[00:00] [Music playing with title card: The Future of Consumer Data: SheerID’s Audience Data Platform (ADP) and Roadmap – March 19, 2025]
[00:00] Rebecca Grimes (Chief Revenue Officer – SheerID): Good morning and welcome to our customer roundtable on the future of consumer data and SheerID’s product roadmap. Over the next 30 minutes, we’ll explore how our new ADP activities activate permissioned data, provide deeper insights into your audience, and drive personalization. Plus, we’ll share upcoming product innovation and what’s on the horizon.
[00:25] Rebecca: Before we dive in, just a quick housekeeping note: Today’s session will be recorded and you’ll have access to it on-demand afterwards. We’ll also send a follow-up email with the slides and a recording, so no need to worry about taking notes. We want this to be an interactive discussion, so feel free to drop your questions into the chat at any time, and we’ll make sure to answer them at the end of the session.
[00:46] [Transition to speaker slide featuring Carter Lassy and Rebecca Grimes]
[00:49] Rebecca: Now, before we get started, let me quickly introduce myself. My name is Rebecca Grimes, I am the Chief Revenue Officer at SheerID, and I joined eight months ago. I oversee all of our customer-facing teams, including sales, marketing, and the customer experience teams. I have over 20 years of experience in MarTech platforms and have worked previously with many of the brands on this call today. And I am excited to kick off our year with an update on the innovation and product strategy for 2025 and beyond. And with that, I will hand it over to Carter to introduce himself.
[01:23] Carter Lassy (Chief Product Officer – SheerID): Hi, good morning everybody. I’m Carter Lassy and I am the Chief Product Officer here at SheerID. Uh, I joined in December of last year, and like Rebecca, I’ve got uh, over 20 years of experience in AdTech, uh, MarTech, and digital platforms uh, at companies like Experian, Verizon, and Cheetah Digital. Uh, very, very excited to be part of the SheerID team, and even more excited to be here uh, to present the ADP uh, vision and roadmap with all of you.
[01:52] [Transition to agenda slide]
[01:52] Rebecca: All right, so let’s get started. Um, many of you um, probably know SheerID for our open verification network. And, you know, when I joined, you know, followed by—by Carter and other in—you know, incremental investments that we’ve made in really trying to understand how to further deepen the relationships that you have with your consumers, we—um, we’ve evolved our offering to what you are now seeing as our Audience Data Platform.
[02:22] Rebecca: So we’re going to talk about that today as well as the three networks that are supported by the Audience Data Platform: the Audience Network, the Alliance Network, as well as our new Affinity Network. So we’re also going to spend a few minutes talking about what else is in store for 2025 and beyond. And with that, let’s get into it. Carter, you’re up.
[02:42] [Transition to intro slide: Introducing SheerID’s Audience Data Platform]
[02:43] Carter: Excellent. Thanks, Rebecca. Um, and so last month, uh, SheerID launched its Audience Data Platform. Uh, this is a major milestone in our product line uh, that will greatly expand our marketing and data capabilities. The ADP is the first consumer data collection and activation platform uh, that uses nothing but permissioned data.
[03:04] Carter: Um, and with the ADP, you’ll be able to—you’re going to be—begin to see our transformation uh, of SheerID from a community verification point solution to the highest ROI permissioned data platform on the market. Uh, the ADP’s foundation is SheerID’s powerful data verification network that you all know and have been using um, but its pillars will be three new modules uh, that create new customers and then connect our brands uh, to those consumers to build meaningful relationships. Um, but most of all, the ADP will soon be able to store actionable data uh, and be able to enrich uh, historical consumer records.
[03:43] [Transition to stats slide: SheerID verified customers are incredibly valuable]
[03:44] Carter: So, when we talk about a strong foundation, uh, we are talking about this: SheerID provides uh, enterprise marketers uh, the most trusted verified audience data available. Our brands are able to build and host high-value offers uh, with market-leading conversion rates that dramatically drive uh, higher uh, average order values. Um, the SheerID marketing programs uh, work to acquire and grow high lifetime value and loyal customers for our brands. Uh, the ROI of SheerID is unquestionable and it’s only going to grow and have more capabilities uh, with our expanding roadmap.
[04:22] [Transition to ‘Meet IVE’ diagram slide]
[04:27] Carter: Um, so let’s look at how the Audience Data Platform works. Uh, at its core is SheerID’s powerful Instant and uh, Document Review Engine. This powers the ADP’s three foundational networks. Uh, first, the Audience Network is SheerID proper. These are all the verified communities uh, that you’re using right now and customers have been using for the the past uh, more than a decade. Uh, second, the Alliance Network. Um, the there are uh—the Alliance Network is membership organizations and employers. Uh, any company can be part of the Alliance Network, and we have a big new release we’re going to preview uh, that’s coming to the Alliance Network soon uh, that’s going to allow our customers uh, to connect their consumers’ uh, brand accounts together.
[05:12] Carter: Uh, and then finally, the brand new Affinity Network will be debuting soon. Um, SheerID brands will be able to co-market um, with their portfolio and uh, partner brands to acquire new customers quickly and share key customer account information uh, where desired. Uh, and then once acquired, SheerID’s audience data can be activated in engagement, commerce, and loyalty platforms uh, through our extensive data connect—connector network and our webhooks.
[05:43] [Transition to ‘Audience Network’ feature list slide]
[05:44] Carter: So let’s dive a little deeper into the three networks. So we first, the Audience Network, right? This contains uh, essential high-value audiences uh, such as students, educators, military, healthcare workers, and first responders. Uh, brands can verify age for gated offers and content. Uh, we’re building ever-growing capabilities to customize—to—to allow our brands to customize their audiences and integrate their data.
[06:11] Carter: Uh, we have market-leading global coverage of over 200 countries. Uh, our authoritative uh, sources power audiences and demographic data uh, that boost conversions, return on ad spend, and average order value. Um, our brands are able to build acquisition and growth programs safeguarded by powerful uh, AI-powered offer protection. Uh, and then be able to connect uh, to over 400 leading AdTech, MarTech, data, and analytics platforms uh, so that they can leverage their SheerID data uh, to drive engagement and conversion. This is a very uh, solid foundation uh, to build the ADP.
[06:52] [Transition to ‘Alliance Network’ overview slide]
[06:52] Carter: Next up is the uh, Alliance Network. That’s our second leg. Uh, brands can connect other brands; they can also connect to uh, and uh, verify against member organizations uh, such as AAA and AARP uh, to further verify, acquire, reward, and grow their customer base with other um, organizations. And we just uh, re—recently launched uh—the functionality or we’re launching the functionality so that brands will be able to um, connect uh, membership, subscription, and loyalty programs with their partners. Um, consumers will be able to instantly authenticate and cross-link two accounts uh, which they can then use to unlock specialized and partnered offers. Um, brands can cross-reward uh, between those accounts and exchange critical member and subscriber data completely securely. Um, and loyalty members uh, can redeem points from one program for a reward in the other.
[07:54] [Carter starts a screen-recording demo of a mobile loyalty account linking process]
[08:00] Carter: And just a quick demo. So, uh, in this example, we have uh, two loyalty programs linked together. These could be subscription programs as well, or any sort of membership program. Uh, they understand they have a deal, they go in, and they are able to uh, then log in um, to the primary uh, program. Uh, they’re then uh, brought to a SheerID hosted transition page. Uh, that authentication is uh, micro-cached, uh, and then they’re able to then authenticate in the second partner. Uh, then at—at that point, uh, they are able to uh, connect the two. That all happens quickly behind the scenes. Um, the user uh, has a minimum amount of friction to get those connected. Uh, so now that these two partners are connected, uh, they’re then able to go back uh, to their initial program and then be able to see that that linkage uh, has uh, given them an automatic reward. And uh, that flow of information um, can flow in both directions.
[09:02] [Transition to ‘Affinity Network’ slide]
[09:03] Carter: And then finally, the third uh, leg of the ADP is the Affinity Network. Uh, SheerID—and this is a big demand from our brands—SheerID will begin solving the demand gen needs of our customers. Uh, so starting with this quarter, we’re—we’re launching the beta of the Affinity Network. Uh, SheerID has a great ass—asset. We have uh, hundreds of the best brands on earth using our product. Each one of those brands has countless opportunities to run marketing campaigns with one or more partner. Uh, so the Affinity Network makes that happen in a very streamlined fashion uh, for both brands and their consumers.
[09:41] Carter: Uh, consumers uh, are going to be able to verify with their desired brands and then they will be presented with multiple um, additional offers uh, that they’re able to quickly select and redeem without needing to re-verify. Uh, so this uh, reduces all the friction and a—and expands acquisition and conversion rates. Uh, and this works for one or multiple brands, so one large company with portfolio brands can have it work uh, with each of their business units uh, and we can have it work with up to four partners.
[10:13] Carter: Uh, brands will be able to expand reach by tapping into millions of verified, high-intent consumers. Boost conversions with well-timed, relevant offers with fellow portfolio or complementary brands uh, but at the same time protecting their users’ privacy uh, and gaining very valuable first-party data. And there’s minimal effort involved; SheerID manages integration and execution, and then it’s very easy to add additional partner brands.
[10:41] [Carter starts a screen-recording demo of a verification flow where multiple partner offers appear at the end]
[10:41] Carter: And a quick view of that. Uh, so we have a uh, primary uh, marketer here, a primary brand running a school offer, uh, student offer. They’re able to enter their credentials about uh, from University of Oregon. Uh, that is automatically takes them over and those verification credentials uh, are micro-cached again. They are uh, given a set of up to three offers uh, of um, partner brands. They’re able to select and de-select those brands and offers of interest. They’re then given a uh, verification email uh, with that offer code in it uh, which will take them directly um, to the uh, the co-marketing uh, e-commerce store. So they are able to then go directly in uh, the—the—and then be able to apply their promo code directly in there uh, from the co-marketing program.
[11:44] [Transition to ‘Future State Platform’ diagram slide]
[11:47] Carter: So, and here is how we’re going to evolve the ADP over the coming years. So the three networks create consumer uh—um, consumers and consumer data. So we need a place to put it. Soon the ADP will have an interactive data platform uh, much like what you see on a CDP uh, or an ESP. Uh, it can store data as long as the brand wants. Brands can then build a 360-degree profile of each consumer as they verify and collect data. And customers will be able to see every single attribute uh, we get in a verification, well beyond what they can uh, see today and use today.
[12:25] Carter: And so if you look at the blue outer ring, that really is the future. That is uh—you see five studio modules. These are major investments into our MySheerID portal uh, that we’re going to be evolving uh, into enterprise marketing platform modules. Uh, the first up is Data Studio. Uh, this is the only of the five that’s a completely new module uh, that’s underway right now. Brands will have a visual place to view, to manage, to understand all of their consumer data. They’re going to be able to create automated re-verification and abandoned verification and abandoned cart campaigns and run them uh, those audiences directly out of the ADP to sync uh, with their um—with their uh, various platforms. Uh, they’ll be able to eventually upload millions of consumer records uh, to verify and enrich in batch um, and uh, host data for custom verification flows and personalization.
[13:22] Carter: Next up is the Audience Studio. This extends our existing uh, segmentation tools in our customer portal uh, with more features for marketers like an easy visual interface, advanced data features uh, so that marketers can blend SheerID audiences with their own uh, using their demographic, psychographic, and eventually behavioral real-time and predictive data. Uh, after that is Verification Studio. This builds upon our existing features. They let marketers build multiple customized verification experiences, manage them through all through the ADP portal, and utilize tools such as AB testing of creative to help uh, understand and boost verification conversion rates.
[14:03] Carter: The Marketing Studio will be the next generation of the SheerID programs uh, designed for enterprise marketers. Programs uh, will be able to contain—right now they contain one—they’ll be able to contain multiple offers that you’ll be able to personalize within the program and key them on region, on language, and any other criteria that’s in the ADP. Uh, and after the big one, we’re launching uh, marketing playbooks. Uh, marketers will be able to easily activate high ROI pre-fabricated campaigns for use in AdTech, MarTech, and commerce so that marketers can get up and going with permissioned data campaigns very quickly as their audiences’ verification flows and integrations are already set up.
[14:47] Carter: And last of all, the Intelligence Studio. This is going to be a big investment using ADP data in our existing analytics. Uh, brands will be able to upload their transaction data so they can track success of their SheerID campaigns. Uh, funnel analytics will uh, report conversions through the consumer life cycle funnels, and marketers will be able to compare the performance of their various uh, verification experiences and view—and view them um, business value that they’re driving by audience, by alliance, uh, or by acquisition source.
[15:26] [Transition to ‘2025 Product Roadmap’ section card]
[15:26] Carter: So finally let’s take a look at the other key product and feature milestones that are coming in 2025 to other parts of the platform.
[15:34] [Transition to ‘Audience Network Updates’ timeline slide]
[15:34] Carter: Um, look forward to lots of Audience Network advancements this year. Uh, we’re going to be expanding our global verification capabilities for 18 to 24-year-olds. Uh, brands are going to be able to run young adult campaigns right alongside uh, the high-yielding student programs. Uh, this helps all of you expand your global Gen Z verification TAM by about 2.5x. Uh, we’re going to be putting a lot of investment in our instant coverage globally. We just landed a major new source to cover the United Kingdom. Uh, we’re going to be improving our mapping of organizational hierarchies like domains, uh, corporate, and university systems um, that help—we’re going to be expanding our SSO instant coverage, and we’re going to be investing more in covering educators, um, employers, and low income uh, across uh—um, across the various regions. Uh, and the big one you see here uh, as I mentioned before with the ADP, batch audience verification and enrichment. This is a big ask of our brands to be able to bring in uh, their historical data and have the uh, the SheerID audience data overlaid on top of it.
[16:46] [Transition to ‘Consumer Verification Updates’ timeline slide]
[16:47] Carter: And then finally, uh, big uh, updates to consumer verification. Uh, we’re bringing in a lot more AI to be able to detect uh, manipulated images uh, sent in document review. Uh, this will greatly reduce our uh, offer abuse that we—that we’re constantly uh, defending our brands from. Uh, we are going to advance uh, detection of more—add more signals to detect fraudulent uh, and block fraudulent behavior uh, by enabling secondary checks uh, on documents when we think that risk signals are elevated uh, and to quickly block questionable regions in real time. Uh, performance is a huge factor as well in conversion rates. Uh, we have optimizations rolling out right now that reduce page load times dramatically, and we’re already seeing massive improvements worldwide in how quickly the verification content is loaded. Uh, we’re going to be improving our customer service for our brands uh, that are managing um, some of the document review themselves. Uh, we’re going to have faster decisioning tooling uh, to boost uh, accuracy and speed of our manual review. And then finally, we’re going to, as I mentioned before with the Verification Studio, we’re going to be handing over to our marketers much more control of risk tolerance um, and of the verification uh, flow content and experience. Uh, so they’re going to be able to start easily being able to tune uh, the risk tolerance depending on the value of the offer and the product and boost key performance program—uh, key program performance as a result. Uh, so they’re going to have more and more um, control over their workflow behavior.
[18:29] Carter: Um, so we’re very excited about everything coming out this year. As you see, there’s a major investment especially around innovation um, and we’ll be giving uh, lots more updates uh, as those uh, as those key milestones are rolling out uh, starting with the Affinity and Alliance um, over the first half of this year.
[18:49] [Transition to ‘Q&A’ slide]
[18:50] Carter: And so I’m going to pass it back to Rebecca, um, and uh, we’re going to field some questions and hope to answer uh, everything that we can in the time that we have left.
[19:01] Rebecca: Wonderful, thank you Carter. Um, we did have quite a few questions come through the chat and we’re going to spend uh, some time answering those. If uh, if you have a question, uh, please drop that in and we will get to as many as we can. It looks like we’ve got some great time to get through these. Um, so the first question is uh, is the Affinity Beta program still open if we wanted to learn more and potentially participate? Yes, we still do have a few spots left um, but we are quickly moving through uh, requirements gathering so that we can um, we can launch that as uh, as Carter mentioned at the beginning of Q2. So if you are interested in learning more, please connect with your CSM and we will follow up with specific—specifics.
[19:46] Rebecca: The next question is um, around the Affinity Network and how that might work. Will brands be able to be prescriptive on what other brands they show up on through Affinity? For example, competitors or other brands that are not aligned with that original brand’s affinity? Um, we’ve actually talked about this a lot and by design, this is intended to be a uh, a complementary workflow when um, a certain audience member is going through a workflow um, of a brand. So, you know, the examples of um, you know, somebody that is going through a student discount um, verification process for Nike. When you’re in that head space as an—as a—as a engaged consumer looking to make a transaction, the immediate question could be, and we believe it will be: “I wonder what other brands give me similar discounts to the student.” So being able to present like-minded, similar—as you saw in the example that we shared—Whirlpool and uh, Ashley Furniture. So, you know, potentially you’re remodeling your home or you just moved in. The idea here is that we are finding aligned use cases, and the way that that would work is both parties would have to agree to participate with each other reciprocally. So through the Ashley workflow you would see, for instance, Whirlpool; through Whirlpool’s um, workflow you would see Ashley Furniture. And so yes, that is intended to not have competing brands or misaligned brands um, against a specific audience. So, you know, if you’re talking about um, you know, a specific uh, you know, age demographic of seniors, we would want to make sure that you are aligned to another senior audience program that is complementary and most likely to not only ask for um, you know, more information about the offer of the complementary brand but then work through that new to file um, and actually transact on the other end. So um, the answer is yes, uh, we—we absolutely will not be um, uh, working on that on the back end without complete alignment with all brands that are participating.
[22:00] Rebecca: Great, another question. I am not currently using data connectors today. Can you share with me the benefits of prioritizing that this year? Carter, do you want to take that question?
[22:11] Carter: Um, sure. So we’re—we’re working a lot. Obviously, re-verification uh, is a huge—is a huge program that our customers are doing, they’re doing it manually right now. Uh, that is one of the biggest asks we get is to be able to manage those programs. Uh, customers are using them for advanced analytics, uh, they’re bringing them into their CDP for targeting, uh, and they’re running uh, re—they’re running abandoned verification and abandoned cart campaigns. We get a lot of that as well. Uh, that’s a key use case. Somebody verified and they didn’t redeem the offer, they didn’t download the application or sign up for the subscription. So uh, that is—there is such a huge ask to uh, to automate those programs. That’s a big part of the ADP. But right now data connectors do allow you to use that data um, yourself and run those campaigns, but uh, as I mentioned with the marketing playbooks uh, and all of our automation, uh, we’re going to be productizing all of those marketing use cases.
[23:12] Rebecca: Awesome. I think, you know, one of the other missed opportunities for some of our brands that aren’t taking advantage of this is the retargeting against ineligible uh, consumers. So, you know, they—they went through the process of, you know, potentially trying to see as a student that graduated two years ago if they could get access to a student discount and they were ineligible, but they still had interest. And so by using the data connector to pull that new to file into your database, you can retarget them with concession offers or simply work, uh, you know, work other offers and promotions that you have that they could be eligible for to again increase that conversion rate of all consumers that are attempting to go through a verification workflow. So um, you know, I know that Carter and team are prioritizing making that easier uh, for our brands to—to leverage and um, expand the number of data connectors that we have available today. I think the last count was more than 400. Um, um, but uh, as we, you know, continue to look at CDPs and CRMs, that list will inevitably grow throughout the year.
[24:15] Rebecca: All right. Uh, next question. Can you review some of the use cases for the Alliance Network again? Carter, why don’t you take that one?
[24:25] Carter: Um, sure. So the big, as I mentioned before, the Alliance Network is uh, live uh, and we um—we are using it to verify against organizations. Instead of saying somebody’s a student, somebody is a member of an organization or an employee at a company. Um, so they’re using that right now as I mentioned uh, membership against AARP, membership of AAA, um, but what we—the big uh, release is to be able to connect um, to—to Alliance, to create an alliance between two organizations um, and so we have a framework to do that. Right now it is between two companies so that they can link uh, either their customer database, uh, their subscription database or their loyalty programs. Um, so there’s a big uh, ask for two companies to be able to um, share data uh, securely and within their data privacy policies um, so that they’re able to uh, link two programs and be able to—to deliver joint experiences and joint offers. So you’ll see a lot more about that. As I like to say, pretty much anybody who has data is a source of authority, and the Alliance Network allows us to grow that uh, even if they’re not a formal source of authority.
[25:41] Rebecca: Uh, yeah, I—I love that. And, you know, as I’ve been meeting with customers since I joined SheerID, you know, a lot of—a lot of the brands offer employee and employer discounts. And so if you think about one of the, you know, telco—telco uh, providers, they have, you know, hundreds of uh, of discount programs that they offer to employees of other major brands and—and no real way to verify and re-verify that they’re actually eligible for ongoing discounts as a for instance and/or even track individuals that might be using that. Uh, in some cases there’s simply an employee discount button on a—on a register or a—a backend generic um, promotion code that is used for that segment. And so being able to get more intelligence around how those programs are being used but also, you know, remove um, potentially fraud is uh, is another use case there.
[26:39] Rebecca: Uh, another question that just came in is uh, does the Alliance Network allow for verification of specific members of a university? For example, if we wanted to launch a discount specific to the University of Chicago students and faculty? The answer is yes. Um, that—that’s one of the—that’s one of the exciting things about the Alliance Network is that the number of authoritative data sources—and as you heard Carter we’ve got over 200,000 globally—um, but the Alliance Network allows that to be more bespoke and—and get even wider as we think about the possibilities of us being um, that—that kind of connective tissue between two different CRMs, two different uh, data sources. So um, in that situation, um, you know, we would uh—we, you know, if you already have a relationship there we’d ask for you to make that introduction broker that conversation and then we would facilitate the requirements gathering for connecting those two um, those—those two backend um, verification workflows to—to verify um, University of Chicago students and faculty.
[27:45] Rebecca: All right. I know we are out of time. Thank you so much for all of the participation today. Thank you Carter for sharing uh, some of the exciting new innovation that we’re doing today. Um, the last question was: how do I learn about other product updates this year? Um, we’re going to be hosting several roundtables like this um, in the coming months. Um, we also have a monthly newsletter uh, that um, is uh, sent to your inbox on a regular basis. And you also meet very regularly with your CSMs, and they’re going to be a direct conduit for sharing and evangelizing some of the new work and innovation that is forthcoming. So if you want to be on the forefront of the work that we are doing in product launches, make sure that you are uh—you’re communicating with your CSM that you’d like to be considered for future beta programs as we work to bring the rest of the ADP um, uh, to fruition in 2025 and beyond. So thank you all for your participation today and have a great rest of your day.
[28:40] Carter: Great, thanks everybody.
[28:43] [Speakers wave goodbye as video ends]
[00:00] Rebecca Grimes (Chief Revenue Officer – SheerID): Good morning and welcome to our customer roundtable on the future of consumer data and SheerID’s product roadmap. Over the next 30 minutes, we’ll explore how our new ADP activities activate permissioned data, provide deeper insights into your audience, and drive personalization. Plus, we’ll share upcoming product innovation and what’s on the horizon.
[00:25] Rebecca: Before we dive in, just a quick housekeeping note: Today’s session will be recorded and you’ll have access to it on-demand afterwards. We’ll also send a follow-up email with the slides and a recording, so no need to worry about taking notes. We want this to be an interactive discussion, so feel free to drop your questions into the chat at any time, and we’ll make sure to answer them at the end of the session.
[00:46] [Transition to speaker slide featuring Carter Lassy and Rebecca Grimes]
[00:49] Rebecca: Now, before we get started, let me quickly introduce myself. My name is Rebecca Grimes, I am the Chief Revenue Officer at SheerID, and I joined eight months ago. I oversee all of our customer-facing teams, including sales, marketing, and the customer experience teams. I have over 20 years of experience in MarTech platforms and have worked previously with many of the brands on this call today. And I am excited to kick off our year with an update on the innovation and product strategy for 2025 and beyond. And with that, I will hand it over to Carter to introduce himself.
[01:23] Carter Lassy (Chief Product Officer – SheerID): Hi, good morning everybody. I’m Carter Lassy and I am the Chief Product Officer here at SheerID. Uh, I joined in December of last year, and like Rebecca, I’ve got uh, over 20 years of experience in AdTech, uh, MarTech, and digital platforms uh, at companies like Experian, Verizon, and Cheetah Digital. Uh, very, very excited to be part of the SheerID team, and even more excited to be here uh, to present the ADP uh, vision and roadmap with all of you.
[01:52] [Transition to agenda slide]
[01:52] Rebecca: All right, so let’s get started. Um, many of you um, probably know SheerID for our open verification network. And, you know, when I joined, you know, followed by—by Carter and other in—you know, incremental investments that we’ve made in really trying to understand how to further deepen the relationships that you have with your consumers, we—um, we’ve evolved our offering to what you are now seeing as our Audience Data Platform.
[02:22] Rebecca: So we’re going to talk about that today as well as the three networks that are supported by the Audience Data Platform: the Audience Network, the Alliance Network, as well as our new Affinity Network. So we’re also going to spend a few minutes talking about what else is in store for 2025 and beyond. And with that, let’s get into it. Carter, you’re up.
[02:42] [Transition to intro slide: Introducing SheerID’s Audience Data Platform]
[02:43] Carter: Excellent. Thanks, Rebecca. Um, and so last month, uh, SheerID launched its Audience Data Platform. Uh, this is a major milestone in our product line uh, that will greatly expand our marketing and data capabilities. The ADP is the first consumer data collection and activation platform uh, that uses nothing but permissioned data.
[03:04] Carter: Um, and with the ADP, you’ll be able to—you’re going to be—begin to see our transformation uh, of SheerID from a community verification point solution to the highest ROI permissioned data platform on the market. Uh, the ADP’s foundation is SheerID’s powerful data verification network that you all know and have been using um, but its pillars will be three new modules uh, that create new customers and then connect our brands uh, to those consumers to build meaningful relationships. Um, but most of all, the ADP will soon be able to store actionable data uh, and be able to enrich uh, historical consumer records.
[03:43] [Transition to stats slide: SheerID verified customers are incredibly valuable]
[03:44] Carter: So, when we talk about a strong foundation, uh, we are talking about this: SheerID provides uh, enterprise marketers uh, the most trusted verified audience data available. Our brands are able to build and host high-value offers uh, with market-leading conversion rates that dramatically drive uh, higher uh, average order values. Um, the SheerID marketing programs uh, work to acquire and grow high lifetime value and loyal customers for our brands. Uh, the ROI of SheerID is unquestionable and it’s only going to grow and have more capabilities uh, with our expanding roadmap.
[04:22] [Transition to ‘Meet IVE’ diagram slide]
[04:27] Carter: Um, so let’s look at how the Audience Data Platform works. Uh, at its core is SheerID’s powerful Instant and uh, Document Review Engine. This powers the ADP’s three foundational networks. Uh, first, the Audience Network is SheerID proper. These are all the verified communities uh, that you’re using right now and customers have been using for the the past uh, more than a decade. Uh, second, the Alliance Network. Um, the there are uh—the Alliance Network is membership organizations and employers. Uh, any company can be part of the Alliance Network, and we have a big new release we’re going to preview uh, that’s coming to the Alliance Network soon uh, that’s going to allow our customers uh, to connect their consumers’ uh, brand accounts together.
[05:12] Carter: Uh, and then finally, the brand new Affinity Network will be debuting soon. Um, SheerID brands will be able to co-market um, with their portfolio and uh, partner brands to acquire new customers quickly and share key customer account information uh, where desired. Uh, and then once acquired, SheerID’s audience data can be activated in engagement, commerce, and loyalty platforms uh, through our extensive data connect—connector network and our webhooks.
[05:43] [Transition to ‘Audience Network’ feature list slide]
[05:44] Carter: So let’s dive a little deeper into the three networks. So we first, the Audience Network, right? This contains uh, essential high-value audiences uh, such as students, educators, military, healthcare workers, and first responders. Uh, brands can verify age for gated offers and content. Uh, we’re building ever-growing capabilities to customize—to—to allow our brands to customize their audiences and integrate their data.
[06:11] Carter: Uh, we have market-leading global coverage of over 200 countries. Uh, our authoritative uh, sources power audiences and demographic data uh, that boost conversions, return on ad spend, and average order value. Um, our brands are able to build acquisition and growth programs safeguarded by powerful uh, AI-powered offer protection. Uh, and then be able to connect uh, to over 400 leading AdTech, MarTech, data, and analytics platforms uh, so that they can leverage their SheerID data uh, to drive engagement and conversion. This is a very uh, solid foundation uh, to build the ADP.
[06:52] [Transition to ‘Alliance Network’ overview slide]
[06:52] Carter: Next up is the uh, Alliance Network. That’s our second leg. Uh, brands can connect other brands; they can also connect to uh, and uh, verify against member organizations uh, such as AAA and AARP uh, to further verify, acquire, reward, and grow their customer base with other um, organizations. And we just uh, re—recently launched uh—the functionality or we’re launching the functionality so that brands will be able to um, connect uh, membership, subscription, and loyalty programs with their partners. Um, consumers will be able to instantly authenticate and cross-link two accounts uh, which they can then use to unlock specialized and partnered offers. Um, brands can cross-reward uh, between those accounts and exchange critical member and subscriber data completely securely. Um, and loyalty members uh, can redeem points from one program for a reward in the other.
[07:54] [Carter starts a screen-recording demo of a mobile loyalty account linking process]
[08:00] Carter: And just a quick demo. So, uh, in this example, we have uh, two loyalty programs linked together. These could be subscription programs as well, or any sort of membership program. Uh, they understand they have a deal, they go in, and they are able to uh, then log in um, to the primary uh, program. Uh, they’re then uh, brought to a SheerID hosted transition page. Uh, that authentication is uh, micro-cached, uh, and then they’re able to then authenticate in the second partner. Uh, then at—at that point, uh, they are able to uh, connect the two. That all happens quickly behind the scenes. Um, the user uh, has a minimum amount of friction to get those connected. Uh, so now that these two partners are connected, uh, they’re then able to go back uh, to their initial program and then be able to see that that linkage uh, has uh, given them an automatic reward. And uh, that flow of information um, can flow in both directions.
[09:02] [Transition to ‘Affinity Network’ slide]
[09:03] Carter: And then finally, the third uh, leg of the ADP is the Affinity Network. Uh, SheerID—and this is a big demand from our brands—SheerID will begin solving the demand gen needs of our customers. Uh, so starting with this quarter, we’re—we’re launching the beta of the Affinity Network. Uh, SheerID has a great ass—asset. We have uh, hundreds of the best brands on earth using our product. Each one of those brands has countless opportunities to run marketing campaigns with one or more partner. Uh, so the Affinity Network makes that happen in a very streamlined fashion uh, for both brands and their consumers.
[09:41] Carter: Uh, consumers uh, are going to be able to verify with their desired brands and then they will be presented with multiple um, additional offers uh, that they’re able to quickly select and redeem without needing to re-verify. Uh, so this uh, reduces all the friction and a—and expands acquisition and conversion rates. Uh, and this works for one or multiple brands, so one large company with portfolio brands can have it work uh, with each of their business units uh, and we can have it work with up to four partners.
[10:13] Carter: Uh, brands will be able to expand reach by tapping into millions of verified, high-intent consumers. Boost conversions with well-timed, relevant offers with fellow portfolio or complementary brands uh, but at the same time protecting their users’ privacy uh, and gaining very valuable first-party data. And there’s minimal effort involved; SheerID manages integration and execution, and then it’s very easy to add additional partner brands.
[10:41] [Carter starts a screen-recording demo of a verification flow where multiple partner offers appear at the end]
[10:41] Carter: And a quick view of that. Uh, so we have a uh, primary uh, marketer here, a primary brand running a school offer, uh, student offer. They’re able to enter their credentials about uh, from University of Oregon. Uh, that is automatically takes them over and those verification credentials uh, are micro-cached again. They are uh, given a set of up to three offers uh, of um, partner brands. They’re able to select and de-select those brands and offers of interest. They’re then given a uh, verification email uh, with that offer code in it uh, which will take them directly um, to the uh, the co-marketing uh, e-commerce store. So they are able to then go directly in uh, the—the—and then be able to apply their promo code directly in there uh, from the co-marketing program.
[11:44] [Transition to ‘Future State Platform’ diagram slide]
[11:47] Carter: So, and here is how we’re going to evolve the ADP over the coming years. So the three networks create consumer uh—um, consumers and consumer data. So we need a place to put it. Soon the ADP will have an interactive data platform uh, much like what you see on a CDP uh, or an ESP. Uh, it can store data as long as the brand wants. Brands can then build a 360-degree profile of each consumer as they verify and collect data. And customers will be able to see every single attribute uh, we get in a verification, well beyond what they can uh, see today and use today.
[12:25] Carter: And so if you look at the blue outer ring, that really is the future. That is uh—you see five studio modules. These are major investments into our MySheerID portal uh, that we’re going to be evolving uh, into enterprise marketing platform modules. Uh, the first up is Data Studio. Uh, this is the only of the five that’s a completely new module uh, that’s underway right now. Brands will have a visual place to view, to manage, to understand all of their consumer data. They’re going to be able to create automated re-verification and abandoned verification and abandoned cart campaigns and run them uh, those audiences directly out of the ADP to sync uh, with their um—with their uh, various platforms. Uh, they’ll be able to eventually upload millions of consumer records uh, to verify and enrich in batch um, and uh, host data for custom verification flows and personalization.
[13:22] Carter: Next up is the Audience Studio. This extends our existing uh, segmentation tools in our customer portal uh, with more features for marketers like an easy visual interface, advanced data features uh, so that marketers can blend SheerID audiences with their own uh, using their demographic, psychographic, and eventually behavioral real-time and predictive data. Uh, after that is Verification Studio. This builds upon our existing features. They let marketers build multiple customized verification experiences, manage them through all through the ADP portal, and utilize tools such as AB testing of creative to help uh, understand and boost verification conversion rates.
[14:03] Carter: The Marketing Studio will be the next generation of the SheerID programs uh, designed for enterprise marketers. Programs uh, will be able to contain—right now they contain one—they’ll be able to contain multiple offers that you’ll be able to personalize within the program and key them on region, on language, and any other criteria that’s in the ADP. Uh, and after the big one, we’re launching uh, marketing playbooks. Uh, marketers will be able to easily activate high ROI pre-fabricated campaigns for use in AdTech, MarTech, and commerce so that marketers can get up and going with permissioned data campaigns very quickly as their audiences’ verification flows and integrations are already set up.
[14:47] Carter: And last of all, the Intelligence Studio. This is going to be a big investment using ADP data in our existing analytics. Uh, brands will be able to upload their transaction data so they can track success of their SheerID campaigns. Uh, funnel analytics will uh, report conversions through the consumer life cycle funnels, and marketers will be able to compare the performance of their various uh, verification experiences and view—and view them um, business value that they’re driving by audience, by alliance, uh, or by acquisition source.
[15:26] [Transition to ‘2025 Product Roadmap’ section card]
[15:26] Carter: So finally let’s take a look at the other key product and feature milestones that are coming in 2025 to other parts of the platform.
[15:34] [Transition to ‘Audience Network Updates’ timeline slide]
[15:34] Carter: Um, look forward to lots of Audience Network advancements this year. Uh, we’re going to be expanding our global verification capabilities for 18 to 24-year-olds. Uh, brands are going to be able to run young adult campaigns right alongside uh, the high-yielding student programs. Uh, this helps all of you expand your global Gen Z verification TAM by about 2.5x. Uh, we’re going to be putting a lot of investment in our instant coverage globally. We just landed a major new source to cover the United Kingdom. Uh, we’re going to be improving our mapping of organizational hierarchies like domains, uh, corporate, and university systems um, that help—we’re going to be expanding our SSO instant coverage, and we’re going to be investing more in covering educators, um, employers, and low income uh, across uh—um, across the various regions. Uh, and the big one you see here uh, as I mentioned before with the ADP, batch audience verification and enrichment. This is a big ask of our brands to be able to bring in uh, their historical data and have the uh, the SheerID audience data overlaid on top of it.
[16:46] [Transition to ‘Consumer Verification Updates’ timeline slide]
[16:47] Carter: And then finally, uh, big uh, updates to consumer verification. Uh, we’re bringing in a lot more AI to be able to detect uh, manipulated images uh, sent in document review. Uh, this will greatly reduce our uh, offer abuse that we—that we’re constantly uh, defending our brands from. Uh, we are going to advance uh, detection of more—add more signals to detect fraudulent uh, and block fraudulent behavior uh, by enabling secondary checks uh, on documents when we think that risk signals are elevated uh, and to quickly block questionable regions in real time. Uh, performance is a huge factor as well in conversion rates. Uh, we have optimizations rolling out right now that reduce page load times dramatically, and we’re already seeing massive improvements worldwide in how quickly the verification content is loaded. Uh, we’re going to be improving our customer service for our brands uh, that are managing um, some of the document review themselves. Uh, we’re going to have faster decisioning tooling uh, to boost uh, accuracy and speed of our manual review. And then finally, we’re going to, as I mentioned before with the Verification Studio, we’re going to be handing over to our marketers much more control of risk tolerance um, and of the verification uh, flow content and experience. Uh, so they’re going to be able to start easily being able to tune uh, the risk tolerance depending on the value of the offer and the product and boost key performance program—uh, key program performance as a result. Uh, so they’re going to have more and more um, control over their workflow behavior.
[18:29] Carter: Um, so we’re very excited about everything coming out this year. As you see, there’s a major investment especially around innovation um, and we’ll be giving uh, lots more updates uh, as those uh, as those key milestones are rolling out uh, starting with the Affinity and Alliance um, over the first half of this year.
[18:49] [Transition to ‘Q&A’ slide]
[18:50] Carter: And so I’m going to pass it back to Rebecca, um, and uh, we’re going to field some questions and hope to answer uh, everything that we can in the time that we have left.
[19:01] Rebecca: Wonderful, thank you Carter. Um, we did have quite a few questions come through the chat and we’re going to spend uh, some time answering those. If uh, if you have a question, uh, please drop that in and we will get to as many as we can. It looks like we’ve got some great time to get through these. Um, so the first question is uh, is the Affinity Beta program still open if we wanted to learn more and potentially participate? Yes, we still do have a few spots left um, but we are quickly moving through uh, requirements gathering so that we can um, we can launch that as uh, as Carter mentioned at the beginning of Q2. So if you are interested in learning more, please connect with your CSM and we will follow up with specific—specifics.
[19:46] Rebecca: The next question is um, around the Affinity Network and how that might work. Will brands be able to be prescriptive on what other brands they show up on through Affinity? For example, competitors or other brands that are not aligned with that original brand’s affinity? Um, we’ve actually talked about this a lot and by design, this is intended to be a uh, a complementary workflow when um, a certain audience member is going through a workflow um, of a brand. So, you know, the examples of um, you know, somebody that is going through a student discount um, verification process for Nike. When you’re in that head space as an—as a—as a engaged consumer looking to make a transaction, the immediate question could be, and we believe it will be: “I wonder what other brands give me similar discounts to the student.” So being able to present like-minded, similar—as you saw in the example that we shared—Whirlpool and uh, Ashley Furniture. So, you know, potentially you’re remodeling your home or you just moved in. The idea here is that we are finding aligned use cases, and the way that that would work is both parties would have to agree to participate with each other reciprocally. So through the Ashley workflow you would see, for instance, Whirlpool; through Whirlpool’s um, workflow you would see Ashley Furniture. And so yes, that is intended to not have competing brands or misaligned brands um, against a specific audience. So, you know, if you’re talking about um, you know, a specific uh, you know, age demographic of seniors, we would want to make sure that you are aligned to another senior audience program that is complementary and most likely to not only ask for um, you know, more information about the offer of the complementary brand but then work through that new to file um, and actually transact on the other end. So um, the answer is yes, uh, we—we absolutely will not be um, uh, working on that on the back end without complete alignment with all brands that are participating.
[22:00] Rebecca: Great, another question. I am not currently using data connectors today. Can you share with me the benefits of prioritizing that this year? Carter, do you want to take that question?
[22:11] Carter: Um, sure. So we’re—we’re working a lot. Obviously, re-verification uh, is a huge—is a huge program that our customers are doing, they’re doing it manually right now. Uh, that is one of the biggest asks we get is to be able to manage those programs. Uh, customers are using them for advanced analytics, uh, they’re bringing them into their CDP for targeting, uh, and they’re running uh, re—they’re running abandoned verification and abandoned cart campaigns. We get a lot of that as well. Uh, that’s a key use case. Somebody verified and they didn’t redeem the offer, they didn’t download the application or sign up for the subscription. So uh, that is—there is such a huge ask to uh, to automate those programs. That’s a big part of the ADP. But right now data connectors do allow you to use that data um, yourself and run those campaigns, but uh, as I mentioned with the marketing playbooks uh, and all of our automation, uh, we’re going to be productizing all of those marketing use cases.
[23:12] Rebecca: Awesome. I think, you know, one of the other missed opportunities for some of our brands that aren’t taking advantage of this is the retargeting against ineligible uh, consumers. So, you know, they—they went through the process of, you know, potentially trying to see as a student that graduated two years ago if they could get access to a student discount and they were ineligible, but they still had interest. And so by using the data connector to pull that new to file into your database, you can retarget them with concession offers or simply work, uh, you know, work other offers and promotions that you have that they could be eligible for to again increase that conversion rate of all consumers that are attempting to go through a verification workflow. So um, you know, I know that Carter and team are prioritizing making that easier uh, for our brands to—to leverage and um, expand the number of data connectors that we have available today. I think the last count was more than 400. Um, um, but uh, as we, you know, continue to look at CDPs and CRMs, that list will inevitably grow throughout the year.
[24:15] Rebecca: All right. Uh, next question. Can you review some of the use cases for the Alliance Network again? Carter, why don’t you take that one?
[24:25] Carter: Um, sure. So the big, as I mentioned before, the Alliance Network is uh, live uh, and we um—we are using it to verify against organizations. Instead of saying somebody’s a student, somebody is a member of an organization or an employee at a company. Um, so they’re using that right now as I mentioned uh, membership against AARP, membership of AAA, um, but what we—the big uh, release is to be able to connect um, to—to Alliance, to create an alliance between two organizations um, and so we have a framework to do that. Right now it is between two companies so that they can link uh, either their customer database, uh, their subscription database or their loyalty programs. Um, so there’s a big uh, ask for two companies to be able to um, share data uh, securely and within their data privacy policies um, so that they’re able to uh, link two programs and be able to—to deliver joint experiences and joint offers. So you’ll see a lot more about that. As I like to say, pretty much anybody who has data is a source of authority, and the Alliance Network allows us to grow that uh, even if they’re not a formal source of authority.
[25:41] Rebecca: Uh, yeah, I—I love that. And, you know, as I’ve been meeting with customers since I joined SheerID, you know, a lot of—a lot of the brands offer employee and employer discounts. And so if you think about one of the, you know, telco—telco uh, providers, they have, you know, hundreds of uh, of discount programs that they offer to employees of other major brands and—and no real way to verify and re-verify that they’re actually eligible for ongoing discounts as a for instance and/or even track individuals that might be using that. Uh, in some cases there’s simply an employee discount button on a—on a register or a—a backend generic um, promotion code that is used for that segment. And so being able to get more intelligence around how those programs are being used but also, you know, remove um, potentially fraud is uh, is another use case there.
[26:39] Rebecca: Uh, another question that just came in is uh, does the Alliance Network allow for verification of specific members of a university? For example, if we wanted to launch a discount specific to the University of Chicago students and faculty? The answer is yes. Um, that—that’s one of the—that’s one of the exciting things about the Alliance Network is that the number of authoritative data sources—and as you heard Carter we’ve got over 200,000 globally—um, but the Alliance Network allows that to be more bespoke and—and get even wider as we think about the possibilities of us being um, that—that kind of connective tissue between two different CRMs, two different uh, data sources. So um, in that situation, um, you know, we would uh—we, you know, if you already have a relationship there we’d ask for you to make that introduction broker that conversation and then we would facilitate the requirements gathering for connecting those two um, those—those two backend um, verification workflows to—to verify um, University of Chicago students and faculty.
[27:45] Rebecca: All right. I know we are out of time. Thank you so much for all of the participation today. Thank you Carter for sharing uh, some of the exciting new innovation that we’re doing today. Um, the last question was: how do I learn about other product updates this year? Um, we’re going to be hosting several roundtables like this um, in the coming months. Um, we also have a monthly newsletter uh, that um, is uh, sent to your inbox on a regular basis. And you also meet very regularly with your CSMs, and they’re going to be a direct conduit for sharing and evangelizing some of the new work and innovation that is forthcoming. So if you want to be on the forefront of the work that we are doing in product launches, make sure that you are uh—you’re communicating with your CSM that you’d like to be considered for future beta programs as we work to bring the rest of the ADP um, uh, to fruition in 2025 and beyond. So thank you all for your participation today and have a great rest of your day.
[28:40] Carter: Great, thanks everybody.
[28:43] [Speakers wave goodbye as video ends]
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