What marketers are getting wrong about millions of women

Welcome to Ad Age Datacenter Weekly, our data-obsessed newsletter for marketing and media professionals. What early warning signs of a recession could mean for marketers “Recession seemingly has been just around the corner for well over two years, yet the economy and consumer spending just kept chugging along,” Ad Age’s Jack Neff reports. “But now a slew of early warning signs that come from sources weeks or months ahead of most mainstream measures have started flashing bright red, signaling the hard landing may finally be at hand.” The details: Those early warning signs, Neff notes, “include a consumer sentiment survey from CivicScience that generally reports ahead of those from the Conference Board and University of Michigan, plus data from e-commerce data tracking firm Decile that show an uptick in subscription pauses and declines in new product price points, purchase frequency and basket sizes. Fueling consumer pessimism are hefty holiday bills coming due, federal job cuts and hiring freezes at universities, uncertainty about tariffs and fears about Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, which have hit spending by Hispanic consumers, according to CivicScience CEO John Dick.” Essential context: “The increasingly gloomy outlook could pose challenges for marketers across a range of industries, particularly those catering to Hispanic consumers, who experts say could be especially hard hit,” Neff adds. Keep reading here. Macroeconomic news and data in a nutshell • “US labor market holding steady, but job opportunities dwindling,” per Reuters • “Fed Holds Rates Steady, Sees Slower Growth and Higher Inflation,” Bloomberg News reports • “Fed Projections See an Economy Dramatically Reset by Trump’s Election,” from The Wall Street Journal • “February home resales jump much more than expected, despite higher mortgage rates,” CNBC reports Become an All Access subscriber Get access to exclusive resources including Leading National Advertisers, World’s Largest Advertisers, Agency Report, Agency Review Tracker and TV Pricing Report. Click here What marketers are getting wrong about women Data validation platform Truthset is out with new data—shared first with Datacenter Weekly—that calls into question how marketers are targeting millions of women. Two key findings: • Truthset’s analysis of more than 4 billion records about U.S. consumers—parsing datasets from more than 20 major data providers widely used by marketers in Q4 2024—found that the data is accurate 84% of the time when it comes to correctly identifying a female consumer as female. • Truthset, though, found that “data providers can only agree on ‘moms with children present’”—meaning mothers raising children in households (as opposed to mothers with adult children who have moved out of the household) on average 36.5% of the time. This data-validation analysis echoes other recent research about flawed data surrounding parenthood status—specifically, that of Adlook, which found that “when brands run digital ads aimed at parents, they may actually be reaching an audience where 67% don’t even have children,” as Ad Age’s Garett Sloane reported last week. (Adlook’s analysis was conducted by surveying 1,300 consumers online about the accuracy of the data used to reach them.) See all of Ad Age’s 2025 Agency A-List winners here Don’t miss Ad Age’s Data-Driven Marketing Playbook event Where will you be on May 22? We have a suggestion: at City Winery in Manhattan for Ad Age’s Data-Driven Marketing Playbook event focused on unlocking the power of data to shape marketing strategies, refine media buying decisions and elevate customer interactions. Speakers include Jamie Barnard, co-founder and CEO of data tech company Compliant; Obele Brown-West, president of Stagwell’s Colle McVoy; Jeremy Cornfeldt, president of Tinuiti; Arielle Garcia, chief operating officer for digital advertising watchdog Check My Ads; Daniella Harkins, senior VP of go to market at LiveRamp; Kyle Shank, director of media technology, analytics and operations for Hershey Co.; and Dirk Shaw, co-founder and head of product at Veylan, the first AI-native operating system for advertising. Learn more about the event—and sign up for it—here. Become an All Access subscriber Get access to exclusive resources including Leading National Advertisers, World’s Largest Advertisers, Agency Report, Agency Review Tracker and TV Pricing Report. Click here Just briefly • “Sociable: Longer clips are gaining traction on TikTok, data shows,” per Marketing Dive • “Judge blocks DOGE from accessing Social Security data of millions of people,” Politico reports • “FOIA Request: How to Find Out Which Personal Data Was Taken by DOGE,” from Newsweek • “Could We Store Our Data in DNA?” from The New Yorker Data-Driven Marketing Playbook Join us May 22 in NYC to explore how data powers marketing Learn more here The newsletter is brought to you by Ad Age Datacenter, the industry’s most authoritative source of competitive intel and home to the Ad Age Leading National Advertisers, the Ad Age Agency Report: World’s Biggest Agency Companies and other exclusive data-driven reports. Access or subscribe to Ad Age Datacenter at AdAge.com/Datacenter. Ad Age Datacenter is Bradley Johnson and Joy R. Lee. Become an All Access subscriber Get access to exclusive resources including Leading National Advertisers, World’s Largest Advertisers, Agency Report, Agency Review Tracker and TV Pricing Report. Click here

What marketers are getting wrong about millions of women

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