• by Jess Nelson , March 14, 2017

A new startup helps publishers build revenue with their hashed email subscriber data, illustrating how email marketing is not the only way brands can make money through the ubiquitous channel. 

Founded in 2016, Traverse Data help publishers monetize their email subscriber data and secure it from misuse. The company connects hashed email subscriber data, also known as deterministic match data, to user devices and then licenses these connections to companies for people-based marketing initiatives.

“Our belief is that people-based marketing is the future of digital marketing,” says, Craig Swerdloff, CEO and co-founder of Traverse Data. “You’re seeing a lot of companies looking to leverage data to more effective target prospects and customers.” 

Publishers have a revenue opportunity in this market because they have a lot of readers and a huge collection of hashed email data.

“Their data is really valuable in this economy, but they’re not getting their fair share for it,” says Swerdloff. Traverse bills itself as an alternative to ad networks, and publishers keep 80% of the revenue generated from the sale of their data.  

Email is a “story of persistence,” says Swerdloff, because “people don’t change their emails very often. You keep it longer than you keep your mobile phone. It’s such a valuable identifier -- you use it to log in to everything and you don’t change it very often.”

The company uses proprietary protective measures that prevent data leakage, and the hashed emails are encrypted and anonymous so brands can safeguard the privacy of their customers and value of their data.

Swerdloff says the data is protected so a publisher’s subscribers will not be spammed with unwanted email.

Publishers opt in to different use cases with regard to how the hashed email subscriber data is used, and the CEO says the “use cases of agreements are very well defined” so Traverse can hold affiliate marketers accountable.

Traverse already counts more than 50 publishing partners and claims to collect more than 50 million unique hashes per month.