The data industry underrepresents the Hispanic population when it comes to measuring television audiences, according to a study by Truthset, which validates datasets.

Truthset released results detailing how the overall data industry is currently underrepresenting the Hispanic population in the United States.

A Q2 2023 study revealed that the data industry includes just 58% of Hispanic audiences in the U.S. With 42% of Hispanic audiences not recorded in data sets, advertisers can’t properly allocate targeted ad spend, while content owners are missing opportunities to develop more programming for Hispanic viewers.

Truthset is a data intelligence company that essentially takes data across the internet and other places, more specifically user data, and finds out how accurate that information is.

Kicking off the data conversation, Truthset president Chip Russo chaired a discussion with speakers from Captify, Audigent, Newsweek, PubMatic and Experian to explore how ongoing signal loss has led marketers, agencies, and platforms to tap directly into sell-side channels for access to top-tier audience and context – and the importance of collaboration between all parties.

Statara’s age data has been highly rated for its accuracy by Truthset, the industry’s leading recognition for data accuracy, quality, and transparency. Age data is essential for compliance in highly regulated industries like cannabis, where multiple clients use Starata’s proprietary Baked Audiences solution. Truthset has also recognized the strength and accuracy of Statara’s data on education, gender, race/ethnicity, political affiliation, language spoken, and home ownership/renter status.

Truthset, a data validation-as-a-service offering, says that Experian, a leading global information services company, has joined the Data Collective.

Truthset, the leading data validation-as-a-service offering, announced today that Experian, a leading global information services company, has joined the Data Collective.

Truthset said that Experian, a leading provider of marketing information, has joined Truthset’s Data Collective.

The Data Collective was launched in 2022 with 20 members. It was established to provide an independent platform for companies to share and benchmark the accuracy of their marketing data.

While the issue of insufficient tags on non-US content was a minor factor, the real challenge we encountered was related to the quality and accuracy of audience data for the Hispanic market. We collaborated with a company called Truthset to explore the market and found that not all data was created equal.

For instance, a beauty brand may want to target a variety of consumers — men and women, darker and lighter skin tones, etc. — with specific messaging. Losing ethnicity data means you’re potentially delivering the same message to a Hispanic man as you are to an Asian-American woman. Or perhaps a hair product is designed specifically for Black consumers’ needs.

Webbula aggregates data from over 110 different sources, including publisher partners, app SDKs, transnational events, social media, surveys, and other data providers. Ranking #1 in accuracy across more segments than any other Jumbo data provider according to Truthset, all of the data provided in the Interest & Brand Preference is self-reported, deterministic, and individually linked.

Preliminary research by MASB and Truthset across 16 data providers demonstrated substantial disagreement in demographic profiles used for campaign segmentation. This will only get worse with the phasing out of third-party cookies, expansion of commercially sponsored consumer anonymity programs like Apple ATT, and data-sharing evasion by younger generations.

Marketers are invited to participate in a new research initiative on targeting accuracy return on objectives and investment. MASB and Truthset are partnering again to conduct rigorous experiments with data from recently completed and soon-to-be completed client campaigns to quantify targeting accuracy and the resulting impact on marketing objectives and financial returns.

"Data providers like Webbula are key partners in evangelizing Truthset's mission: data accuracy benefits everyone. As the data industry evolves to create new measurement standards, consistently accurate data providers will carry even more importance for the service they provide," said Chip Russo, Truthset President, “Ensuring the accuracy and quality of data is a foundational element for advertisers looking to increase ROAS.”

There is little question that big data has the potential to generate greater profits. McKinsey and Company studied the use of big data in five different industries around the globe and found that the use of big data can increase operating margin by as much as 60%. At the same time, a study reported by the Marketing Accountability Standards Board (MASB) and marketing research firm Truthset found only modest agreement on basic demographic information across sixteen leading digital targeting data service providers.

Marketers are, of course, increasingly obsessed with amassing and deploying consumer data. But Truthset thinks that the marketing world needs to take a step back and first consider the accuracy of all that data—because a lot of it may be seriously flawed.

Toward that end, the San Francisco-based firm just launched the Truthset Data Collective, comprised of 20 players in the data space—including Epsilon, Verisk, Fluent, Alliant and TargetSmart—that are together focused on “validating the accuracy of consumer data,” per the group’s mission statement.

So, you can now target your TV ad at an individual household. That’s great.

But, in a multi-person home, how do you know who is watching?
Answering that question is going to require bridging so-called “household graphs” with an understanding of individuals – and Scott McKinley thinks he may have the secret sauce.

Truthset, the data validation-as-a-service offering, has announced the Truthset Data Collective is emerging from private beta with 20 founding members and a suite of products aimed to help all participating companies and the industry at large transact on data with the highest degree of accuracy and quality possible.