What, Where, How and Why They Buy

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\"TheThe changes that have hit retailers and service merchants in the past two years have only intensified the foundational need to maximize revenues, improve operational efficiencies, and forge brands that continue to attract and retain customers. Making decisions in this rapidly changing marketplace requires high-resolution insights. Putting new strategies into practice profitably requires deeply informed marketing capabilities.

MasterCard (MA) Advisors Merchant Solutions offers US merchants in the retail, dining, travel, and entertainment industry categories access to a broad range of information, analytics, and targeted marketing solutions.

What Makes Advisors Merchant Solutions Different?  Robust Data.

Advisors Merchant Solutions information, analytics, behavioral segmentation, and modeling capabilities are based on quantitative insights derived from billions of identified transactions processed each year from the 340 million MasterCard-branded credit, charge, and debit cards issued in the United States. Our information products provide a view of overall spending activity, including estimates for spending via other payment forms. Significant investment in cleansing and organizing this data has created a unique data platform— reflecting actual spend behaviors. And because the platform is refreshed with new data every single day, it is always up-to-date.

Granular Geographic and Time Period Insights.

The volume of underlying spend behavior data—including several years of historic data—is vast. This scale enables us to “drill down”—with statistically robust confidence levels—to very granular views of spending behavior in a specific geography or time period. Whether that involves providing estimates for aggregate spending in a specific category on a single day some nine months into the future, or a measure of your market share in just a single ZIP Code, such granular data brings real precision to insights.

A “Whole Wallet” View.

Our solutions are driven by understanding customers’ spending behavior both at your stores and locations and across thousands of other merchants. This “whole wallet” view provides far richer insights into the needs, preferences, and propensities of your target customer segments than can be provided by views based on their spending with you alone.

Our solutions can be used to improve business performance in many different ways. MasterCard Advisors customers have used Merchant Solutions to:

  • Benchmark sales performance and market share relative to the competition — enabling you to monitor, query, and analyze your sales performance relative to your competitive set across a variety of key metrics (including total sales, average ticket,and average purchase frequency) at national, state or even individual DMA or MSA level on a quarterly, monthly or weekly basis.
  • Retain and grow customer profitability – in the face of competition by understanding how customer loyalty is shifting on a segment-by-segment basis over time and quantifying its impact on sales. By using a more complex analysis you can follow the migration path of different customer groups over time and quantify the impact of changing behaviors on their total spending with you.
  • Track marketing impact by using ZIP Code area or custom geographic level reporting to quantify the effects on market share of different local marketing, promotional, store design, or merchandise mix decisions.
  • Evaluate the performance of existing sites and identify the best possible locations for new sites by using a powerful combination of trade area analytics, “best customer”geo-profiling, and measures of spending intensity and market share in their category. Trade Area Analytics leverages behavioral profiles of your customers to identify those areas with high numbers of prospective customers. Total spending and competitive intensity measures, combined with drive time analysis and trade area mapping, identify the best locations from which to maximize your market penetration most efficiently.
  • Acquire new customers more effectively, or win back lapsed customers who are still spending strongly in the category, using direct marketing campaigns that reach the cardholders most likely to respond. Custom selects and behavioral modeling ensure that a merchant’s message reaches the very best prospects and delivers superior marketing ROI.
  • Attract more valuable customers through sophisticated and precise customer segmentation. By comparing the profiles of high-value segments loyal to your business with those segments that are loyal to your competitors, you can derive valuable insights into the key drivers of brand differentiation — and inform winning strategies to attract more valuable customers. These insights can be supplemented with our direct marketing programs. They enable you to direct your offers and promotions to the very best customer prospects among the millions of cardholders of participating issuing banks. Customized spend-behavior propensity models and geographic selections are applied for each target customer segment in every campaign — lifting your response rates, driving incremental sales, and enhancing ROI.

\"TheThese marketing programs are particularly effective when deployed for targeted customer acquisition campaigns or lapsed customer reactivation. Comprehensive campaign tracking and ROI analysis are conducted through the MasterCard network and included in the deliverables with each engagement.

MasterCard Advisors provides payments consulting, information, analytics, and customized services to financial institutions and their merchant partners worldwide.

For more information on Advisors Merchant Solutions, please contact: Andrew Woodward at andrew_woodward@mastercard.com or Chris Alfonso at chris_alfonso@mastercard.com

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