Acxiom Launches A Solution To Connect Direct And Digital Audiences

Marketers have historically siloed their known customers from their digital audiences, but that separation prevents brands from reaching consumers throughout their journey.

To bridge that gap, IPG-owned Acxiom on Wednesday launched ConneCXions, a suite of solutions and software applications that helps marketers deploy consistent audience definitions, based on Acxiom’s first-party ID graph, across direct and digital marketing.

“The more brands can tie together marketing technology and advertising technology, the more marketing intelligence they have, and better business outcomes they can create,” said Acxiom CEO Chad Engelgau.

Acxiom plans to launch five solutions under ConneCXions this year with the goal of tying clients’ ad tech and mar tech investments together.

Addressable Advertising, which Acxiom launched in May to offer media buying services through Matterkind (formerly the trading desk Cadreon), is one solution within the ConneCXions suite. The idea is to offer flexible solutions, applications and services brands can adopt based on where they are in their journey of bringing direct and digital marketing together.

“We’ve been focused on meeting clients where they’re at and helping them build on investments they’ve already made,” Engelgau said.

Brands access ConneCXions through Acxiom, which can, if necessary, integrate services from Matterkind and Kinesso, IPG’s technology unit. ConneCXions is designed to let advertisers define, test, activate and measure audiences across direct and digital channels. They can either execute media in house, do it through Acxiom with help from Matterkind or pull in their agency.

Acxiom bridges the gap between customer and digital audiences through its digital ID graph, which imitates its PII-based ID graph and ties directly into premium publishers. Acxiom also launched APIs to aggregate and normalize campaign reporting so brands can understand how different segments perform in direct and digital campaigns.

The proposition is especially attractive to marketers looking to in-house media, because they can own the audience and insights while maintaining executional support, Engelgau said.

“We have so many clients who are in-housing to control their insights and audiences, but want to maintain agencies,” he said. “They need software and services that span the digital ecosystem to deliver consistent audiences, measure interactions and tie them together.”

The ConneCXions brand is not replacing Acxiom, but represents its expanded services under IPG, which includes its historical CRM and first-party audience management and ties it to addressable media buying.

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