Confused.com launches Connect offsite commerce media

Insight by Confused.com has launched Connect, an offsite commerce media product for advertisers developed with Epsilon.

The offering gives brands access to anonymised audience signals drawn from comparison-shopping activity, allowing campaigns to run beyond Confused.com's own properties. Advertisers can use the segments across display, online video, connected TV and audio inventory on publisher and streaming platforms.

Insight by Confused.com is part of the comparison site's intelligence business and draws on consumer journeys linked to insurance, utilities and financial products. The launch marks the first time those audience signals have been made available through an offsite media product to advertisers outside insurance.

The product uses blended audience signals matched through Epsilon's CORE Identity graph. This is designed to maintain consistent audience targeting across channels and help advertisers connect media exposure with sales outcomes.

Audience reach

The proposition is aimed at both companies in Confused.com's core markets and brands in adjacent sectors. For insurance, utilities and financial services advertisers, the audience can include consumers seeking quotes or nearing a renewal date.

Outside those sectors, the same signals can identify broader consumer groups such as car owners, homeowners, families with children, business owners and high-net-worth households. This extends the use of Confused.com's comparison data into categories including automotive, retail, telecoms and travel.

Richard Robinson, General Manager, Insight by Confused.com, outlined the commercial case for the product.

"We're excited to give brands access to audience signals built from real comparison-shopping behaviour. When people research car, home, pet or travel insurance, they're often making other purchasing decisions at the same time. Commerce media lets us extend those signals beyond our own environment, helping advertisers reach genuine, in-market audiences across the channels they use every day, with clear measurement of outcomes," Robinson said.

The move reflects continued interest among media and marketing groups in commerce media models that use first-party consumer data to sell advertising beyond owned platforms. Comparison sites, retailers and publishers have increasingly sought to package user intent data into audience products for external advertisers.

Measurement focus

Epsilon's role centres on identity matching and measurement. Its closed-loop measurement system links ad impressions to sales, giving advertisers a direct view of campaign results across channels.

Tim Frankcom, Chief Executive Officer, Epsilon UK, said the quality of the source data was central to the offer.

"The breadth, depth and intent behind Insight by Confused.com's audience signals creates valuable opportunities for advertisers across multiple categories. By activating those signals through Epsilon CORE Identity, brands can reach addressable audiences across the open web and measure the impact on business outcomes. It gives advertisers a way to combine trusted comparison-shopping signals with closed-loop measurement," Frankcom said.

Confused.com has spent more than two decades helping consumers compare insurance and other household financial products, giving it visibility into millions of customer journeys each month. That data footprint underpins the new advertising product and forms the basis of the audience segments now being offered to brands.

The launch also shows how companies with established consumer transaction or comparison data are seeking new revenue streams from advertising and analytics. In this case, Insight by Confused.com is using signals linked to active consumer research and renewal behaviour rather than broader contextual or behavioural indicators.

For marketers, the product is positioned around identifiable moments of purchase consideration. For Confused.com and Epsilon, it creates a route to sell targeted media based on comparison activity across sectors where consumers often make linked purchasing decisions.

Campaigns through Connect can run across connected TV, online video, display and audio, with audience matching handled through CORE Identity.