Season 3 Episode 3
Go Beyond Loyalty: Understanding Consumer Behavior with Jared Luskin

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RESOURCES   ❯   The Marketing Rapport Podcast

Episode Summary

Tim Finnigan welcomes Jared Luskin, Head of Partnerships at Cardlytics and Bridg, to The Marketing Rapport to discuss personalization in marketing. Jared explains how access to accurate purchase data allows companies like Cardlytics and Bridg to move beyond demographics and understand real consumer behavior. He emphasizes the disadvantage of relying on assumptions and outdated models when trying to reach target audiences.

Jared highlights Bridg’s identity resolution capabilities, rooted in point-of-sale transactions. This data helps clients identify and engage unknown or non-loyal customers by connecting purchase behavior with demographic and lifestyle insights. He illustrates this with an example of how convenience stores, often lacking strong loyalty programs, can leverage this data to understand their customers better and personalize marketing efforts.

Jared also discusses the importance of understanding the “full wallet” view of a customer. He notes that perceived loyalty based on limited first-party data can be misleading. A customer may appear loyal to one brand, but actually purchase within the category much more frequently from competitors. Jared concludes by emphasizing how data-driven insights can drive powerful business outcomes, from pricing and promotion strategies to new product development.

Guest-at-a-Glance

Key Insights

• The Pitfalls of Demographic-Based Marketing
  Traditional marketing often relies on demographics to predict consumer behavior. However, this approach can be inaccurate and inefficient. Jared highlights how relying solely on demographics leads to guesswork and assumptions. Data-driven approaches, focusing on actual purchase behavior, offer a more precise and effective way to target potential customers. This shift allows marketers to move beyond broad generalizations and tailor messaging to individuals who have demonstrated genuine interest in a product or category. By understanding where and how consumers spend their money, marketers can optimize campaigns and drive incremental revenue, rather than wasting resources on impressions and clicks that are unlikely to convert.

• Unlocking the Power of the “Full Wallet” View
  The concept of customer loyalty is often misunderstood. Limited first-party data can create a false sense of loyalty. A customer might appear loyal because they purchase a product four times a year, but they could be buying similar products from competitors much more frequently. Gaining a “full wallet” view, as Jared explains, allows marketers to see the complete picture of consumer spending within a category. This broader perspective reveals valuable insights into purchase frequency, brand preferences, and shopping habits. By understanding the entire purchasing journey, marketers can identify opportunities to capture a greater share of the customer’s wallet and personalize messaging based on a more comprehensive understanding of their behavior.

• Data-Driven Personalization for Optimal Marketing Performance
  Data is the fuel that powers effective personalization. It allows marketers to move beyond generic messaging and deliver targeted campaigns that resonate with individual consumers. Jared discusses how Bridg’s identity resolution capabilities use point-of-sale data to create a deep understanding of consumer behavior. This data-driven approach empowers marketers to engage unknown customers, personalize messaging, and measure the true incrementality of their campaigns. By focusing on data, marketers can ensure they are delivering the right message to the right customer at the right time, optimizing for conversions and maximizing return on investment.

Episode Highlights

The Power of Transaction Data in Identity Resolution
[00:02:00 – 00:04:00]

Jared explains how Bridg uses point-of-sale data to understand consumer behavior. By analyzing various signals from transactions, such as the card used, items in the basket, and store location, Bridg creates detailed shopper profiles. This allows marketers to understand customers they might not have in their existing databases, enabling more targeted and personalized marketing campaigns. This data-driven approach helps bridge the gap between unknown customers and marketing efforts, providing a more comprehensive view of the consumer landscape.

“With the clients that we work with, we ingest a number of different signals directly from the point of sale: information about the card that was used, information about what was in the basket, what store the purchase was made at, et cetera. We tie all of those signals together to say, with a very high degree of confidence, that that card swipe was this shopper.”

Understanding the Convenience Store Shopper
[00:05:00 – 00:08:00]

Convenience stores present a unique challenge for marketers due to low loyalty and limited first-party data. Jared discusses how Bridg’s partnership with these stores provides valuable insights into this underrepresented market segment. He explains that the high frequency of purchases in convenience stores offers brands an opportunity to reach a unique audience multiple times a week, influencing purchase decisions through targeted messaging. This data can then be activated through the marketing ecosystem, enabling targeted campaigns based on actual purchase behavior.

“Convenience stores are a really great example of this because it is very much an underrepresented portion of the market…It is an incredibly frequent purchase. You think about when you go to the grocery store, you do your once-a-week stock-up trip…convenience stores, you’re going to the gas station, you’re filling up your tank, and you’re walking in to get a drink.”

Rethinking Loyalty in a Data-Driven World
[00:11:00 – 00:13:00]

Jared challenges the traditional notion of customer loyalty. He argues that relying solely on first-party data can provide a skewed view of loyalty, as it often overlooks the “rest of the wallet.” A customer might appear loyal to one brand based on their purchase history, but they could be spending significantly more with competitors in the same category. Understanding the full picture of consumer spending habits allows for more effective targeting and personalization. This insights helps marketers identify which customers are truly loyal and which ones represent bigger opportunities for growth.

“The idea of loyalty sometimes is a bit of a misnomer… In many cases, marketers look at their own first-party data and say, ‘Well, I’ve got a loyal customer. They shop with me…four times a year.’ They are incredibly loyal, but oftentimes what those marketers aren’t seeing is the rest of the wallet, the rest of the picture.”

The Importance of Data Privacy and Security in Personalized Marketing
[00:15:00 – 00:17:00]

While emphasizing the power of data in personalized marketing, Jared also addresses concerns about data privacy and security. He underscores the importance of responsible data handling and highlights how Bridg prioritizes these aspects. He mentions how Bridg enables brands to target syndicated and bespoke audiences in a privacy-safe way. This allows marketers to leverage the benefits of personalization while respecting consumer privacy. This approach ensures that data is used ethically and responsibly to enhance the customer experience, rather than intruding upon it.

“Privacy, data security, ensuring that we are good stewards of the data is job one, period, full stop. That being said, there’s so much value in providing relevance… With Ripple, we enable brands to target syndicated audiences. So we’ve got a set of 3,000-plus syndicated audiences… available out in the various digital marketplaces.”

Top Quotes

[00:00:00] Jared Luskin: “You’re really at a disadvantage if you don’t have accurate data. You are left guessing. You are left using models, assumptions around who you’re trying to reach. We’ve said for years at Cardlytics and at Bridg that you know, think about things like demographics.”

[00:03:00] Jared Luskin: “All of our identity resolution capabilities are rooted in point-of-sale transaction data. So we help our clients identify, understand, and engage their unknown in-store customers—think about non-loyalty customers. That’s really Bridg’s superpower: to help our marketing partners engage that audience.”

[00:07:00] Jared Luskin: “So that really puts us on par with some of the large, standalone retail media networks out there in terms of total number of shoppers and data that we see. What’s really interesting about convenience stores—again, an underrepresented portion of the market today—is they’re really important and impactful for those brands that sell their products in convenience stores.”

[00:12:00] Jared Luskin: “They are incredibly loyal, but oftentimes what those marketers aren’t seeing is the rest of the wallet, the rest of the picture. They might buy your product four times a year. They may shop that category…ten times a year. So even though they’re shopping with you…and it feels like they’re loyal, they’re really just frequent customers.”

[00:04:00] Jared Luskin: “We tie all of those signals together to say, probabilistically, with a very high degree of confidence, that that card swipe was this shopper associated with that shopper profile.”

[00:08:00] Jared Luskin: “So now you can use that. A brand can use that data to get their message in front of a convenience store shopper who’s walking into the store, and they can influence that, have a touch point with them, and influence that purchase decision three, four, or five times a week.”

[00:10:00] Jared Luskin: “There’s no guesswork. We’ve taken the guesswork out of that. Because now why target a demographic of somebody who might want to purchase your product when we can target those people who are purchasing your products?”