Assumed Seeds are artificial consumer contact records with real working email addresses and phone numbers. You can plant these contact records in your marketing lists, use them to fill out online forms, and even place them in your CRM or any data store containing personal information you want to protect. Primary use cases for Assumed Seeds include detecting indicators of data leaks and vetting data partners. The concept is simple but can be applied to a number of relevant use cases, limited only by your imagination.
In the early days of Assumed, I thought about how our contact seeds might help conduct market research, gather competitive intelligence and generally see what marketers are up to in the online retail industry. Assumed Seeds are a simple solution for this purpose and allow you to observe marketing communications and test data flows such as opt-out processes without exposing your personal information or actual consumer data and avoid subjecting you to the tedious work of creating fake consumer accounts for this purpose.
With the holiday season fast approaching, there is a lot you can discover using Assumed Seeds. Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the ensuing marketing frenzy are just around the corner. Could Assumed Seeds help me navigate the world of online retail? What fascinating insights could I uncover about the marketing practices, promotional campaigns and strategies of some of the most popular online gift-giving platforms?
I’m no market researcher, but with just a handful of seed contacts, I gathered some interesting insights and invalidated some of my preconceived assumptions about online retailers and their marketing activities during the holiday shopping season.
Watch the video below to learn more about using Assumed Seeds for market research and how I conducted my own research:
