Card giants sell data ‘on the QT’

Credit-card firms including MasterCard and American Express are reportedly flogging their card transaction data “under the radar”, for use in digital advertising and other marketing campaigns.
MasterCard launched its information services division nearly two-and-a-half years ago and according to reports in the US it has now started approaching media agencies with a database containing 80 billion consumer purchases.
MasterCard makes the data available through Exelate, a data-management platform that feeds information from MasterCard and other partners including Acxiom and Nielsen into digital-ad exchanges for targeting.
The credit-card firm compiles audience segments based on cardholders’ transactions, flagging up people who are likely to shop at different outlets. But the company stresses the transaction data is anonymised and provided in aggregate. “It’s really more of a broad database,” said Susan Grossman, group head of media solutions for MasterCard information services.
Advertisers can target ads to large pools of MasterCard customers categorised into segments such as “Top Tier Auto Spenders,” or “Frequent Transactors,” said one media agency source.
Meanwhile, American Express has also turned its transaction data into a revenue stream through its Business Insights consulting division. While it has targeted direct mail and online offers to card holders on behalf of advertisers for years, more recently it has modelled audience segments for use in online ad targeting.
And Ebay is also getting in on the act by allowing advertisers to use its purchase data to target people online.
Forrester principal analyst Sucharita Mulpuru-Kodali said: “Anybody who’s got data right now is in the business of trying to make money off of it. Why not take advantage of it, especially if you can do it under the radar?”