Customer-Facing Analytics: 

Gardner's Playbook for Turning 

Audience Data into a Competitive Edge

Kate Hand

Executive Vice President

Gardner Business Media

During a recent MediaGrowth Excellerator interview, Kate Hand, EVP of Gardner Business Media, commented on the company's new GROW Performance platform. GROW Performance redefines B2B audience analytics, offering clients unprecedented transparency and actionable insights. This in-house developed system unifies all audience data, from web and print engagement to events and social media, into a single, comprehensive database.

The platform features a dynamic, customer-facing dashboard providing real-time company activity, customizable impact, and anonymized competitor reports. It also integrates "Bolt," an AI-powered sales assistant for deep company research. GROW Performance's ability to generate granular "Known Audience Comprehensive Reports" effectively replaces traditional BPA audits, offering detailed demographics and engagement data for specific client content.

Strategically, GROW Performance is a direct response to industry challenges like the decline of web display and "zero-click" search, firmly establishing Gardner's first-party "known audience" as its primary monetizable asset. Despite initial internal adoption hurdles, the platform has proven invaluable by significantly reducing sales prep time and fostering more consultative client relationships. This commitment to data integrity and transparency is seen as a major win, positioning GROW Performance as the foundation for future performance-driven products.

Key Takeaways

A Unified Audience Database: To consolidate all audience data, Gardner started with the Omeda platform and layered in its tech stack (using SQL and C#) to create a custom data warehouse. This solved the "painfully manual" process of connecting disparate data sources and ensures all information is in one place.

Customer-Facing Analytics Dashboard: Clients and internal sales teams have direct access to a dynamic dashboard that provides real-time reporting. Key features include a Company Activity Report, a customizable "show the boss" Impact Report, and a Competitor Report for anonymized benchmarking.

AI-Powered Sales Assistance: Sales assistance that allows sales representatives to conduct deep research on companies directly within the system.

Custom, Granular Reporting: GROW Performance provides clients with specific demographics, plant sizes, job functions, and company lists for the audience that has interacted with their specific content or ads.

A Strategic Shift to Combat Market Changes: By focusing on its first-party "known audience," Gardner is building a more resilient and monetizable foundation based on direct relationships.

Commitment to Internal Adoption and Trust: A significant challenge was ensuring the internal sales team adopted the new tool and felt comfortable with its level of transparency. Success was achieved by demonstrating its value in saving time and enabling more consultative client conversations. Maintaining data integrity across multiple sources remains a constant focus to preserve client trust.

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