Amex to sell insights from cardholder data
American Express has this month announced the launch of a new 'American Express Business Insights' unit, providing analytics and consulting for business clients, and using data drawn from the company's global network of cardholder spending data.
The Business Insights unit will combine up-to-date aggregate trend analysis and help identify strategic opportunities based on aggregated spending patterns from the company's approximately 90 million cardholders and over 4 billion transactions per year, throughout 127 geographical markets.
The unit will work with business clients to provide data-driven insights focused on specific customer segments that will help them to develop customised marketing strategies, with consulting services including:
- Identifying consumer spending trends;
- New product innovation;
- Geographic expansion;
- Customer acquisition and retention;
- Improved marketing and advertising strategies;
- Customer relationship management;
- Improved procurement processes.
Business Insights will operate within the American Express Global Merchant Services unit and promises that cardholder spending data analysis will be done only on an aggregate level, and will never disclose any personally identifiable information to merchants or partners for marketing purposes. This aggregated data involves the pooling of transactional data and other public market data to create customer segments (such as 'ultra-affluent' or 'large corporate') to help evaluate purchasing patterns within a business.
"Our ability to interpret trend patterns across our global network will provide insights for businesses that are fighting every day to improve their offerings and reach their customers more effectively," explained Bill Glenn, president of Global Merchant Services for American Express. "Businesses constantly wrestle with thorny questions like which markets to enter or expand into, where to open new stores, and how to define their ideal customer. We aim to help them answer these questions."
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