Commentary

Opt-In Data Haul: Fluent Leverages Content To Fuel Personalized Marketing

How do marketers get email addresses and other data points? One way is to ask for them. That’s what Fluent, a publicly traded marketing company with roughly 150 employees, does on its many web sites. It offers content in return for data, then uses that to help brands send personalized campaigns.

To get a handle on how this works, Email Insider spoke with Daryl Colwell, head of strategic accounts for Fluent. 

MediaPost: What is Fluent?

Daryl Colwell:  Fluent specializes in large-scale acquisition for direct-to-consumer marketers. We own and operate a couple of dozen consumer-facing websites where we collect a great amount of first-party data -- not just demographic data but a great deal of interest data as well. Between 800,000 and a million Americans will register on our properties on any given day: They complete a marketing survey to get access to content. We capture full registration— name, gender, date of birth. Roughly 80% are mobile, so we capture the carrier and mobile devices. We can match consumers with the right marketers and offers.

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MP:  That sounds like a lot of data.

Colwell:  We maintain a database of 180 million Americans — all self-reported, first-party data. One of our specialties is acquisition of opt-in email addresses.

MP:  What kind of insights can you provide to brands? 

Colwell:  We have some really great sites, whether career sites or more content-driven sites. We have evergreen survey questions, whether around presence of children, moving plans, travel plans, financial plans, employment plans, or car ownership. But it’s completely dynamic based on market and client demands. We also have the capability to optimize campaigns with lookalike marketing.

MP:  Do you enhance this with third-party data?

Colwell:  We capture many insights on our sites — again, it’s first-party data. That being said, we do rely on certain third-party to help validate the data we are collecting. 

MP:  How do you square all this in the era of GDPR?

Colwell:  Consumers are more cautious. We are pretty direct with the consumer in forms of additional opts in and disclosures. It’s pretty clear what they’re registering for — we’re collecting the data so the marketer has the ability to send as personalized and relevant a message as possible. When consumers get offers tailored to their personal behavior, they’re going to meet those ads with open arms, more so than a generic untargeted campaign.

MP:  How are your services priced? 

Colwell:  Going back to our heritage, we specialize in large-scale acquisition campaigns on a performance basis. we can increase an email subscriber list and help them acquire their best targeted prospects on a cost per-opt-in basis, and provide a targeted scalable solution. Our clients are focused on driving results — vanity metrics simply don’t cut it. We love it when opt-ins turn into customers. We’re closely aligned with our clients—our business grows with them.   

MP: What do you advise brands to do when they have an email address?

Colwell: We coach our clients to send an initial welcome email as close to point of opt-in as possible. Offer a call to action — X percent off, buy one, get one free. Those sorts of emails generate higher opens, clicks, engagement and conversion rates. There’s nothing wrong with sending content, but when you can include some kind of offer, it helps drive conversions.

MP: How do you see the future of email?

Colwell: A couple of years ago, all of us were concerned about email going away with the proliferation of social channels. While those are important, email is still very relevant. It drives sales across multiple devices and channels, including offline. Our 2018 Inbox Report shows that 50% have purchased through mobile websites, 35% on computer, 27% in-store and 24% through a smart-phone app after receiving an email.

 

 

 

 

2 comments about "Opt-In Data Haul: Fluent Leverages Content To Fuel Personalized Marketing".
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  1. Robin Caller from LOLA GROVE, July 25, 2018 at 6:12 p.m.

    Does anyone do maths?
    800,000/day x 365 = 292,000,000
    So I think someone is telling little porkies  
    Once you read one porkie, how can you know all the others aren't porkies too?
    Feel free to drop me a line if you want to explain those numbers again :-) 

  2. Joseph Dressler from LiveIntent, July 26, 2018 at 6:47 a.m.

    Robin are you assuming every person is a unique person who logs in.  If I log in a few times over year then my unique count is 1 but I did contribute to the 800k login each individual day.  I am more curious about the idea of validating 1st party data with low quality 3rd party data works.   Most marketers I speak with want no part of 3rd party because it is highly inaccurate and has no consent from the consumer.  Seems like a backward approach here

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