SheerID, whose verification software allows brands to present personalized offers and rewards to members of “tribes” like teachers and the military, has expanded its identity marketing platform, offering employment verification in 191 countries.
“We have expanded our offering to allow brands to identify and acquire customers through corporate perks and corporate partner discount programs,” Bill Schneider, SheerID’s Vice President of Product Marketing, told Multichannel Merchant. “The system can verify an employee of a partner instantly. That gives brands a lot more confidence as they’re looking for new approaches to communicate with a consumer that’s going to get their attention.”
Identity marking empowers brands to identify and acquire new customers whose membership in certain tribes aligns with a brand’s identity. Sheer ID has hundreds of clients, including Target, Amazon, Lowe’s, Comcast, Google, T-Mobile and Urban Outfitters.
Sheer ID now offers brands the ability to verify members of 10 distinct tribes, including military and veterans; first responders; students; teachers; nurses; young adults; senior citizens; and businesses.
The addition of employment verification allows brands to securely identify and reward employees of partner companies with gated, personalized offers. SheerID said traditional corporate programs are typically handled manually or through a generic coupon code.
“Generic coupon codes can easily be passed along, so there’s a high rate of fraud,” Schneider said, estimating the fraud rate at 30% to 35%. “With a verification system like ours, they can verify an employee of a partner instantly, which gives brands a lot more confidence.”
SheerID said brands are seeing increased conversion on the order of 3x and a 25:1 return on advertising spend (ROAS).
For example, Lowe’s military offer program, tied to the MyLowe’s card, has millions of members signed up and outperformed Lowe’s next best campaign by 2-3 times, Schneider said.
SheerID’s addition of verification for young adults and older consumers in 23 countries within the last year lets brands connect with seniors, who wield $15 trillion in global spending power but appreciate and often need a senior discount. And verifying Gen Z customers enables brands to connect with a segment projected to account for 40% of all consumer shopping this year.
Verification of young adults “is particularly interesting in European markets where they have a more expansive view,” Schneider said. “They believe anyone over 18 deserves some support or benefit from a brand as they’re starting out in life.”
In November, SheerID raised $64 million in an equity round led by CVC Growth Partners, which is fueling an expansion into international markets, including the addition of an office in Paris.
Targus is one example of a brand poised to capitalize on SheerID’s expansion. “Employment verification allows us to transform our partner program into an inventive strategy for acquiring new customers,” said Jon Pickard, Senior Manager of Ecommerce at Targus. “We can reward employees at our corporate partners and be confident that when they share the deal with colleagues, the offer will stay protected and not result in discount fraud.”
Like other consumer tribes, employees strongly identify with where they work and feel a sense of belonging to the group. Brands can use corporate partner discounts as a new acquisition channel.
“They feel like they’ve been recognized and they feel like they belong,” Schneider said of consumer tribe members who benefit from personalized offers. “Those are powerful things that drive engagement.”
And loyalty is the dividend of successful engagement. “Loyalty is really driven based on making an emotional connection,” Schneider said. “It’s about providing a moment of unexpected benefit and this type of promotion does that.”
SheerID instantly verifies customers via 9,000 authoritative data sources and 1.3 billion identity attributes. It does not shares or sell customer data.