Data brokers track down, collect, clean up and analyze data about individuals and organizations to turn it into structured data sets. The data comes from various sources of public information, and can include details such as name, age, gender, job title and contact information. Businesses or individuals can then pay data brokers for access to the data. In a business context, that information is often used to identify sales leads, refine targeted advertising efforts or detect fraud. Some of these firms also provide clients with data analysis services to help them extract valuable information from their own internal data.
The following are some top data broker companies serving customers working in areas like lending, investing, real estate, sales and marketing.
Top Data Broker Companies
- Experian
- CoreLogic
- Epsilon
- Acxiom
- LiveRamp
Top Data Broker Companies
Experian is best known for its credit monitoring and reporting services. It collects and processes financial data on individuals, returning customer data and credit scores that are used by nearly all major lenders, from banks and credit card companies to other entities like landlords, background checkers and employment screeners.
CoreLogic is a Fortune 1000 company that provides consumer information, business intelligence, financial and property data and analytics to clients in the insurance, mortgage lending and real estate industries. It conducts research and tracks trends in consumer credit, disaster projections, regulatory compliance and capital markets.
The Epsilon PeopleCloud takes consumer behavior data and uses it to develop insights about what they might be interested in purchasing. Using demographic information, offline purchases and online actions like website visits and email opens, Epsilon generates a profile of each lead, uses partner data to fill in gaps in its information and creates what it calls a “connected identity” for its clients to use in marketing.
Acxiom is a third-party data broker that provides comprehensive data for consumer and audience insights, predictive analytics and data segmentation, which allows marketing campaigns to be appropriately targeted to specific leads. It works with brands like Spotify, Meta, Hulu and Yahoo, offering a “data portrait analysis” that lets potential clients see exactly how Acxiom data would impact their business.
LiveRamp’s main product is a platform for data connectivity: the LiveRamp Data Marketplace. It lets businesses take siloed marketing data from a range of channels and brings it into a single unified data set. The company says it is invested in the ethical use of personal data, employing self-regulatory practices to ensure that data is being used in an ethical manner.
