Nine has announced a new major strategic agreement with Australia’s leading data exchange company Data Republic to gain access to key grocery-buying segments across its network.
The move significantly improves its digital audience targeting across Nine’s digital assets by allowing access to in-store transactional data from Australia’s largest independent grocers’ loyalty program.
The grocery and loyalty data source features five years of itemised basket data from an independent grocer network of over 1,600 stores across Australia – almost as many nationwide as Coles and Woolworths combined.
Subsets from this rich transactional dataset have been used to develop aggregate grocery segments which will allow advertisers to improve customer targeting across the Nine Digital network of more than 15.3 million authenticated user IDs.
“This deal is an important one for Nine as it give us a deeper level of consumer insight than we have ever had while still protecting the identities of the consumers,” said Alex Parsons, Nine’s chief digital and marketing officer. “By being able to marry up users’ offline habits with our existing database we will be able to allow advertisers to better target their campaigns and achieve better results.”
Data Republic is a technology platform and marketplace where organisations can list, exchange and collaborate on data projects in a secure environment. The private-by-design ecosystem ensures that no personally identifiable information is exchanged and allows participating companies to securely govern data exchanges with external parties.
Its foundation investors include Qantas Loyalty, Westpac Reinventure and NAB Ventures.
Co-founder and CEO of Data Republic Paul McCarney welcomed the deal which is the marketplace’s first partnership agreement with a major broadcaster and digital publisher.
“We’re pleased to welcome Nine, our first major broadcaster, to Data Republic’s fast-growing data exchange ecosystem,” McCarney said. “With our secure platform, Nine’s data team can access high-fidelity datasets from a range of brands and service providers to unlock insights on purchasing behaviour to strengthen campaign targeting and personalisation.”
Nine said the deal also included scope to extend into other audience segments, such as banking and retail, and over time offer deep level insights reporting, which would see advertising spend across the Nine and Microsoft networks married with sales uplift across advertisers.
“Today’s Data Republic partnership will be a keystone in how Nine uses data going forward,” Parsons said. “While this agreement covers grocery buyers, we are intent on expanding this capacity to include other segments and also demonstrate the impact our digital network can have on a brand.
“In the long term, this deal will help ensure our continued leadership in the digital data space as we continue to find better ways to provide insights and serve a marketer’s needs.”
Photo: Paul McCarney [L] with Alex Parsons