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Top Alternatives to Affinity for Transaction Data in 2025
Vendor Reviews:
Top Alternatives to Affinity for Transaction Data in 2025
Key Highlights:
Use Cases by Function
7 Key Selection Criteria
Affinity provides transaction data primarily sourced from debit and credit card users. It’s widely used in performance marketing and rewards programs, particularly where targeting upscale audiences is the priority. However, teams seeking full-wallet coverage, broader demographic representation, or data extensibility beyond marketing analytics may find Affinity’s scope limiting.
This guide evaluates Affinity’s performance and shows when Facteus may be a better fit.
Why Teams Replace Affinity
Organizations typically expand beyond Affinity when looking for a broader view into all consumers vs reward and loyalty enthusiasts. Common friction points include:
- Limited visibility into, prepaid, or commercial card spend
- Demographic skew toward users of reward/mileage programs or loyalty
- Limited product or store-level resolution
Collectively, these limitations result in an incomplete picture of consumer behavior. With limited visibility into all American demographic types, teams lack a full 360-degree view of wallet and market share. The absence of product-level data prevents analysis of basket composition, product-level substitution, or promotional impact—critical inputs for some retail strategy, pricing optimization, and forecasting models.
Comparing Affinity Alternatives
Facteus
Alternative Providers (Affinity)
Receipt Panels
Survey Data
Mobile Location Data
Data Source
Includes sales transactions, surveys, GPS
Sales Transaction
Sales Transaction
Sales Transaction
Survey
GPS, cell tower ping
Retailer Breadth
5M physical locations
1M online retailers
uknown
44k physical locations
NA
Similar
Consumer Breadth
180M active cardholders
150M cardholders (~50M active)
1M receipt panelists
500-1000 panelists
Large
Includes demos, affinities, cross-shopping
Good
Good
Good
Good
Mediocre
Transaction Depth
Includes store vs. UPC
Store, UPC
Store
UPC
Can be product level
Store
Time Granularity
Includes day part, day, week
Good
Good
Good
Poor
Good
Speed
<48hrs
Typically >5 days
Typically >7 days
Slow
7-21 days
Custom Questions
NA
Sometimes an add’tl service
Sometimes an add’tl service
Yes
NA
Facteus
Facteus provides real transaction data across 185M+ cards—including credit, debit, prepaid, and commercial sources—with a 1-day lag and UPC/store-level fidelity. Its data is fully synthetic and statistically rebalanced, offering clean demographic coverage across income tiers, regions, and purchase types. This structure minimizes compliance risk while maximizing data utility.
Unlike Affinity, Facteus supports raw data delivery, API access, and flexible integration into BI tools or ML workflows. It is used by hedge funds, FP&A teams, and product analysts alike to power decision automation, competitive benchmarking, and spend modeling. While Affinity remains strong in performance marketing use cases, Facteus extends well beyond that domain.
Who Should Switch From Affinity—and Why
Use Case
Affinity Limitation
Facteus Advantage
Granular modeling
Merchant and demographic views
UPC, store, and demographic views
Compliance + procurement
PII exposure, loyalty-only sourcing
Synthetic, PII-free, enterprise-safe
Final Take
Affinity continues to be a valuable solution for marketing teams focused on loyalty audiences and high-level trend analysis. Its structured approach and stable merchant metrics support a range of activation and targeting strategies. However, for organizations seeking real-time signals, full-wallet modeling, or integration into operational systems, complementary or alternative providers like Facteus may offer more flexibility and analytical depth.
Facteus provides multi-source coverage, granular metadata, and enterprise-ready infrastructure that broadens what teams can build and benchmark. Choosing between these platforms depends on your specific goals—campaign targeting versus strategic forecasting, signal breadth versus precision, and static reporting versus dynamic integration.
Explore Alternatives for Other Providers
Facteus is the only provider combining store-level, SKU-level, and B2B transaction data—safely, scalably, and in near real time.
Not sure which data is right for you?
Request a Demo and we’ll walk you through the best-fit solutions for your team.
