Acxiom, which tracks more than 700m consumers across the globe, to create ‘master profiles’ tying offline and online data

September 23, 2013 12:14 pm

Acxiom to create ‘master profiles’ tying offline and online data

By Emily Steel in New York

Marketers will soon have access to a system that will sweep up information on individuals to create profiles that link offline details such as income and political leanings to their online activities across multiple devices. The system, to be announced during the Advertising Week conference in New York on Monday by one of the largest data brokers, promises to suck in data about individuals from a wide range of sources, from in-store and online shopping habits to activities on websites and mobile apps.The New York-listed Acxiom, which tracks more than 700m consumers across the globe, will then process the data using sophisticated algorithms, making it available for marketers to target and personalise advertising on the web, mobile and eventually television.

Phil Mui, Acxiom’s chief technology officer, told the Financial Times: “We are making big marketing data truly actionable.”

Acxiom’s new product represents a significant development in the business of tracking consumers. Previously, companies had to create separate profiles for each of the multiple devices and internet browsers a person used, due to the technology limitations of online tracking tools known as cookies.

This meant that data brokers typically had multiple profiles about one person based on their activities on a work computer, personal computer, mobile phone and tablet.

As a result, marketers had a hard time creating more tailored campaigns and tracking the return on the advertising. Acxiom is now offering a system that does not rely on cookies, which are both widely used and controversial. Instead, Acxiom is creating a new identifier that will match profiles about an individual regardless of the device.

Other data brokers have been racing in the same direction. Datalogix, which tracks shopping activities, works with Facebook and Twitter to help the social networks bridge people’s activities online and away from the screen.

The Acxiom system is different as it does not use cookies and allows any of its clients to access master profiles about consumers that can be used to personalise and target ads across multiple devices and services.

Acxiom has partnerships with leading internet companies, including Facebook, Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo. Through these deals, marketers are able to target and personalise marketing messages across those sites. The data broker is working on extending the technology to television.

For instance, an insurance company could target ads to new parents who have home insurance within a couple of clicks, using Acxiom’s platform. The marketer could then further narrow the target by gender, marital status, income, age, whether they own a car, among hundreds of other attributes.

While the multibillion-dollar data broker industry profits from the trade of thousands of details about individuals, those bits of information are often sold for a fraction of a penny apiece, according to industry pricing data viewed by the Financial Times

Acxiom’s development represents a broader push in the internet and advertising industry to create new tracking technologies beyond the cookie. It was revealed last week that Google was exploring alternatives to the cookie.

The development is sparking privacy concerns, with some consumer advocates worried that consumers will be less aware of the tracking and have little recourse to stop it should they wish. Some consumer advocates fear that the pace of change online is so rapid thatlawmakers and regulators are struggling to keep up with the development of new technologies.

Data brokers such as Acxiom face harsh scrutiny over their business practices that have long operated in the shadows. In the US, few laws regulate the privacy of individuals’ information. Both the Federal Trade Commission and a Senate committee are in the middle of investigating the data broker industry.

In an effort to offer more transparency into its business, Acxiom launched a new service that offers consumers a look at some of the information the company knows about them. Yet privacy advocates attacked the site for including only a portion of the information that the company sells, as well as not including its data in more sensitive categories, such as the propensity to gamble or smoke.