The Data Matching Monopoly Is Over: 4 Benefits to Marketers

With the rise of buying groups and increasing demands for personalization, marketers today are acutely aware that good data is gold. They need access to accurate and comprehensive data to target a relevant audience, personalize messaging, and reach them where they are.

To achieve that, many marketers have turned to strategies to augment and enhance their data through large data platforms that enrich the original data by matching it with additional identifiers and then sync the data for use on a demand side platform (DSP). This boosts the match rate for additional fields on the advertising platform, resulting in omnichannel marketing that actually reaches the right target across channels.

 

One company has dominated this space for years, but new competition has arrived this year – and OMI is proud to be aligned with the movement for change. With our recently launched deterministic intent data tool, we have eliminated the drawbacks that come with a monopoly, enabling brands to improve campaign results and marketing ROI through a new alternative for data matching.

Here are four benefits to more competition in data matching:

Lower Costs: With limited choices, as prices have skyrocketed customers have kept paying. Since boosting data match rates is valuable to marketers, they have been willing to pay a high premium, even as the increased costs chip away at their ROI. But as other platforms and tools enter the market, customers have more options to choose a solution that matches both their needs and budgets. And as a result, providers can’t get away with runaway price increases.

More Transparency: On the dominant data matching platform, many of the elements are done on the backend with anonymized IDs, making it difficult to understand what happens with customer data and leading to variability in results. Without healthy competition there is no need to show transparency in the process or prove comparable advantage.

Less Manual Fatigue: The process of the dominant matching platform requires a complex, manual data upload that can take days. Additionally, the process adds an element of risk for introducing errors as the file has to precisely match the platform’s requirements. There are also concerns for data security and privacy.[PJ1] 

More Innovation: When there is a near-monopoly, there is not the same incentive to improve the quality of the platform, as they do not need to outperform rivals to attract customers. As a result, customers have suffered with a platform that is not overly user-friendly and lacking features they want, such as granular segmentation.

How It Works

Our deterministic intent data tool leverages the new data match technology in combination with our own third-party B2BC data. The tool is purpose-built for display advertising, allowing advertisers to serve ads to prospective buyers who have already demonstrated a specific interest in their brand’s products or services.

Deterministic digital intent monitoring uses matching algorithms to uncover unique identifiers all the way down to the device ID level to make sure you’re not targeting the wrong prospect using a shared device, such as in a household. This allows you to anonymously identify individual decision-makers associated with those devices for a more complete view of the prospect, which supports improved personalization.

 

Side note: OMI still offers another intent data tool based on probabilistic data, which drives success for email acquisition campaigns. We combine this tool’s intent results with our high-quality B2BC contact data and provide clients with a list of potential in-market prospects from a specific company. The process doesn’t yield results with the same level of precision as deterministic methods, but because email execution costs are low and ROI is comparatively high, campaign performance isn’t impacted. However, costs for display ads can add up, and getting in front of the right people at the right time while the opportunity for conversion is high is critical, giving deterministic strategies – and the accuracy they bring to the table -- an edge.

It’s all about finding the right solution to meet your needs. More options mean more innovation, greater transparency and fair prices for marketers looking to enrich their data and boost match rates.

 

Contact our team today to learn more.