• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, September 18, 2020

Commerce Signals, a Verisk Financial company, has launched a tracker to help marketers understand where consumers are spending and how their own sales compare to other companies and competitors.  

The color-coded map in a dashboard -- which allows marketers to dig down into counties and even ZIP codes with a bit of coding -- is called the Commerce Signals Merchant Tracker. Data also is available for custom analysis.

“You can see in a specific county when you’re underperforming based on a competitive brand’s sales,” said Nick Mangiapane, CMO at Commerce Signals. “It gives you the knowledge you need to talk to store managers to find out why. We can’t tell exactly why, but it’s a good place to start.”

The spending trends for the 40 million credit and debit cards from millions of households Commerce Signals can calculate also are broken down between online and in-store sales, as well as comparisons between competitors.

The tracker analyzes data from a variety of companies, from restaurants to retail and companies like Uber and Lyft, as well as streaming media companies.  

There is data on more than 1,500 major retailers, restaurants, telecom, travel, and entertainment companies.

Marketers, or anyone that manages the company’s profit and loss statements, can see in the dashboard a color-coded map monitoring fluctuating sales. The data doesn’t show exactly what consumers purchase, such as the product in the store, only that they did make a purchase.

If a marketer at Burger King sees consumers in a specific area are spending more money at McDonald's, this is an opportunity to figure out why, Mangiapane said.

It also may be an indicator that the brand may need to implement additional search ads, email campaigns, video streams, or other types of media in a particular area.