PEOPLE-BASED MARKETING:

A PRIMER
What it is, why it mat ters and it s vast potential.
P l u s : t h e ke y s t o m a k i n g i t w o r k .
WHAT IT IS
Consumers are barraged with thousands of marketing messages
every single day, and they want to be treated like people. Like
themselves, go figure.

That’s where people-based marketing comes in. Facebook coined

the term back in 2014 (more on that later). As we’ll see, though, the
basic idea actually predates the digital age.

PEOPLE-BASED MARKETING IS:

Marketing that recognizes and reaches real people
with messages that matter to them, via their phones,
inboxes, mailboxes, app’s, you name it. Done right,
living, breathing human beings get offers they actually
want to see, because you’ve connected data about
them and understood their preferences, instead of
settling for a partial understanding. You also gain the
ability to measure activity at the individual level, to learn
from each interaction and optimize efforts going forward.
OKAY, WHAT’S SO
DIFFERENT ABOUT THAT?
To understand why this is even worth talking about it, let’s step back a
moment. Following the golden age of mass-market advertising in the
1950s and ‘60s, pioneers like David Ogilvy saw the value in engaging
consumers more directly, with tailored offers.

Direct marketing blossomed in the decades to come and is still going

strong today. In the early days it relied heavily on physical mail. Unit
costs were high, so careful thought was put into building the right
audiences as well as testing offer, creative, format, list and other
variables. It was marketing analytics before analytics were cool.
WHY IT MATTERS
Fast-forward to the digital age
Today, marketers still have offline channels like direct mail in their arsenals.
But unlike direct mail marketers, their digital counterparts often don’t know
the identities of their targets. For instance, if someone doesn’t register on
your website to make a purchase, you lack a name or email address to help
you tailor messages.

And of course digital channels have grown like crazy, extending beyond
email, search, display, video, websites, and hot mobile apps like wearable
devices, smart billboards, and who knows what next.

When a consumer uses dozens of channels and five or more devices,

how do you know who she is from one touchpoint to the next—when she’s
in app, watching a video, or sorting through her mail? Kinda tough to be
personal and relevant when identity, even by segment, fades in and out like
bad cell reception during an important call.
PEOPLE-BASED
MARKETING EVERYWHERE
When Facebook rolled out Custom Audiences in 2014 it coined the
term “people-based marketing” to describe how marketers could extend
a familiar concept into the digital realm—using their own CRM data to
engage consumers on digital. Google quickly followed with their
Customer Match offering.

The approach clearly works. Together these giants account for 85 percent
of digital ad spend. But what if you need to—and you probably do—reach
folks outside of these platforms? Plus measure your performance across
channels at the level of real people?

Exhale. You can, in fact, practice people-based marketing on Facebook,

Google, and everywhere else. In the next section, we’ll look at the keys to
people-based everywhere.
THE 5 KEYS TO MAKING
IT WORK
1. IDENTITY RESOLUTION
This is the Jungian-sounding industry term for recognizing the person you’re
trying to engage. Figuring out a consumer’s identity can be tough. When
you interact with audiences in lots of places, offline and online, you can end
up with a jumble of identity fragments representing a single person.

For instance, bmith@bsmith.com can also be anonymous cookie 123 to your

digital ad platform, mobile ID ABC on your mobile site and Rececca Smith
at XYZ Lane to your third-party data provider.
Overcoming this challenge is the key to people-based marketing – and
unlocking a lot more value from the investments you’ve already made in
data and technology. If you miss important data points or connect the
wrong ones, you’ll miss insights on valuable audience segments, duplicate
effort, and create a confusing customer experience.

When you resolve identity accurately across touchpoints, you gain a clearer
picture that lets you target better, personalize the message, and measure
your efforts across channels and devices.

SOUNDS GREAT, HOW DO I DO IT?

For the data, technology, and expertise to resolve consumer
identity, most companies use a third-party who maintains an
up-to-date “identity graph”—a map of all the identfiers like
email address, mobile ID, and cookie—that relate to a person
over time.
2. COMBINING DATA TO BUILD
OUT PROFILES AND DEEPEN
CONSUMER INSIGHTS
Once you can make sense out of a consumer’s many identifiers, you’re in
good position to collect and analyze more data on that person. You can
build a better profile of a customer or prospect, be more insightful, and
engage in context better.

THREE TYPES OF DATA HELP.

FIRST-PARTY DATA
First-party data is data you collect, either actively or passively, from
consumers that interact with your company. And it’s tremendously valuable.

Not just because you own it and it’s readily available. It’s data on real
people who have purchased from or engaged with your company
somehow. Real data on real people—you can see the implications for
your people-based marketing.

Note there are two types of first-party data. Data containing elements
like name, phone number, or street address is considered “personally
identifiable information” (PII). But you can also make use of data that
doesn’t identify a person, for instance, when someone visits your site
but doesn’t register.

An identity resolution provider can help you connect these data sets, in
a privacy-compliant way, by using automation to remove PII.

Don’t let organizational silos
stop data from being connected
All marketing organizations have specialized areas,
or silos. While they often exist for good reasons, they
tend to inhibit marketing integration and data sharing.
It’s something to be aware of as you practice
people-based marketing. Whatever your teams can
do to connect the right data wherever it lives will lay
the groundwork for mining insights to reach real
people with relevant messaging.
THIRD-PARTY DATA
Third-party data is data you purchase from outside sources, for
instance, a data supplier or a brand that makes its data available to
different buyers. It’s “one to many,” meaning one supplier makes data
available to many brands.
This is data on consumer lifestyles, demographics, and behaviors. It offers
useful insight into buying propensities and intent, especially when you’re
prospecting for new customers or trying to gain deeper insights into data
you already have. It’s also invaluable when you’re trying to find more people
who resemble your best customers.
SECOND-PARTY DATA
Second-party data is getting a lot of attention these days. It’s when brands
agree to share their first-party data in ways that comply with privacy laws
and best practices.
One type of second-party partnership is typically exclusive, with brands
sharing specific data to be used for specific purposes. As opposed to
third-party data, this kind of data sharing is “one to one.”
For example, a company that makes athletic gear might share data with a
power bar brand and discover that people who buy power bars are X times
more likely than average to buy running shoes.
Other times, brands pool their data with numerous parties to resolve
identities more accurately. They benefit from a larger pool and see a
boost in match rates without sharing data with other companies.
Either way, second-party data can help craft highly relevant campaigns
that resonate with consumers.
3. ACTIVATING DATA ACROSS
CHANNELS AND DEVICES
It isn’t enough to unify and gain insight from first-, second-, and third-party
data sources. You also need to use that data to reach top prospects
wherever they are.

This means delivering audience data to each of the tools you use to engage
consumers across channels and devices. Identity resolution is key to
making this happen, because it operates like a universal translator, enabling
every part of your marketing stack to “speak the same language” when they
reference the same person.

That’s why using identity resolution to connect data silos and make data
portable across the platforms and devices used to engage consumers is
so powerful. Let’s look at one example.

HOW MANY PEOPLE OWN

YOUR COMPETITORS’ SUVS?
If you’re in automotive marketing, that would be good to
know. But it’s a lot more valuable to target those owners
with relevant messages.

The basic formula: identity resolution + data-enriched

profiles + omnichannel activation = personalized messages
everywhere. Imagine revving up sales with a people-based
conquest campaign that speaks to known SUV drivers,
stressing your brand’s advantages over specific competitors.
4. MEASURING AND OPTIMIZING
PERFORMANCE
People-based marketing offers a powerful way to measure campaign
ROI. Measuring at the level of real people gives you a clearer idea of
brand lift or sales.

Moreover, you can attribute results with greater precision, helping you know
(a) the people you reached and (b) where you found them. This in turn
helps you decipher the path to purchase, better understand the consumer,
and take the right steps in becoming a customer-obsessed organization.

Going forward you could, for example, optimize by publisher. If one

publisher reached millennial men with families 78 percent of the time
and another 47 percent, you could adjust your media spend, or negotiate
pricing, ASAP. Not possible without a clear idea of the real people who
saw your ad.

5. PRIVACY AND ETHICAL DATA USE

People-based marketing is about growing your brand through relevant,
seamless, hassle-free experiences. At the core of those experiences is
a basic human need: trust.

As you collect data to engage in more meaningful ways with consumers,

you need to use that data ethically to protect their privacy and keep your
brand safe. Even a whiff of misuse will cause consumers to take their
information and hard-earned dollars elsewhere.
BUILD ETHICAL DATA USE INTO
EVERYTHING YOU DO
• Be transparent about your data policies and the choices
consumers have
• Anonymize and encrypt data to protect consumer privacy
• Enforce ethical use of data you share with partners and
others downstream
• Be a good privacy citizen—help authorities stop bad actors
• Educate customers on why you collect and use their data—spell
out the legitimate business case

To learn more, download our eBook: Guiding Principles for the Ethical
Use of Data.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE

When your head is filled with segments, cookie IDs and the like, it’s easy
to forget that behind it all is real people. Humans with unique motivations,
desires, and behaviors.

In people-based methods, the warm-blooded marketing arts meet the

cold logic of data science. It’s a data-driven way to know what makes
people sit up and take notice—a complement to all you do to improve
precision and scale.

Remember, the people you want to convert have enormous power: they
can tune you out anytime they please. People-based marketing gives you
the power to make them want to engage. Some may even spread the word
about their great experiences.

Be human and be relevant. The potential’s too big to miss out.

 ABOUT ACXIOM
We provide the data foundation for the world’s best marketers.
We enable people-based marketing everywhere through a simple,
open approach to connecting systems and data that drives seamless
customer experiences and higher ROI. A leader in identity and ethical
data use for more than 45 years, Acxiom helps thousands of clients
and partners around the globe work together to create a world
where all marketing is relevant.

info@acxiom.com | acxiom.com