playbook for more examples of proactive companies using data collaboration to unlock standout consumer insights at the consideration stage.

Using data collaboration to boost conversions

Many of the most successful data collaboration initiatives of the past couple of years have focused on the conversion stage, buoyed in large part by the rise of retail media networks and retail-based loyalty data.

With the proper data privacy guardrails in place, brands today can use retail data to engage consumers, personalize ads, upsell, cross-sell, retarget, and streamline the customer experience. They can segment their campaigns at will, and deduplicate and suppress audiences to eliminate waste.

For example, Channel 4 and Nectar360, the loyalty card provider for Sainsbury’s and one of the UK’s largest supermarket chains, teamed up to help CPG brands tailor their ads on All 4, Channel 4’s streaming platform, based on consumers’ recent shopping activity at Sainsbury’s supermarkets. McVitie’s, McCain, Pepsi, Walkers, Garnier, and Weetabix, the first six brands to benefit from that new data collaboration, saw a 29% average sales uplift and an 8% halo effect across their product lines.

Best of all, brands don’t necessarily have to be endemic to the retailer in question to see a substantial boost in conversions. The retail media phenomenon is starting to move beyond retail, opening vast new data collaboration opportunities in the process.

Using data collaboration to nurture loyalty

Marketers know that the growth of their brand over the long term hinges not just on their ability to attract new customers but on their ability to retain and re-engage existing customers, too. The purchase experience and its immediate aftermath are a perfect time to strike a conversation, develop a relationship, and capture vital first-party data.

You’ve probably heard that acquiring a new customer is much more difficult and can cost 5 to 25 times more than retaining an existing customer. Or that a 5% increase in customer retention can increase profits by 25% to 95%. Those figures are from old studies and very much dependent on the industry, market, and many other factors, but they make sense, at least directionally. Loyal customers are more likely to be repeat customers, be less price-sensitive, and become advocates for your brand. You want to use the best data around to nurture that loyalty.

According to Deloitte, “Today’s loyalty leaders are those that create data-driven, personalized loyalty experiences for their members, from tailored offers to curated content and messaging. However, less than 25% of programs are personalizing member experiences based on previous interactions, purchase history, and stated or inferred preferences.”

Those who use data collaboration to strengthen their loyalty data will be one step closer to their customers and one step ahead of the competition.

Make it happen

None of the above is possible without a robust data clean room. Brands, agencies, retailers, media companies, and other potential data collaboration partners need to be able to trust one another and remain in control of their own data. Above all, they need guarantees that the privacy of their customers is never compromised.

InfoSum is the platform of choice for data collaboration today. Get in touch with us, and we’ll help you unleash the full potential of your first-party data up and down the funnel.