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Forget Segments, Think Simulations
Population simulators are changing how marketers plan, test, and target. Here’s what you need to know.
Hey friend,
Have you heard of population simulators? If you were at SocialWest, you may have caught Ray Kong (CMO, Arima) and Sabaa Quao’s (President, PlusCo Venture Studio) standout session introducing the concept. If this is new to you, you're not alone! This fast-evolving field is just starting to hit mainstream marketing conversations. And it could reshape how we plan, test, and measure campaigns in the years ahead.
Coming Up
Simulating the Future: How Synthetic Populations are Redefining Marketing Strategy
Marketing data is evolving fast, but most teams still struggle to turn insights into action, especially when budgets are tight, local knowledge is limited and conditions are volatile. Synthetic population modeling is emerging as a powerful, accessible tool that gives marketers the ability to test ideas, target niche audiences, and optimize campaigns using real-world data simulations.
Whether you're at a brand, agency, or nonprofit, synthetic data offers a new path forward. By simulating real-world scenarios, marketers can localize messaging, refine strategies, and reduce guesswork, before any dollars are spent.
And while most teams aspire to be more data-driven, many still lack tools that support localized, real-time decisions. Synthetic population modeling bridges that gap, offering a scalable, practical alternative to traditional targeting models.
In their session "A Marketer’s Dream," Ray and Sabaa demonstrated how synthetic population tools can radically simplify and sharpen campaign planning. Using a fictional dog park activation during Calgary Stampede, they walked through:
Identifying hyper-local audiences (e.g., 25,234 dog owners within 2km of downtown Calgary)
Accessing instant insights on demographics and behaviors
Building a full campaign plan with $100K budget in under an hour
Measuring campaign outcomes with post-campaign simulation tools
With tools like Arima’s, marketers can test, model, and validate strategies before a single dollar is spent, replacing gut instinct with fast, grounded insight.
On July 16, Ray and Sabaa return for a live SocialNext Marketing Alliance webinar to go deeper. They'll address the two most asked questions from their session:
Where does the data come from? A breakdown of how Arima constructs its synthetic population using layered, anonymized real-world datasets.
Can we see more examples? A series of real use cases showing how marketers are applying synthetic data in Canadian contexts across sectors, budgets, and channels.
By 2028, 80% of the Global 2000 will use hyper-synthetic data at scale to enhance decision-making—up from less than 5% today.
Arima is a data science company that creates privacy-compliant synthetic populations to help organizations model, analyze, and predict behavior across communities and regions. Their platform enables marketers to simulate real-world decisions using layered datasets that replicate the demographic, behavioural, and psychographic traits of real populations. With a commitment to innovation, transparency, and ethical data use, Arima offers marketers the ability to test campaigns and understand audiences with a level of precision and scale not possible through conventional methods.
Community Spotlight: Ray Kong, Connecting Big Ideas With Local Action
Ray Kong has always believed that marketers should have better data: faster, clearer, and closer to the communities they serve. As a Partner at Arima, he’s turning that belief into real tools that help organizations across Canada plan smarter campaigns and make confident decisions.
Today, Ray is helping demystify synthetic populations and showing marketers how to move from assumptions to action. He shares his perspective by answering two of the questions we posed as part of this broader conversation around synthetic data and marketing strategy.
For those unfamiliar, what exactly is a synthetic population, and how does it help marketers?
Ray: “Synthetic data is artificially generated data that mirrors real-world patterns. It is quickly gaining traction as a tool for enhancing market research, in marketing strategy formulation, market mix modeling, concept testing, product development, packaging and pricing studies, market sizing, localized geospatial analysis and consumer trend research while addressing privacy and compliance challenges. Hyper local synthetic data is data that is available at the most granular levels of geography or market sizes that modern marketers need.”
We often hear about "data-driven marketing" what makes this approach different from traditional segmentation or analytics?
Ray: “Using synthetic data allows marketers to quickly and safely use the massive amounts of data that are available to them. Easy-to-use platforms are emerging which combine AI and traditional analytics techniques to make all manner of analysis highly accessible to non-technical users. An analogy is our use of GPS today vs. paper maps. In the past, in order to get from point A to point B, we used paper maps and had to manually plot our routes. If we encountered a traffic jam, it was equally a manual process to plot an alternate route, if in fact we had enough advance warning time to do so. Today our GPS devices point us step by step, optimizing time or distance as we instruct it and suggest alternatives based on real-time traffic patterns. The world of marketing data analytics is now the same. Marketers do not need to rely on experts or laborious processes to use their data - AI assisted platforms quickly, efficiently and flexibly power marketers' decision-making.
For a more detailed read, see this article!
Join us in the SocialNext Marketing Alliance for free webinar and workshops every week. Plus, build your network and make connections with marketers across Canada.
Upcoming Webinars, Workshops and Partner Events
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Where: SocialNext Marketing Alliance - RSVP
When: Wednesday, July 9 @ 10 AM MST / 12 PM EST
Where: SocialNext Marketing Alliance - RSVP
Going Deeper on Population Simulators
Ray Kong and Sabaa Quao return to expand on their SocialWest talk with a behind-the-scenes look at how synthetic populations are built and used to power smarter marketing strategies. Get answers to top audience questions and explore real-world Canadian use cases.
When: Wednesday, July 16 @ 10 AM MST / 12 PM EST
Where: SocialNext Marketing Alliance - RSVP
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