In this video interview with Beet.TV, TransUnion’s EVP of marketing solutions and media vertical Matt Spiegel explains why his company is making the move for one of the major ad data providers.

November 2020:
Experian + Tapad: $280 million

September 2021:
TransUnion + Neustar: $3.1 billion

Identity is becoming expensive.https://t.co/4VZjixO3s4

— Giulio S. (@astaniscia86) September 13, 2021

Why buy?

“We’ve seen a really good complimentary set of capabilities – at the core mission, they really fit nicely,” Spiegel says.

“They built up what they call their OneID technology platform, a great cloud-based, AI-integrated, well-connected technology platform for resolving identity in real-time.

“They’ve got a clearly market-leading suite of measurement solutions, very importantly, focused on marketing performance measurement versus other types of measurement.”

Spiegel says TransUnion, which has a $23 billion market cap, is buying Neustar’s risk, communications and marketing solutions offerings, but not its security business.

TransUnion's acquisition of Neustar is a game changer in the MarTech sector. @mspiegel and team have executed on a killer identity strategy! https://t.co/HjwV9vFJ6l pic.twitter.com/XUjYC3od3T

— Terence Kawaja (@tkawaja) September 13, 2021

From information to identity

To many, TransUnion may be best known as a provider of consumer credit information.

Under Spiegel, TransUnion has been making in-roads becoming an audience data provider.

Neustar would be its latest acquisition in that space after TruSignal (2019), Signal (2020) and TruOptik (2020).

$3.1 billion — that is what your data is worth https://t.co/TBMmAEj9SB

— Josh Sternberg (@joshsternberg) September 13, 2021

Making complex simple

“We feel strongly that the era of identity (will) underpin marketing ecosystem, one that’s focused on enabling personalised marketing in both the household and individual level,” Spiegel adds.

He says the death of the cookie, the lack of mobile IDs, the increasing of streaming and the digitization of the world has made the ecosystem increasingly complex.

“In a world of multiple digital identity signals, multiple different touch points of consumers and worlds, where there are “walled gardens”, there isn’t just open access to all data.

“To have the accurate underpinning of identity is a complex data science problem

“The more technology you put behind there, the more data sourcing rules and regulations you put behind there, the more data governance you put behind there … all those things really create the ecosystem that allows you to build from a strong foundation.”

The trouble with holy grails is, once you get a taste of what’s on offer, you just want more.

Namely, attribution technology today is great, but it’s as piecemeal and effective as the consumer data available.

In this video interview with Beet.TV, Devon DeBlasio, Neustar product marketing director, says more data is needed.

“It’s not just about their name, their address, their phone number, their email, or even their cookie or their mobile ad ID,” he says. “It’s the combination of elements that tell a story over time that helps the brand pinpoint and understand what that consumer’s interest and needs are.”

Neustar is an ad-tech company offering data management platform, customer data intelligence, marketing analytics, activation, compliance solutions and fraud detection.

So it is now trying to plug two of the big data gaps limiting the application of this technology in multitouch attribution modelling and marketing mix modelling.

TV

“There’s an opportunity to include television viewership information in the overall media mix and actually utilize TV (viewing behavior) against things like search, display, mobile data to essentially provide a more holistic view of how marketing is performing across the customer journey,” DeBlasio says.

Neustar is taking TV viewing data from providers like TiVo, Comcast and NCC Media to apply it for marketing mix modeling as well as multitouch attribution.

Walled gardens

“A very high percentage of media – specifically on digital – is being spent across Google, Facebook, Pinterest, Amazon, and (buyers) had to rely specifically on these vendors or these publishers to provide that data back to them.

“But they want to see the media mix as a whole, (because consumers) are not just spending our time only on Facebook and the app – we’re also walking around shopping in stores, visiting other websites, viewing different types of television channels.”

So Neustar has begun working with the big platforms, taking audience data in a way that can be correlated with other touchpoints.

“For us working with the likes of Facebook and Amazon and Pinterest, it allows us to help the ecosystem better create transparency for advertisers and hopefully at the end of the day helps us better understand the identity path of the customer journey across every single touch point.”

“A lot of viewers flocked to OTT very early on from the fact that it gave them a lot of choice,” the President of Enterprise Partnerships adds in this interview with Beet.TV. “I think beyond that it was probably a slower place for advertisers to start to market their products and services. And now that reach has hit critical mass, we see a lot of advertising in the space.”

With so many platforms to consider agnostically across linear TV and OTT, scale and reach are top priorities. “And by and large, we’re seeing a tremendous amount of growth in that area. The plumbing and the framework behind it related to technology and data, a lot of that is being built in and it’s being built from a digital lens.”

As a means of preserving a value exchange with viewers, frequency capping is needed to prevent ad overload, according to Candela. “Moving towards an automated approach in buying OTT and connecting with consumers in that environment is going to be the way in which you solve for frequency. It’s an area that we believe has a tremendous impact on the consumer.”

As TV providers and advertisers gear up for the annual NewFronts and Upfront rituals, “I think from an innovation perspective we’re going to see a variety of advancements.” Examples on the OTT side include server-sider ad insertion driving improved viewing experiences by curtailing latency, along with emerging ad formats like pop-up ads when OTT viewing is paused.

“We’re seeing the ability to really integrate interactive, shoppable ad experiences into that environment,” says Candela.

Omnicom’s centralized people-based solution for all of its agencies is called Omni, fueled by data from Experian, LiveRamp, Neustar and others.

“There’s quite a bit out there for us to look at and I think we would be maybe a bit foolish to think we could do it with pen and paper.”

This video is part of a series about the emergence of OTT as an advertising platform. For more interviews, please visit this page. This series is presented by Premion.

That’s the view of one ad-tech vendor exec whose company is currently considering which data sets to opt for.

Asked to snapshot the current lay of the land in targeting ads for connected TV boxes, Neustar TV and video partnerships head Anthony Slyter tells Beet.TV: “Together, agency and media sellers are actively trying to educate marketers on the 101 of all things advanced television. It is a different vocabulary and language. Some education needs to take place. Some things from digital translate and some do not. The proof is in the pudding at this point.”

Neustar is an ad-tech company offering data management platform, customer data intelligence, marketing analytics, activation, compliance solutions and fraud detection.

It is one of those approaching the problem, for brands, of unifying customer data inputs to achieve better results. And it is assessing its role in data-fuelled TV ad planning in linear.

“The piece still upcoming for us is linear television,” Slyter adds. “We can and do work with TV viewership assets (like) Simulmedia …

“But Neustar is actively evaluating which TV data sets should we plan to be working with in the future to do indexed or data-informed linear TV buys, so we’re truly cross-channel from cookie, mobile, connected, addressable and in to linear TV.”

This video is part of Beet.TV’s coverage of the 2017 NAB Show in Las Vegas.   The series is sponsored by Ooyala.  For more coverage of NAB, please visit this page.

That deal was announced on December 14, but the company expects the conclusion of its sale to Golden Gate Capital by the third quarter of 2017.

So what is Neustar all about? The outfit operates across marketing services, risk, technology security, phone services and internet domain registration. On completion of the deal, it plans to separate activities in to two companies – one including marketing services, security services and data services; the other focusing on order management and phone number services.

SVP of Corporate Development Ted Prince thinks marketing is undergoing a revolution, and it’s all about using data to segment audiences for targeting.

“We’ve broken up the country in to 172 segments,” Prince said, in this video interview with Beet.TV.

“That enables us to go to marketers, we can then make sure you’re targeting those audiences for prospects, we can also make sure you’re targeting your CRM first-party data – on TV, mobile, desktop, direct mail, call centre, email.

“We’ve seen a wave of audience-building online, audience-building on mobile, and now the ability to target audiences on television.

“We’re trying to help marketers be able to target online and then measure … the effectiveness of those audiences.”

This video is part of a series produced at the Beet.TV Executive Retreat in Vieques. The event and series is presented by Videology and 605. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.

The FTC just published a staff report on how publishers track and consumer data across devices. The conclusion is on the mind of Neustar chief privacy officer Becky Burr, whose own company helps unify customer data sets across channels.

In this video interview with Beet.TV, Burr said: “One of the things they said is, ‘this world is very complex, the ecosystem is complex … somehow, the ecosystem has to work together better to make sure that, at all levels of the ecosystem, the right disclosures are being made’.

“We need publishers to make disclosures about what’s happening on the backend, to explain those things to consumers, and develop more standardised ways of describing what’s happening.

“The FTC has called on people to come together collectively to give users more information and more control about what’s going on in a multi-device world.”

The challenges around cross-device tracking have emerged because, whilst the age of desktop internet saw targeting executed largely by web browser cookie, the era in which a single consumer now uses multiple such devices requires more advanced techniques.

Joining up the data streams left by distinct devices is a job for companies like Neustar. But the tone of the FTC’s report is to warn such companies to play by the rules – and to give consumers more visiblity and choice about how their data is used in a multi-device world.

The FTC’s report concluded:

“… It is important that consumers are informed and able to control tracking that occurs across their devices. … Entities with direct consumer-facing relationships and those engaging in cross-device tracking (should) be transparent about their data collection and use practices; improve choice mechanisms to provide consumers control over their data; provide heightened protections for sensitive data…”

This video is part of a series produced at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting. Beet.TV’s coverage of this event is sponsored by Index Exchange. For more videos from this series, please visit this page.

That is according to an executive from one vendor helping brands to develop just such a “universal ID”.

“(Brands) have a great story about who bought what,” says Neustar SVP and chief data and analytics officer Venkat Achanta, in this video interview with Beet.TV  Achanta joined Neustar from Walmart last year.

“But they do a lot of marketing across channels and devices. They don’t quite understand what journeys led to what results and outcomes. To connect all of this, they need to understand the customer holistically. If you don’t understand that connection, you don’t understand the consumer deeply.”

Achanta’s Neustar is an ad-tech company offering data management platform, customer data intelligence, marketing analytics, activation, compliance solutions and fraud detection.

It is one of those approaching the problem, for brands, of unifying customer data inputs to achieve better results. But, Achanta says, the solution has more than one shape.

“Marketing is at the forefront of the digital revolution – they can be the catalyst to get this happening,” he adds. “But this can be a whole connected CRM – it doesn’t have to end with marketing.

“This deeper understanding will help you drive the right actions across the lifecycle of the customer.

“We’re deploying this not only in the marketing space but also risk and security. Does a person have a reason to be at that location on that device to be applying for a card. You can give a fraud risk score … to (know) whether to accept their application or not.”

This video is part of a series produced at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting. Beet.TV’s coverage of this event is sponsored by Index Exchange. For more videos from this series, please visit this page.

What’s next? Eric Schmitt has identified three big changes occurring amid the revolution. The VP of TV at marketing data company Acxiom, in this panel interview with Beet.TV, offers up the following. “I would say there’s three big changes that we’re tracking,” he says:

1. Faster turnaround times. “Match the data faster, get the outputs out there, make it as fast as digital.”
2. Greater diversity of data sources: “So, it’s not just Nielsen, it’s not just age demo from one of our great sources, but I’ve got this new data provider in industry XYZ that has this data source, how can I use that?”
3. Cross-platform. “We’re seeing the use case … with regards to taking cookies and bringing them back to addressable, which has … serious privacy reviews and governance reviews. Be careful on behalf of the whole ecosystem for how those things can be done.”

If that sounds complex, Schmitt thinks of the broad opportunity on a simple grid. “I think of it as a 2×2,” he says. “You’ve got digital and TV, you’ve got planning or targeting and measurement.”

The same panel also heard from:

• Lock Dethero, business development VP of Neustar, an ad-tech company offering data management platform, customer data intelligence, marketing analytics, activation, compliance solutions and fraud detection.
• Brad Danaher, TV partnerships manager at data giant Experian.

Dethero said brands can take data on anonymous website visitors, match it against a cookie pool, translate it in to subscriber IDs or TV audiences, and distribute those audience profiles out to addressable TV platforms.

Danaher says his goal is to help advertisers use Experian data, work with agencies and buyers to action decisions through any media channel.

This panel was conducted at Beet Retreat 2016: The Transformation of Television Advertising, an executive retreat presented by Videology with AT&T AdWorks and the 605. Please find more videos from the event here.

This interview was conducted by Matt Prohaska, CEO of Prohaska Consulting.

But “addressable TV” is about to go large, and it’s time to start spending to meet the opportunity, according to one man whose company is helping brands come aboard.

“Through this year, maybe a third of US households are addressable,” according to Neustar’s business development director Lock Dethero. “Next year, we could be to 60% of US households, given some new TV providers that are becoming available and some other smart TV sources.

“Now’s the time to do tests. If an advertiser has not applied their CRM data or tried addressable TV to figure out where it fits in to their overall mix, they should do a test, with at least one of these TV providers, with some reasonable spend.

“If they’ve been doing it for a while, it’s time to double down, to work with greater scale next year.

Recent estimates of the number of addressable US TV households count about 45m properties. We have heard from plenty of ad industry folk who appreciate the long, slow progress – but who now say the technology needs to gain a wider footprint.

Dethero’s Neustar is an ad-tech company offering data management platform, customer data intelligence, marketing analytics, activation, compliance solutions and fraud detection. “The point is scale,” he says.

But Dethero cautions against conflating addressable and programmatic TV. “A lot of people who are focused on digital advertising hear the word ‘programmatic’… we talk about it in television… we use it too much,” he says.

“People think, ‘I’ll start doing addressable TV when I know it’’s fully automated’. Well, it’s not going to be fully automated any time soon. But the people know what they’re doing.”

This interview was conducted at Beet Retreat 2016: The Transformation of Television Advertising, an executive retreat presented by Videology with AT&T AdWorks and the 605. Please find more videos from the event here.

This interview was conducted by Matter More Media CEO Tracey Scheppach.

“If I have an extra million dollars, do I put it into marketing or trade funds or into new production innovation?” is one of several hypotheticals that Nichols poses in an interview with Beet.TV at the annual Masters of Marketing conference of the Association of National Advertisers.

Nichols, Chief Strategy Officer for the information technology and services provider, says it’s no longer about just media or marketing. “That’s the problem we’ve seen in the old world of media where they were looking at backward- looking media mix models or you’re looking at silo-centric digital attribution when the reality is you need to be looking at the entire picture,” Nichols explains.

Figuring out exactly when and where money should be spent “is a completely different beast,” he adds.

An automotive client of Neustar asks “should our next dollar go towards a pickup truck or economy line? Should I put it into Boston or Denver? Should I move money from this country to this country?” according to Nichols.

It’s an attempt “to balance brand building and sales, which are sometimes at odds with each other,” he says. This balancing act has its own nuances across verticals.

In BtoB it’s usually whether to put additional capital into marketing or hire five new salespeople because “BtoB tends to be very sales driven,” Nichols says. In packaged-goods, “it’s that tradeoff between brand and trade funds.”

While not all industries are as advanced as others in terms of their appetite for more data-driven decisions, “We’re finding a shift from being a nice to have to need to have very quickly,” he adds.

While television continues to work well, “it continues to be the big bucket that everyone seems to want to chip away at. But we continue see the indirect effects of television to be very powerful,” says Nichols.

The company licenses tools to media companies to help their ad sales people talk not about ratings and eyeballs and “soft metrics” but talking about business effects.

“We’re trying to shift that conversation from an eyeballs to an outcomes conversation right now, and that’s how we’re working with television companies,” Nichols says.

We interviewed him at the ANA Masters of Marketing annual meeting in Orlando. This video is part of a series produced at the conference. Beet’s coverage is sponsored by Cadent. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.

For one, internet targeting capabilities support the delivery of individual ads tailored to specific households. It’s a theory that was a long time coming, but now the reality is hitting.

“Now’s the time,” Neustar business development director Lock Dethero tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “There’s over 40m (US) households that you can target through addressable TV, via dynamic insertion in to set-top box or video on-demand.

“The demand is coming. We have advertisers calling us that want to repurpose their audiences from digital in television. A lot of the time, it’s the exact same audience.”

Dethero’s Neustar is an ad-tech company offering data management platform, customer data intelligence, marketing analytics, activation, compliance solutions and fraud detection.

But what’s holding addressable back at this point? Certainly, there are many more households left to light up. But also the route to those households is a patchwork of small pieces. Finding reaching across each can be hard.

“The key is scale,” Dethero reckons. “What we’re seeing from at least one major advertiser in the automotive space is that, in order to create an effective program in addressable TV, you want to work with lots of platforms – not just the ones on set-top box, but OTT, too.”

Fortunately, Dethero hints that greater reach is coming next year. “We’ll see more MVPDs – one in particular will come to market maybe as soon as early next year to expand the complete reach that’s achievable,” he adds. “A rising tide raises all ships.”

This video is part of a series presented by DISH Media Sales. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.

To learn more about addressable advertising and its benefits, download the Addressable Viewpoint Report:

“It’s always going to be one part of the media mix. But the beauty now is that you’re able to get true ROI on television advertising that just wasn’t available before,” Jay Stocki, Experian’s SVP of Product & Data Strategy, says in an interview with Beet.TV at the annual IAB MIXX conference in Manhattan.

The Audience Engine platform deterministically links and matches data in a unified, automated platform for targeting, execution and measurement of addressable ad campaigns. Nearly 50 million households can be targeted. “We could be watching the same program in houses next door to each other and the ad is different based on the demographics of our households,” says Stocki.

Additional multichannel video programming distributors “are realizing they need to get into the space so they are working to upgrade their infrastructures,” he adds.

Targeted audiences for addressable TV also can be pushed to some 25 media partners with which Experian has a direct relationship, including AOL, Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo. “So where a user signed in, we know exactly who they are,” Stocki says.

Shortly after the launch of Audience Engine, Experian joined with Neustar to offer expanded activation options across direct match partners in addressable media channels, including mobile, display, email and TV. “Now we can get that extensive reach to truly do some great cross-channel advertising,” says Stocki.

Addressable TV reaches 50 million households now and available cable inventory is limited to two minutes of every hour. Nonetheless, the learning from addressable campaigns to date is being put to good use.

“It’s the perfect entry point into any media mix modeling of your campaign because you can now understand the results,” Stocki says. “You can use that to model how should I do any sort of zone-level buy that over-indexes” and to inform national buys.

This video is part of Beet.TV’s coverage of the IAB MIXX Conference, 2016, presented by The TradeDesk. Please find additional videos from the Conference here.

“Compared to US, Europe is one, two, maybe three years behind,” according to Lucien van der Hoeven, the EMEA MD of MarketShare, acquired by Neustar last year.

He acknowledges the region is “catching up fast” with “marketing technology penetrating the market”, but admits: “Nobody knows where to start – with a DMP, attribution, market-level? They need a lot of guidance in Europe.”

Par for the course, the UK leads the top EU-5 nations for programmatic video spend, according to IHS numbers cited by eMarketer.

Van der Hoeven says US firms need to understand that “EMEA” is not really one region but a collection of disparate countries, where companies each have their own operations, strategies and chiefs.

“Getting a company to work tighter is a more holistic thing,” he says. You need to convince all local decision-makers to get things right.”

Van der Hoeven has convinced the UK division of auto maker Audi to work with Neustar on media optimisation and customer incentives, working together for the last year and a half, he says.

This interview was recorded at the I-com Global Forum for Marketing and Data Measurement in Seville, Spain, April 18 to 21. This video is part of a series from the Forum sponsored by Xaxis.  Please visit this page for more videos from Seville.