How NXTDRIVE’s Data Can Target without Cookies

When American Furniture Warehouse (AFW) wanted to expand its customer base in Texas and Arizona it turned to Vericast, a marketing technology and data company, whose NXTDRIVE™ customer data marketing platform (CDMP) was made available to retail marketers nationwide earlier this year.

Using NXTDRIVE, AFW and Vericast were able to supplement and enrich the retailer’s first-party customer data with information from proprietary audience modeling and targeting technology. The combination revealed an opportunity for geographic expansion that pinpointed and engaged look-a-like audiences within a 40-mile radius.

As a result of using NXTDRIVE, AFW saw a nearly 55% boost in sales, a $351,000 revenue increase, and nearly a 7:1 return on ad spend from June 16 through July 18, 2023.

“Clients come to us because they know that a first-party data strategy is the key to unlocking performance and navigating headwinds from cookie deprecation and other consumer-privacy-born challenges,” said  Marc Mathies, SVP of NXTDRIVE, Vericast. “Their full data is often fragmented, incomplete, or housed on disparate systems. Brands, particularly those in the mid-market, struggle to isolate the proper signals that can drive a marketing strategy.”

NXTDRIVE uses machine learning and Vericast’s proprietary data and technologies to unify, clean and enrich a client’s first-party data.

What is data enrichment? Essentially, it’s when NXTDRIVE uses Vericast’s consumer graph data for identity resolution and pairs it with a client’s first-party data. Curated data points include demographics, in-market interest, and psychographic signals to create audiences. Those audiences are composed from 130 million households and can deliver predictive insights such as projected customer lifetime value and propensity of next purchase.

The company uses historical retail transaction data and marries it with customer records to form a complete view of the customer. Vericast then enriches that data with its own proprietary data in a consumer graph.

In this way, NXTDRIVE enables both brands and their partners to predict what might happen from a campaign. Through algorithms, it offers guidance on how to influence outcomes. Such capabilities can be used successfully in hyperlocal, multi-location marketing campaigns. Marketers can also formulate precise physical and digital audiences for retention and acquisition campaigns.

Brands can activate on marketing intelligence to drive one-to-one marketing and at-scale acquisition. NXTDRIVE also uses machine learning to improve campaign performance. Machine learning and natural language processing techniques perform identity resolution at a Big Data scale.

Of course, in creating target audiences, the company must be in alignment with consumer-privacy laws.

Mathies said Vericast has always been ahead of the curve in terms of consumer privacy, pointing to the company’s demand-side platform, which has had zero dependence on cookies for several years.

He added, “A large portion of our business is in the banking and financial institution space, which requires a higher bar in terms of capturing, storing, and transferring personal data. We bring all this experience with us in our SOC2-compliant NXTDRIVE platform. We offer our clients a safe and secure platform that uses consumer data in a compliant and ethical manner.”

In addition to finance and home furnishings, NXTDRIVE is suited to any vertical in the retail sector.

“It works well with any brand that has a need for direct consumer engagement and acquisition of new customers,” Mathies explained. “We feel that it is particularly beneficial for brick-and-mortar retail, e-commerce, home services, restaurants, and membership-based businesses.”

He thinks that as third-party cookie deprecation marches on, affecting more marketers, NXTDRIVE will become even more relevant. “Using first-party data to unlock both customer retention and acquisition strategies is one of the significant antidotes to this rapidly evolving landscape,” Mathies said.

Other brand marketers that have used NXTDRIVE include Family Farm & Home, Ollie’s Bargain Outlet, Schewels Home, and Verizon retailer Victra.