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Yahoo! and ACNielsen are working together to launch a new service that offers consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies a way to reach consumers online, and directly measure the offline sales impact.
The new service, 'Yahoo! Consumer Direct', takes advantage of the existing expertise of both companies in order to deliver an improved return on investment (ROI) for CPG marketers.
The service follows a simple 'identify, communicate, evaluate' process, in which members of the 61,500-household ACNielsen Homescan consumer panel have chosen to participate. Panel members have granted permission for their offline purchasing to be analysed in conjunction with their activity on the Yahoo! network.
Yahoo! and ACNielsen can then use anything learned from the panellists to find groups with similar demonstrated interest trends among Yahoo!'s other users. The Consumer Direct team will then work with CPG clients to launch customised, online media campaigns for those consumer groups, using a range of solutions from Yahoo!'s media and promotion suite.
The information gathered about the panel's online and offline purchasing behaviour will then be used to evaluate the ROI for each campaign, including metrics surrounding the impact on retail sales and brand loyalty.
Online to offline
"Yahoo!'s relationship with ACNielsen provides tremendous opportunities for companies to take a much more informed approach to their marketing," explained David Riemer, vice president of marketing solutions for Yahoo! "The more you know about your consumers and how they interact with your campaigns, the more you can grow your business."
Using the new Consumer Direct service, CPG marketers will be able to refine their online marketing programmes, while also transferring what they learn from them to their offline campaigns.
Building relationships
"The break-through of this service is its ability to use these consumer insights to identify key opportunity segments among Yahoo!'s customer base. The result is a much more efficient way of communicating with consumers online, building relationships, and ultimately driving sales," concluded Robert Tomei, senior vice president and chief marketing officer for VNU's Marketing Information Group, which includes ACNielsen, Spectra, and Claritas.
And, according to Tomei, this is the first of a suite of 'direct to consumer' marketing products from ACNielsen which will ultimately include integration with retailer frequent shopper programmes and traditional direct mailing lists.
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