The Royal Mail Insight Tool provides access to over 140 million UK transactions through the online auction site, giving advertisers and planners unparalleled insight into the purchasing behaviours of postcode areas across the UK.
The data - which is anonymous and aggregated to a postcode level - provides purchase history, type of products bought and levels of spend, and is refreshed monthly to give continually updated access to the latest information on purchases around the UK.
The launch of the tool builds on Royal Mail’s recent innovative direct mail solutions and underlines its determination to be a true media owner by selling unique, bespoke audience insight as well as providing a communications channel to reach and engage with consumers and enhance their brand through the post.
Antony Miller, Head of Media Development at Royal Mail, said: "This new planning and insight tool marks significant progress for Royal Mail’s evolution into a true media owner, providing unparalleled access and insight to specific audience demographics.
"By providing access to eBay market data, the Royal Mail Insight Tool gives advertisers and planners unprecedented levels of nationwide insight into purchase patterns, levels of spend and purchase type down to postcode level. This kind of insight is invaluable to brands, helping them to boost their campaign return on investment by improving planning and reducing wastage through better targeting."
He added: "Other advertising channels like TV can help brands to reach specific target audiences by advising on the best times and platforms to utilise to reach them. Through the Royal Mail Insight Tool, Royal Mail is entering the same space, able to directly identify and link advertisers with the audiences they want to engage, right down to postcode level."
The Royal Mail Insight Tool can provide breakdowns of spending habits regarding new or used purchases, peak purchasing periods, frequency and recency of purchase, age, gender, and the product brands purchased. Categories provided through the service include baby; car parts and vehicles; clothes, shoes and accessories; computing; consumer electronics; health and beauty; home and garden; mobile and home phones; sporting goods and video games, as well as over 200 subcategories.
It provides insight and audiences based on chosen variables of areas around the UK where certain product types are frequently being purchased, items sold and their average price.
It can also be used to isolate trends on seasonality, identify high and low spending regions over time, provide gender and age demographics via brand preference, as well as new and used product preference. The tool is also linked to geodemographic profile insight provided by Callcredit Information Group’s CAMEO classification, to add further depth to postcode-level profiling.
Based on this insight, campaign planners can identify other similar areas in the UK and deliver comparable audience demographics. This information can then be overlaid with Royal Mail data, a brand’s own customer database or a cold list, supplying access to a highly targeted base of prospects.
The Royal Mail Insight Tool was developed with Advanced Ecommerce Research Systems Inc.
President and CEO Fred Speckeen said: "Exhaustive analysis of hundreds of thousands of daily transactions provides definitive answers that support more effective and profitable DM targeting. As the global expert in eBay data analysis and analytics, Advanced is proud to work with Royal Mail to, together, introduce what is nothing less than an exciting, next-generation innovation in market research."
