Kiip partners with Purchase Decision Network to make shopping list data available to its advertisers

Although shopping lists are as old as shopping and represent the most direct expression of shopper’s product desires, they have not figured prominently in many marketing campaigns.

That direct data will now be directly available to advertisers on the Kiip mobile marketing platform through a partnership with the Purchase Decision Network (PDN) announced this week.

First use by outside ad networks. The New York City-based PDN utilizes anonymized shopping list data from a couple of dozen participating apps for iOS and Android, such as AllRecipes, Our Groceries, BuyMeAPie, Scan2List and Shopper. Shoppers give consent for their data to be utilized in this fashion, when they download the free apps.

With this new partnership, Kiip — headquartered in San Francisco — will make the shopping list data available to any in-app or mobile web advertiser. Since 2010, the PDN data was only available for ads inside the participating apps, although data was also purchased on occasion to create segments for outside advertisers.

But this is the first use in outside ad networks. The shopping list data and shopper profiles are integrated with Kiip’s data, which specializes in targeting ads at the right moment, like after a user has finished a workout or when the user is unlocking a new level in a mobile game.

Working with LiveRamp. Although users are anonymized, advertisers will be able to target specific segments — such as users buying children-related items like baby food, or shoppers who purchase gluten-free products — because their mobile device IDs associated with given shopping lists are known. The data is also employed to create lookalike models for finding new buyers of a product.

In addition to its own ad network, Kiip is also making this targeting data available through identity resolution provider LiveRamp. While LiveRamp can tie together a variety of online and offline datasets to create one unified profile, Kiip Director of Data Strategy and Consumer Insights Lauren Farricker told me LiveRamp was only providing access to demand-side platforms (DSPs).

Why you should care. Shopping lists are the purest form of shopper intent, but advertiser access to PDN’s large network has been limited. PDN says its network represents over 50 million monthly shoppers and more than 140 million shopping trips per month.

This new partnership opens up that product- and profile-based targeting, offering the flip side of purchase-based data, such as from Catalina. In these ways, shoppers can be profiled specifically by what they go to the store to buy, rather than what the data says they will probably be interested in.

About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.