Q&A with Anna Feely, VP of Business Development at Specialists Marketing Services, Inc., who shares more about the process of building privacy-compliant 1:1 deterministic data sets, its benefits for multichannel marketing, and the opportunities for marketers and brands using data in 2021.
Can you introduce yourself, your role and responsibilities?
I’ve been with Specialists Marketing Services, Inc. for over 20 years and have worked in many areas of our business across the enterprise. My current role is in business development, working with brands, agencies and ad-tech partners in providing various offline and online data solutions that help support marketing needs.
SMS, Inc is described as a data-driven, multi-channel marketing company that provides data solutions and customer acquisition services to leading brands, agencies, and Fortune 500 companies. Can you share more information about your business?
SMS started in the direct mail business, supporting hundreds of brands with their list planning and direct mail prospecting efforts, which is still a big part of what we do today. Many years later, we recognized the value in building out our own proprietary data sets that can be leveraged for both multi-channel prospecting and house file analytics. Today, we have a proven track record in both the direct mail and digital channels offering high quality consumer segments at scale for advanced targeting, data enrichment, profiling, analytics and measurement across multiple channels.
Why have you chosen to partner with Eyeota?
SMS continues to build a strong presence in the digital eco-system with our high quality data offerings. Eyeota was one of our first partners in this space and is a long-standing and valued partner to us. Our data, coupled with their solid reputation and global presence, has allowed us to collectively offer robust audience solutions to brands, agencies, publishers and other ad-tech partners for many years.
How are SMS, Inc audiences relevant for advertisers?
With over 240 million U.S. consumers and 170 million households, marketers can select from hundreds of targeting attributes including: strong demographics, home profiles, life events, lifestyle interests, and many other specialty segments. Our audiences are 100% deterministic and highly relevant for various use cases including: enhanced targeting both offline and online, analytics, data enrichment and measurement.
How should marketers best use SMS, Inc audiences?
Our data is built offline, multi-sourced verified, and 100% deterministic and we onboard our PII to online identifiers using a 1:1 deterministic match. Given the high degree of accuracy and matching methodology, agencies and brands can be confident they are targeting the right audiences in display, social and OTT/CTV media. Our audiences are also frequently used to help both brands and ad-tech partners understand more about their own audiences which in turn helps them make better decisions about their overall marketing efforts.
What are the data opportunities for brands in 2021?
We all know there are fast-approaching industry and privacy-related changes that will impact the way in which marketers can leverage third-party data for online targeting and measurement. While third-party data has received a lot of negative attention, especially as it relates to privacy, the truth is that if marketers can take the time to understand their third-party data sources, they can also feel confident in leveraging that data along with their first-party data assets. This in turn will help them continue to understand more about their customers, gain valuable marketing insights and overall improve their marketing tactics to attract new customers. As key industry players, including Eyeota, build out trusted ID solutions, SMS continues to work with such partners to ensure we can offer high quality data solutions to brands and marketers in a privacy compliant way.
With Eyeota SMS, Inc audiences are available in the US for omnichannel campaign activation on display, mobile and social channels including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and Snapchat. For more information about SMS, Inc audiences, connect with an audience specialist today at datadesk@eyeota.com.
