What is Alternative Data, and Why Should You Be Using It?

Secondary Data Analysis

Organisations, research entities and government bodies often share their data. Secondary data (also known as alternative data) is one of two main data types.

Primary data comes from an original source where the data is collected firsthand. Rather than consulting primary data from research initiatives and similar, secondary data takes advantage of existing information to carry out new research. The public, businesses and approved users can maximise alternative data’s usefulness, applying the original data to new purposes. Alternative data can be qualitative, quantitative or both.

Some examples of alternative (or secondary) data include:

• News Data
• Newswires and Press Releases
• Company and Industry Data
• Legal Information
• Magazines and Trade Publications
• Intellectual Property (IP) and Patents Data

The Benefits of Secondary Data Analysis

Several advantages come with the interpretation of alternative data:

1. Secondary data can save you time, resources and money. Purchasing secondary data is generally more cost-effective than starting your research from scratch, as you don’t have to duplicate potentially expensive research work that is already available. Instead, you can focus your efforts on the data’s analysis, rather than its collection.
2. Assuming alternative data is up-to-date, unbiased, and from a trusted source, it can provide information of remarkable breadth and depth about people and organisations that may otherwise be difficult to come by. For example, government agencies often research on a national scale. These studies typically span multiple years, and access to this secondary data enables you to examine changes and trends over time.

Sources of Secondary Data

It requires minimal effort to reap the benefits of secondary data, especially with the aid of data-analysis APIs. Here are just some of the areas you gain access to with Nexis Data as a Service.

News Data

Stay up to date and ahead of the curve with our global online news database. Access leading newspapers from around the world, as well as radio and TV broadcast transcripts. These deliver comprehensive coverage on political, social and economic events on a local and global scale. Nexis DaaS’ alternative data bank covers 75 languages and more than 100 countries. We add millions of articles and posts to this collection daily.

Newswires and Press Releases

With alternative data across news and social commentary, an organisation’s PR, marketing and sales teams can collaborate to:

• Leverage current and historical news articles for predictive analytics applications, to better anticipate news cycles or track your brand portfolio
• Find out where PR, marketing and sales initiatives are performing best with geo-location metadata
•  Evaluate the effectiveness of your messages and campaigns, through data sentiment analysis across global news data
• Analyse the origins of negative sentiment to pinpoint the media outlets and influencers you need to engage

In turn, this leads to a more holistic approach to prospect engagement as you can optimise spending, maximise reach and amplify your brand’s voice.

Company and Industry Data

With Nexis DaaS business datasets at your fingertips, you can analyse economic trends, track your brand portfolio and perform critical Big Data applications. Here are just a few of the areas our company and industry data covers:

• Company profiles and reports
• Corporate hierarchies
• Financial reports
• Mergers and acquisitions activity

Legal Information

Nexis DaaS features a plethora of legal data for your secondary data analysis:

• Global treatises
• Court dockets
• Sanctions and watchlists
• Risk management and compliance data on politically exposed persons (PEPs)
• Supply chain information related to manufacturing and shipping

Magazines and Trade Publications

Access targeted magazines and trade journals for crucial perspectives and intelligence on industry drivers and company events.

Intellectual Property (IP) and Patents Data

Find aggregated content from more than 80 data sources and patent authorities.

Nexis Data as a Service

In today’s data-driven world, companies need to draw actionable insights from Big Data. But to succeed, businesses need to cut through the sheer volume of content and information available. To a business owner, finding the relevant information for alternative data analysis can be a daunting task. Regardless of the data analysis tools and techniques your organisation uses, you can benefit from the volume of our data.

LexisNexis has over 40 years of experience, aggregating content and building up a massive source universe. Our application programming interfaces (APIs) are easy to integrate, delivering valuable, targeted media monitoring data to help you conduct qualitative data analysis. Nexis Data as a Service (DaaS) connects you to highly relevant content to suit your alternative data analysis needs.