Aimee Irwin
Vice President, Strategy at Experian

People consume and absorb information through more devices and channels than ever before, including social media, mobile, television, email, and desktop. In this context, we spoke to Aimee Irwin, Vice President of Strategy at Experian, to understand how she sees trends in identity management becoming the crux of any online marketing campaign.

Tell us about your role at Experian and the team/technology you handle.

As Vice President of Strategy, my role is to guide the strategic vision of Experian’s Marketing Services division. We have a strong commitment to helping our clients realize the power of data and technology, and making the right marketing decisions to better connect with people. And at the end of the day, consumers deserve to be at the heart of every marketing strategy. We need to continually think outside the box to help brands evolve and adapt to the ever-changing consumer behaviors and preferences. Data and technology are at the core of that approach.

How do you see trends in identity management becoming the crux of any online marketing campaign?

People consume and absorb information through more devices and channels than ever before, including social media, mobile, television, email, desktop, etc. And each device and/or channel that consumers use creates a digital footprint. While each footprint is important, it is only one piece of the puzzle. Understanding the full picture requires a tremendous amount of data. The proliferation of devices has forged a need for marketers to improve their identity management practices to better understand their customers and deliver relevant messages across all channels — particularly since relevancy has become table stakes for marketers, with consumer’s expecting to see messages that are relevant to them.

What do you have to say about the importance of identity as the foundation of any successful business?

Providing the best customer experience should be the priority for any successful business. Whether it’s authenticating an individual or delivering a relevant advertisement, identity is at the core of any and all customer interactions. Proper identity management helps connect the dots between the digital data points that an individual creates — so marketers know that the individual that saw the advertisement on their mobile device is the same person that visited their website on a desktop. These are mission-critical steps to have a meaningful conversation with any given individual, and ensure their experience is positive.

How should businesses unlock the value of their first-party and third-party data for better identity resolution?

Marketers need to leverage a combination of first- and third-party data to properly address identity resolution challenges. Many marketers over rely on first-party data. While first-party data is certainly valuable, it does not paint the full picture. Only when that data is combined with third-party data, can a marketer have a clear understanding of an individual’s interests, preferences and behaviors.

That said, all data is not created equal. Quality data is key. A marketer can have all the data in the world, but if it’s inaccurate, it can lead to very poor decisions. Marketers need to work with vendors that have a strong track record in data management. Data can be a powerful tool and help marketers make the right decisions, but they need to ensure the data is accurate and actionable.

How does AI and Machine Learning help solve the challenges in the landscape?

From a marketing perspective, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning can have far-reaching impacts on the ecosystem. Marketers would have the ability to gain deeper insight into their target audience — understanding behaviors and preferences. Undoubtedly, this will lead to more relevant content and a positive experience for customers.

What are the core tenets of Experian’s identity management and marketing attribution strategies? How do you use AI at Experian for marketing services?

We believe first and foremost in providing a privacy-friendly solution for marketers to utilize third-party data to better understand their customers across channels and offer more relevant messaging. We have the highest standards in data quality and we constantly test new data sets and new tools for insights.

We have a strong commitment to exploring new technologies associated with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Our research and development group, Experian DataLab, tests new data sets and tools to create a better tomorrow for our clients and customers. Those efforts play into how we continually help marketers better understand their audiences and make the right marketing decisions.

What are your predictions about Identity for Marketing Attribution success for 2018-2020?

Understanding what really drives a consumer to purchase a brand’s products and measuring the ROI on advertising campaigns across the many channels available are constant challenges for marketers. Identity is a critical component in linking an offline purchase to an online advertising exposure and proving the effectiveness of advertising. We will continue to see attribution solutions evolve to include a much broader view of the path to purchase and we are seeing some of that today with things like visits to stores through mobile location data and online intent signals being incorporated into these attribution solutions. We are constantly evolving our attribution solutions to include new data sets, helping to create a better tomorrow for our clients and customers

Thanks for chatting with us, Aimee.

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