That's the worst secret in business. Despite countless tools, channels that reach consumers, and stunning advances in AI, brands still struggle with the basics. Understand true consumer preferences, provide personalized experiences that drive results, and accurately measure the impact of your campaigns throughout your purchase journey.
It's not because of lack of effort. Every day, marketers navigate horrifying landscapes such as disconnected data sources, CRMs, spreadsheets, dashboards, and analytics platforms. The average enterprise has 120 tools in its marketing technology stack, each of which promises to seamlessly integrate and revolutionize performance.
This complexity has created a full-time “metajob” of managing and optimizing it all. Delayed insights, siloed data, and competing outcomes limit actionability, and most marketing operations experts say there are too many tools to complicate tasks and slow them down.
Furthermore, as each platform uses its own metrics, methodologies, and timelines, marketers have always been forced to work with assumptions, proxies, and best guesses. Frankly, important decisions are always made using incomplete data.
Thankfully, AI is here to save us, right? The answer is yes, but there is a big warning. Even the best AI tools will continue to perpetuate flawed approximations in reality, unless they have a consistent, high-quality, unified data source.
Search for a single source of truth
The exploration of a “single source of truth” (SSOT) – a focused, consistent, reliable dataset in which all stakeholders within a company agree to measure the effectiveness and business performance of their campaigns – has long been the holy grail for marketers.
Industry groups such as the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the National Advertisers Association (ANA) advocate for uniform metrics, but significant barriers remain. Incompatible identity frameworks, privacy restrictions, and discrepancies metrics continue to function as critical barriers, even as we enter the AI-first era.
The industry is increasingly focused on practical alternatives such as data cleanrooms and retail media networks, gradually filling the gaps and approaching the ideal of a unified measurement approach.
A search for true SSOT was followed and we reached a technical inflection point. Advanced artificial intelligence, combined with a platform that instantly captures nationwide validated consumer data, provides a true 360-degree view of consumer behavior, eliminating the gap between insight and activation.
Fetch, the America's Rewards app, is a key player in the field, featuring patented AI technology that allows billions of verified consumer data points to be translated instantly into accurate, complete insights and campaign activations, both on and off platforms. By rewarding millions of consumers by consistently sharing validated behaviors such as purchases verified in receipts, Fetch continuously visualizes consumer preferences across retailers, both online and offline. This continuous stream of accurate consumer data allows brands to confidently acquire and retain consumers through personalized, instant, actionable marketing strategies.
AI-driven personalization backed by actual, verified purchase data gives results. A recently commissioned Nielsen study found Fetch is the most efficient advertising channel for food brands that outperform food brands, television and social media. McKinsey Research found that marketing ROI for companies using AI for personalized advertising increased by 15-30%.
Actual application across your organization
The integrated, first-party retail-independent dataset of cutting-edge AI and first-party retail-independent already transforms the operations of major brands and sets the stage for the possibilities of a new era.
Consider the shift that occurred when a store first introduced the UPC code. Suddenly, products were able to be instantly identified, invented, and analyzed with unprecedented speed and accuracy. The integration of AI and real-time verified consumer data is even more speed and accuracy that has an even greater impact.
Insights that previously required several weeks of manual processing can now be delivered in minutes. Natural language queries allow marketers to quickly interpret and apply insights without technical intermediaries. Brands are already taking advantage of this approach, allowing applications to touch every aspect of their organization.
Recruitment is still in its early stages, but early victory is clear. The finance team is more accurately predicted. Business development teams are quickly identifying new growth areas, customer service teams reporting improvements in retention, and product teams are cutting the development cycle.
The future is AI-powered, personalized, consumer-centric
Naturally, industry experts have raised concerns about the risk that AI can amplify existing challenges, introduce errors, and exacerbate the customer experience. However, the integration of AI and verified consumer data promises exactly the opposite. A powerful transformation into a new era of clarity, accuracy and true consumer-centricity.
Imagine a world where all brand consumer interactions are automatically personalized and optimized, with accurate, up-to-date information and targeting campaigns based on how consumers are actually spending. Imagine the entire back-end ecosystem and speak languages and teams that can respond seamlessly and be instantly active based on a deeper, deeper understanding of your customers. This is the promise of AI and immediate consumer data, and brands that move quickly to integrate have an unprecedented competitive advantage.
Learn how Fetch can help brands acquire and retain lifelong consumers.
This post was created by Fetch Insider Studio.
