New partnership delivers game-changing audience targeting and industry measurement, without cookies or people-based identity solutions

Nano Interactive, leader in ID-free targeting solutions, has launched a partnership with Circana, the leading advisor on consumer behaviour. The partnership will enable Nano to bolster its identity-free Intent Personas, combining Circana ProScores™ data with sophisticated modeling techniques to allow areas of opportunity to be identified in a privacy-friendly way.

The partnership is based on Nano’s ability to bring real-time consumer journey data, deep contextual analysis and machine learning technology to deliver advertising solutions without relying on identifiers. With Circana’s best-in-class Point of Sale (PoS) data, which utilises in-store sales data to identify shopper profiles likely to drive purchase, this partnership delivers an additional layer of targeting precision, enhanced privacy for users and a simpler, more effective campaign execution for CPG advertisers.

“The CPG industry continues to experience widespread media challenges, from increased fragmentation to disparate data sources, with transparency and measurement equally remaining a critical focus,” stated Gordon Eldrett, UK Media Director, Circana. “The partnership enables Nano to tap into our ProScores™ data, combining it with Nano’s unique audience intent insights and ID-free targeting to allow advertisers to build targeted categories so they can reach shoppers with a higher propensity to buy. From what we have seen thus far with results, this is truly a fantastic example of what can be achieved through this partnership.”

“This partnership comes at a really crucial time for the industry, which is grappling with cookie-free alternatives to target and measure audiences effectively,” said Matthew Beck, VP Strategy & Partnerships, Nano Interactive. We have a unique position in market to lead the charge in helping the industry navigate these challenges. Our ID-free Intent Personas combined with Circana ProScores™ data, have proven to not only drive incremental sales and a significant ROI, but also uplifts across key brand metrics – this is game changing.”

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To pilot the effectiveness of the partnership, Nano and Circana created a test campaign with a leading premium drinks brand, the Heineken Company, to strengthen brand awareness and market penetration as well as increase consumer consideration for Cruzcampo as a newcomer beer brand in the UK. The campaign has recently been shortlisted for the 2024 Campaign Tech Awards for its ‘Best Use of Data’ category, having shown to deliver unique insights, ID-free audience targeting and robust campaign measurement for Heineken.

Nano and Circana utilised in-store shopper sales data to measure brand uplift, helping to optimise campaign spend against product distribution and measure the impact on in-store sales. The campaign illustrated positive impact on brand awareness, driving incremental sales and resulting in strong ROI above the set benchmark by 43%.

“We’re really pleased with the results we have seen off the back of this activation with Nano and Circana,” stated Dan Glynn, Programmatic Lead for Heineken. “This was our first pilot with Nano using its ID-free intent targeting solution. While the main aim of the campaign was to deliver awareness, we also wanted to understand the impact of programmatic advertising from a short-term sales perspective.”

Nano used ProScores insights to inform planning based on sales propensity at a Geo level with distribution, market share and category trends. This data was then layered onto Nano’s ‘food and drink’ vertical insights category plus its intent persona segment for ‘alcohol drinker’ in order to optimise delivery to areas in the UK with qualified sales opportunities for the Cruzcampo brand. Using this granular level of insights planning, the campaign saw uplifts across core brand metrics including a further 48% increase in positive sentiment for those who recalled the ad, with nearly all of those who recalled the ad having a positive opinion.

Glynn continued, “We used Circana’s pre-planning data to hone in on beer drinking opportunities, plus Nano’s Intent Personas targeting to spread awareness of the brand and measure the effects of targeting via incremental sales and ROI with Circana’s sales measurement tool. The results from Circana and Nano’s combined data have been amazing, especially considering that the Cruzcampo brand is in its first year in the UK market. This is something we’re now keen to build into future campaign strategies.”

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The ROI achieved in this campaign, which exceeded the set benchmark, is a critical marker showing profitability for media investment in the brand overall. The pilot with Cruzcampo illustrates the potential for partnerships like this to yield bigger campaign results with a true measurement on brand impact.

As audience attention continues to wane and consumer traceability concerns rise, the ability to measure performance using technology that understands the intent of users, the meaning of the campaign, and the overall contextual environment in a brand-safe, privacy-first manner is critical for advertisers looking to futureproof.

Nano Interactive is a leader in targeting without the use of personal identifiers. Since its launch in 2014, Nano has delivered over 2000 campaigns for leading brands across mobile, video and display and continues to powerfully connect brands with relevant audiences. Its AI driven targeting platform utilises multiple forms of live intent signals, such as live search queries, combined with next generation contextual targeting to enhance advertising performance in a 100% privacy friendly way.