Beyond the AI Hype: How Quality Data Delivers Real Marketing ROI

CHICAGO, IL – January 14, 2026 – In an industry saturated with promises of artificial intelligence transforming business, a new collaboration offers a dose of reality, proving that the age-old adage of “garbage in, garbage out” is more relevant than ever. TransUnion (NYSE: TRU) and predictive intelligence firm Actable have announced breakthrough results demonstrating that the success of AI in marketing is fundamentally tied to the quality of the data it consumes. By integrating TransUnion’s comprehensive TruAudience® Marketing Solutions dataset into Actable’s machine learning models, the partnership achieved a 10% improvement in model fit, providing a tangible benchmark for the value of superior data.

The findings directly challenge the narrative that AI is a magic bullet, reinforcing a foundational principle of data science. “AI isn’t magic, its output is only as good as the information it's given,” said Brian Silver, EVP of Global Marketing Solutions at TransUnion, in a statement. “Garbage in, garbage out still applies. These results prove that when you start with a strong data foundation, AI can deliver meaningful lift and real ROI.”

The 'Garbage In, Garbage Out' Solution

While many organizations are rushing to adopt AI, industry reports indicate a widespread lack of confidence in the data being used to train these sophisticated systems. Fragmented customer identities, incomplete profiles, and poor data quality can severely undermine the predictive power of any algorithm, leading to flawed insights and wasted resources. The TransUnion-Actable project provides a clear case study in overcoming this critical hurdle.

The collaboration’s success hinges on TransUnion’s ability to provide a single, reliable source of truth for AI systems. Its TruAudience identity graph, significantly bolstered by the acquisition of Neustar, offers a panoramic view of the American consumer. Covering over 98% of the U.S. adult population, the dataset is enriched with more than 700 demographic attributes and 15,000 behavioral signals. This allows AI models to move beyond simple transactional data and understand consumers on a much deeper level, linking online and offline behaviors to a persistent, unified identity.

This level of detail is precisely what is needed to fill the knowledge gaps that plague most marketing datasets. “TruAudience data proved most powerful where knowledge gaps exist,” noted Matt Greitzer, Co-Founder of Actable. The partnership illustrates that enriching first-party data with high-quality, third-party intelligence is not just an enhancement but a necessity for unlocking the true potential of predictive marketing.

A Blueprint for Winning Back Lost Customers

The most compelling evidence from the partnership comes from its application to a notoriously difficult marketing challenge: customer win-back campaigns. The project focused on a major retailer attempting to re-engage customers who had churned and were now purchasing from competitors. These campaigns are often a high-stakes gamble, involving costly tactics like direct mail catalogs and premium paid media, with success heavily dependent on identifying the right audience.

By feeding Actable’s AI model with the enriched data from TruAudience, the team was able to reduce false positives by a staggering 19.5%. In practical terms, this means the model became significantly better at distinguishing which former customers were genuinely likely to return versus those who were not. For a retailer, this translates directly to the bottom line. A nearly 20% reduction in targeting errors means fewer expensive catalogs sent to unresponsive households and a more efficient allocation of digital ad spend toward individuals with a real propensity to re-engage.

This result serves as a powerful blueprint for any business grappling with customer churn. It demonstrates that by investing in a better understanding of who their former customers are now—their current behaviors, interests, and demographic profile—companies can transform their re-engagement strategies from hopeful shots in the dark to precisely targeted, high-ROI initiatives.

Navigating a Crowded Field of Data Titans

TransUnion and Actable are not operating in a vacuum. The marketing technology landscape is dominated by data giants like Experian, Epsilon, and Acxiom, alongside identity resolution specialists like LiveRamp, all competing to provide the data infrastructure for modern marketing. These companies leverage their own vast consumer datasets and identity graphs to help brands unify customer views and power personalized advertising.

Where the TransUnion-Actable collaboration carves out its distinction is in its public, quantified validation on a specific, complex business problem. The 10% lift and 19.5% false-positive reduction provide concrete metrics that move the conversation beyond platform features and toward measurable business outcomes. This emphasis on proven ROI is critical in a market where, according to some studies, marketers utilize only a fraction of their technology stack’s capabilities.

Furthermore, the importance of robust identity resolution, the core of TransUnion's TruAudience, cannot be overstated in today's privacy-first, post-cookie world. As traditional tracking methods become obsolete, the ability to ethically and accurately link fragmented data points to a single consumer identity has become the foundational element of effective digital marketing, separating the leaders from the laggards.

Charting the Future of Marketing Intelligence

Beyond solving the immediate win-back challenge, the collaboration has illuminated a path forward for tackling other data-scarce marketing scenarios. The partners identified several promising future applications where enriched data can unlock significant value. These include targeting anonymous website visitors, for whom businesses often have little to no information, and prospecting for entirely new customers by modeling the attributes of existing high-value patrons.

Another key area is the marketing of luxury goods and other products with long, complex buying cycles. For these high-consideration purchases, recent behavioral signals are often weak or non-existent. Success depends on understanding a consumer’s lifestyle, wealth indicators, and long-term interests—attributes that can only be supplied by a deep, comprehensive dataset like the one used in this project.

As AI becomes further embedded in the fabric of marketing, these results signal a crucial shift in focus. The competitive advantage will no longer lie in simply having AI, but in the strategic investment in identity resolution, seamless data connectivity, and continuous enrichment. The partnership between TransUnion and Actable serves as a powerful reminder that the future of intelligent marketing will be built on a foundation of intelligent data.