What Is Syndicated Data?

Syndicated data is a type of aggregated data that brings together product retail sales activity across a particular set of parameters. This data can be either retailer sales data, shopper panel data, or a combination of both. Syndicated data lets you avoid issues of POS data vs panel data and use whatever you need to make informed decisions.

At its core, syndicated data can be boiled down to two useful situations: defending your space with competitive intelligence or growing your brand with market insights.

Top 3 Reasons Syndicated Data Is Worth It

Investing in expanded headcount, new product lines in your assortment or digital marketing campaigns immediately come to mind as bearing rightful claims to the marketing budget. Most companies agree on the importance of using data to fuel decisions. But, investing in new sources of data often seems like a “nice to have” instead of a “must-have”. This is especially true when budgets are being determined.

So, the team might wonder if an investment in syndicated data is actually worth it.

(Hint: It definitely is!)

Here are the top 3 reasons syndicated data is worth it:

1. Access competitive intelligence

Retail data analytics without context isn’t helpful. It’s like going to a foreign country and not knowing the exchange rate. Syndicated data delivers competitive benchmarks to provide the necessary context for measuring your brand’s performance.

For example, you might have celebrated your 10% sales growth year over year. That is until you realized from your syndicated report that your share of category sales actually declined because your primary competitor grew 15%. That context tells you there’s an opportunity for improvement to grow even faster.

This same report gives you a valuable piece of information to take to your upcoming meeting with their retail partner. The data shows that your brand sells on average $10,000 a year at each store where it’s sold while your competitor only sells $8,500 per store. Now you can use this information to show the retailer that your product performs better than the competition and deserves to be sold in more stores. Which is exactly the type of insight Serenity Kids used to convince a retailer to increase their distribution.

Retailers often expect their manufacturer partners to provide that same context for their own performance. If the retailer’s competition increased sales twice as much in your category then the retailer may want to make some changes. This could include eliminating their lowest-performing brands. Armed with the right metrics, you could defend your shelf space if the retailer was considering ‘delisting’ your brand. You could show your brand’s sales potential compared to your competitors when you’ve leveled the playing field by accounting for their broader distribution and thus higher sales.

2. Identify growth opportunities

Syndicated data can help diagnose what’s wrong, but it can also expose growth opportunities especially if you know what types of data your brand should be collecting.

Growing distribution with new retailers is a common growth scenario. Most brands won’t be too discerning where the distribution growth occurs. But, limited sales representatives could mean a need to prioritize which accounts you pursue first or most actively. With access to POS data from hundreds of retailers, including e-commerce forces like Amazon, a syndicated report can show how different retailers are performing in your category. This lets your sales team prioritize appropriately.

You might focus on retailers whose category sales have declined where you feel you could help them turn their performance around. Or, you might choose to focus on the biggest retailers because your goal is to grow brand exposure. This opens you up to a large set of new customers. While it’s obvious that Walmart or Amazon are leading retailers, it’s not always so clear for smaller chains. Especially since a retailer could have strong performance in one area but not yours.

3. Optimize product pricing and promotion

For many brands, particularly those in their midsize years, pricing and promotion become a major focus. Syndicated data offers accurate, actionable insights that make all the difference.

When looking at sales figures, you might be asking yourself if there’s an opportunity to modify your pricing or improve the promotional performance to gain more sales. If you’re considering raising prices to combat the recent inflation, you could use syndicated data to evaluate how your competitor’s price increase impacted their sales. Or, you may be able to identify products where you’re actually charging a premium and a slight price drop could increase velocity. Pricing impacts everything from sales figures to shelf placement, so a firm grasp on yours is vital to growth.

Similarly, you might be considering a new promotion that follows your competitor’s recent 2-for $4 promotion. Syndicated data can show if the promotion helped the competitor generate incremental sales or if it wasn’t that effective, so you can adjust your plans accordingly. Many retailers expect CPG manufacturers to run promotions regularly to keep their shelf space. Optimizing your will help increase sales, build relationships, and avoid getting delisted.

Is it worth it?

Wayne Gretzky famously said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Byzzer was built with the belief that all CPG companies should have a fair opportunity through affordable access to the same data as leading companies. If you’re ready to take the shot, we’d love to talk to you. We can even help with education around CPG data and analytics.

Sign up for a free account with Byzzer today for access to three free category and brand trend reports or request a demo with one of our solution specialists.