To introduce you to the kinds of consumer information available through commercial suppliers, look at a detailed example. The table includes all the data collected about one consumer by Axciom, a major vendor of consumer marketing data. This vendor provides marketing data about individual consumers and the households in which those consumers live, as follows:
Individual consumers: For each individual, the vendor divides information into two data categories:
Characteristic: Demographics such as age, marital status, level of education attained, and whether the consumer has children. Data about household members that share the consumer’s last name may also be included here.
Home: Information about the consumer’s place of residence, whether it is a single family or multifamily dwelling, whether the consumer rents or owns, and the length of residence.
Households: The vendor tracks four categories of household data:
Vehicle: Details about car ownership and insurance, including number of vehicles, makes and models, and insurance renewal dates.
Economic: Information about the household’s financial activity. Estimated income, preferred spending methods and spending activity through various channels.
Purchases: Information about the household’s buying habits, online and offline. May include information about the types of products commonly purchased — categories, amounts, and frequencies.
Interests: Hobbies and other interests such as cooking, sports, and home improvement.
| Date of Birth | 01/23/1945 |
| Gender | Female |
| Education | Completed Graduate School |
| Marital Status | Single |
| Small or Home Business | True |
| Home Information | No Data Found |
| Auto Policy Renewal | October |
| Estimated Household Income Range | $75,000–$99,999 |
| Presence of Credit Card | Credit Card Holder–Unknown Type |
| Credit Card Use—American Express | Regular |
| Credit Card Use—Discover | Regular |
| Online Purchasing Activity | True |
| Number of Purchases—Cash | 2 |
| Number of Purchases—Credit Card | 1 |
| Number of Purchases–AMEX | 20 |
| Number of Purchases—Discover | 1 |
| Number of Purchases—Visa | 1 |
| Number of Purchases—Other | 11 |
| Mail Order Responder | Mail Order Responder |
| Mail Order Buyer | Mail Order Buyer |
| Gardening Products | Purchased |
| General Merchandise | Purchased |
| Total Dollars Spent | 1502 |
| Total Number of Purchases | 9 |
| Average Dollars Spent Per Offline Purchase | 157 |
| Total Offline Dollars Spent | 1394 |
| Total Number of Offline Purchases | 31 |
| Total Offline Purchases—Under $50 | 25 |
| Total Offline Purchases–$50–$99.99 | 6 |
| Total Offline Purchases—$250–$499.99 | 1 |
| Average Dollars Spent Per Online Purchase | 101 |
| Total Online Dollars Spent | 304 |
| Total Number of Online Purchases | 3 |
| Total Online Purchases—Under $50 | 3 |
| Total Online Purchases—$50–$99.99 | 1 |
| Total Online Purchases—$100–$249.99 | 2 |
| Interests | Fashion, Children’s Items, Cooking, Gourmet Cooking, Health/Medical, Current Affairs/Politics, Crafts, Home Furnishings/Decorating, Home Improvement, Gardening, Other Pet Ownership, Reading, Reading Magazines, Aerobics |
This is only a single example of the marketing data that is available for sale. (A few fields have been slightly altered for privacy reasons; otherwise the example includes all the complete data retrieved from Axciom.)
Another example — even one from the same supplier — might look different, with different fields, additional family information, or more accurate (or inaccurate) results. And even complete records may not count if the consumer opted out of data sharing.
You can explore some of the data that is being shared about you. The data presented in this example was provided by Axciom, a major vendor of consumer marketing data. Through its About the Data website, Axciom enables consumers to review their own data, get information about how the data is collected and used, edit the data, or opt out of data sharing.
Take a moment to think over the sources of information open to the data supplier. The supplier has to assemble its consumer marketing profiles from public or legally shareable private sources. Many data sources — personal paychecks, banking records, tax returns, and many others — are off limits. The example in the table was compiled from three types of sources:
Public sources: These include
Government information such as property and assessor’s files and license records
Publicly available sources such as telephone and online directories
Survey research: Surveys and questionnaires that consumers chose to fill out. Although data here is limited to those consumers who participated, it is sometimes used to estimate data for others.
Commercial opt-in data: Information collected by commercial sources who obtained an opt in (permission) from the consumer to use the data.
In the marketplace, any data about people is likely to be described as consumer marketing data, regardless of whether you are interested in the “consumer” aspect of this data, or whether you intend to use the data for marketing purposes. Be mindful of how you intend to use the data, though, and make sure that your agreements with the data supplier are compatible with the intended use.
These sources may have many imperfections. The data may be out of date. You may find errors or incomplete data. Individuals might not be properly matched to other household members. Just as you must assess the quality and suitability of your internal data sources for any given use, you must carefully evaluate commercial data sources as well.
But although you may be able to take action to improve the quality of an internal data source, you won’t likely have that option with a commercial source. If the quality of the data or the documentation is very poor, don’t waste money buying it. Look for alternate vendors, consider collecting your own data, or just live without it.