Better data, bigger impact: Why data aggregation matters

Better data drives smarter marketing. And in today’s world of AI and automation, the difference between good and great often comes down to how quickly marketers can connect the dots across data sources. For companies serious about performance, speed to market and data aggregation are not just buzzwords—they’re foundational.

The right blend of advanced technology, large-scale data aggregation and AI-driven optimization unlocks meaningful, measurable marketing results. According to Kristopher Lazzaretti, SVP President of Data, the difference lies in scale and intelligence.

“A key differentiator of our business is that we aggregate data from well over 100 sources, [resulting in] billions of different insights about consumers and small businesses,” Lazzaretti shared. “All of that data has to be brought together.”

What is data aggregation, and why does it matter?

Data aggregation is the practice of gathering, consolidating and organizing information from various data sources. In the context of marketing, data aggregation allows organizations to build a richer, more complete view of a prospect by drawing insights from multiple angles—like life events, behaviors, preferences and transactions.

At Deluxe, data is aggregated from three main categories:

1. Data unique to consumers
2. Data attributable to both consumers and businesses
3. Data unique to businesses

This comprehensive approach matters because no single data source has complete coverage. If marketers rely only on one stream of insight, they’re likely missing opportunities—or worse, wasting spend.

“A consumer or a business can represent their name, address or digital identifiers in almost an unlimited number of ways,” Lazzaretti explained. “What our large language model does is help us reconcile all of those different representations of names and addresses and understand where the same consumer is represented across multiple databases.”

This process—called entity resolution—is critical for accurate targeting and personalization; and AI has made it significantly faster, efficient and more scalable.

AI enhances accuracy and speed

The marketing world moves fast, and the brands that respond in near real-time are the ones most likely to win. Aggregated data alone is powerful, but AI makes it agile.

“We are streamlining our processes and removing all of the undifferentiated heavy lifting by using leading-edge AI capabilities to remove manual effort,” said Lazzaretti. “Now our team gets more time to spend supporting our customers and delivering on their business objectives.”

By reducing manual data cleansing and list hygiene tasks, AI enables marketing teams to operate faster without sacrificing quality. That speed translates directly to results, especially when it comes to life-event trigger marketing.

Benefits: Cleaner data = bigger opportunity

Deluxe’s aggregated data file is about four times larger than that of competitors in the market. But size alone isn’t the advantage—it’s what’s done with that data that makes it actionable.

Once the data is aggregated, Deluxe’s systems remove underperforming records, de-duplicate entries and optimize the list. The result? Fewer blind spots, more callable leads and better overall campaign efficiency.

Here’s how that translates to performance:

• Higher revenue potential: Deluxe clients report greater account balances and revenues when using aggregated data versus single-source lists.
• Cost savings: Aggregation yields economies of scale—fewer fixed costs per lead, better data hygiene and more efficient list management.
• First-mover advantage: With AI-powered speed, Deluxe clients are often the first to reach a consumer after a trigger event. With an aggregated list free of duplicates, a single customer only appears on the list once. This gives you a greater chance of reaching prospective customers faster than your competitors getting their data from a single, non-aggregated source.

In marketing, a few days can make all the difference. Trigger marketing is about connecting at the right time with the right message. The faster data is acted on, the more likely your product is to land in the consideration set—or even the checkout cart.

Key takeaways

1. Smarter marketing starts with better data—and the best data comes from aggregation.
2. AI-driven optimization enhances speed, accuracy, and scalability of data aggregation.
3. Speed to market is a competitive advantage, especially in trigger campaigns.
4. Clean, de-duplicated and optimized data delivers more revenue, more leads and higher efficiency.