At A Glance
Sell-side decisioning is changing how publishers and advertisers collaborate, improving efficiency and fostering more meaningful connections. Experian’s syndicated audiences and data solutions help both sides reach the right audiences with greater transparency and privacy.In our Ask the Expert Series, we interview leaders from our partner organizations who are helping lead their brands to new heights in AdTech. Today’s interview is with Paul Zovighian, VP of Marketplaces at Index Exchange.
Sell-side activation vs. buy-side packaging
What’s fundamentally changed with sell-side decisioning, and how does it now diverge from traditional buy-side packaging?
Sell-side decisioning is programmatic’s next major evolution – one that redefines how intelligence enters the transaction. Advances in infrastructure and computing power now allow supply-side platforms(SSPs) to act in the crucial pre-bid moment, enriching impressions with context, quality, and data before they reach the buy side.
This isn’t just about efficiency; it’s about unlocking new value. Smarter requests mean buyers see only the most relevant opportunities, while publishers gain recognition for the true worth of their audiences and environments.
We’re still at the beginning of this shift. Many players still package inventory without engaging in real pre-bid intelligence. As the market matures, the companies that evolve toward sell-side decisioning will be the ones to set the pace for programmatic’s future.
Economic shifts with scaled curation
As curation scales, what economic levers shift for both publishers and buyers, and how do those shifts influence deal structure and media planning?
As curation scales, one of the most powerful levers is data. It’s the industry’s most valuable asset, and on Index it keeps its full worth. We don’t take a platform cut or add hidden fees, so data partners benefit from the clearest, most efficient economics in the market. Data vendors gain confidence that their economics aren’t eroded by a platform tax.
For publishers, this means stronger yield and more ad spend flowing directly into working media. When data retains its full value, it enhances how impressions are packaged, priced, and differentiated—driving more competition for quality inventory and more opportunities for revenue.
For buyers, it means compressed supply paths and total transparency – they know exactly what they’re paying for. With no intermediaries and full transparency into economics, buyers gain a clearer view of where their budgets go and the confidence that their investments reach real audiences in trusted environments. They benefit from cleaner supply chains, better performance, and more meaningful alignment between spend and outcome. The result is a healthier marketplace where both sides benefit from efficiency, fairness, and scale.
Moving decisions upstream for value
What decisions historically made in DSPs should now move upstream to publishers or SSPs to unlock more value, and which should remain buy-side?
Decisioning is no longer confined to demand-side platforms(DSPs). We can enrich impressions by applying intelligence — via data, algorithms, creative technology, and more, before they even reach the buy side — adding context, filtering out low-quality supply, and expanding audience discovery.
This isn’t about shifting roles; DSPs remain critical for campaign strategy, optimization, and budget allocation. The sell side simply ensures every bid request is smarter from the start, creating more value for all parties.
In doing so, we also alleviate pressure on DSPs — enabling more comprehensive data discovery by searching for signals at the top of the funnel, prior to optimization. That means DSPs can focus on what they do best, supported by a cleaner, more transparent supply path.
Index Marketplaces use cases explained
Index Marketplaces is designed to enable the strength of our partners, and Experian brings one of the broadest sets of demographic and audience insights in the industry. That scale enables a wide variety of applications, from more precise audience activation to deeper measurement and analytics.
What’s different on the sell side is how those insights are applied. By activating Experian’s syndicated audiences directly at the point of decision, their value is realized in real time and across the full scale of the open internet. Buyers gain a clearer path to relevant audiences, and publishers benefit from stronger alignment between data and media.
It’s an approach that ensures partners like Experian can maximize the impact of their assets while helping the market move toward more intelligent, performance-driven activation.
Identity signals with stronger privacy
For identity partners like Experian, what’s the right way to bring audience, context, and propensity signals into sell-side activation?
The beauty of sell-side decisioning is that it reduces the hops in how identity signals are applied. Without it, IDs have to travel through multiple platforms, creating extra handoffs and additional risks of data loss or leakage.
With sell-side decisioning, those signals are obfuscated under a deal ID and applied directly at the point of decision. That means audience, context, and propensity data are activated securely, without ever leaving the sell-side environment.
For partners like Experian, it’s the cleanest path to value: fewer hops, stronger privacy protection, and clearer economics for everyone in the chain.
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About our expert
Paul Zovighian
VP of Marketplaces, Index Exchange
Paul Zovighian carries over a decade of industry expertise, stemming from his analytics and optimization roots to his current post as VP, Marketplaces, where he is focused on the commercial activation of Index’s newest product, Index Marketplaces. Previously, in his role as VP of corporate development, Paul led Index’s first-ever business acquisition. In his spare time, he enjoys long walks on the beach and befriending cats in NYC’s thriving bodega community.
About Index Exchange
Index Exchange is a global advertising supply-side platform enabling media owners to maximize the value of their content on any screen. They’re a proud industry pioneer with over 20 years of experience connecting leading experience makers with the world’s largest brands to ensure a quality experience for consumers.
FAQs
Sell-side decisioning allows publishers to add intelligence, like audience data and context, before ad impressions are sent to buyers. This makes the process more efficient and ensures advertisers see only the most relevant opportunities.
Traditional buy-side packaging happens after impressions are sent to demand-side platforms (DSPs). Sell-side decisioning moves some of that intelligence upstream, enriching impressions earlier and reducing inefficiencies.
Curation refers to the process of organizing and enriching ad inventory with data and context. For publishers, it leads to better yield and more ad spend going directly to their media. For advertisers, it means clearer, more transparent supply paths.
By applying audience and identity signals directly on the sell side, data stays within a secure environment. This reduces the number of platforms handling sensitive information, lowering the risk of data loss or leakage.
Experian provides demographic and audience insights that are activated directly at the point of decision. This helps advertisers reach the right audiences more effectively while ensuring publishers can maximize the value of their inventory.
When publishers and SSPs handle some decisioning earlier, DSPs can focus on campaign strategy and optimization. This creates a cleaner, more efficient process for everyone involved.
A deal ID is a unique identifier used in programmatic advertising to bundle audience and context signals securely. It ensures data is applied without being exposed or shared across multiple platforms.
Latest posts
Holiday shopping in 2025 feels a lot like a complicated relationship. Shoppers want deals, but they also want trust. They start shopping early, but they’re still browsing well into December. They love the convenience of online shopping, but they still show up in-store before making the final call. Our 2025 Holiday spending trends and insights report, created this year in collaboration with GroundTruth, explores these contradictions. Our findings show that this year’s holiday season isn’t about one big shift; it’s about managing the push and pull between what consumers say, what they do, and how marketers respond. Here are three complicated truths you need to know. Experian's 2025 Holiday spending trends and insights report Optimize your 2025 holiday shopping campaigns with our latest report with GroundTruth. Download now 1. The new rules of holiday timing Almost half (45%) of consumers plan to start shopping before November, but 62% admit they’ll still be buying in December. And post-holiday shopping (think gift card redemptions and deal-hunting) remains a real factor. Why it’s complicated The holiday calendar isn’t what it used to be. There’s no single “big moment” anymore. Instead, shoppers are spreading purchases across months, peaking around the “Turkey 12” (the 12 days surrounding Thanksgiving) and again in the final December rush. What to do about it Stretch your campaigns across the full season, not just Cyber Week. Refresh offers to stay relevant as shopper motivations change from deal-seeking to last-minute urgency. Watch for post-holiday momentum and extend your promotions into January. How belVita nailed the timingIn celebration of National Coffee Day, belVita partnered with GroundTruth on a one-month campaign to boost product awareness and drive foot traffic to Target stores. By utilizing digital out-of-home (DOOH) and mobile ads powered by location, behavioral, and purchase-based targeting, the campaign achieved a 3.44% visitation rate, nearly $476k in products added to carts, and a low cost-per-visit of just $0.22. 2. Online leads, but in-store still seals the deal Nearly 40% of shoppers say they’ll split their purchases between online and in-store and 80% of consumers still prefer the in-store experience. Only a small fraction plan to shop exclusively in one channel. That means while digital often starts the journey, the final decision often happens in a physical store. Why it’s complicated Shoppers love the convenience of browsing online, but they still want the reassurance of seeing, touching, or testing products before buying. In-store isn’t just about the transaction, it’s the validation step. What to do about it Build omnichannel strategies that connect digital discovery with in-store follow-through. Use location and identity data to tie digital impressions to real-world actions, like foot traffic and purchases. Focus on consistency: shoppers expect the same value, tone, and trust whether they’re on a website, in an app, or standing in a store aisle. How Duke Cannon used on-premise targeting to drive sales liftDuke Cannon, a premium men's grooming brand, partnered with GroundTruth to launch a successful multichannel campaign utilizing location-based and behavioral audience targeting across CTV and mobile screens to drive in-store visits and sales. By targeting consumers with mobile ads while they were physically in-store, the company capitalized on high purchase intent, aiding in the 12% sales lift. This strategic approach resulted in over 43.9k provable in-store visits and a significant increase in sales. 3. Marketers double down, consumers hold back This holiday season, expectations are split. 66% of marketers expect holiday spend to rise, but only 22% of consumers agree. While brands are leaning into bigger investments across CTV, retail media, and social, shoppers are staying cautious, weighing value and waiting for the right deal. Why it’s complicated That disconnect introduces risk. If marketers don’t align spend with real consumer behavior, budgets can get wasted in the rush to cover every channel. Shoppers haven’t stopped spending, but they're spending differently. They’re trading down to discount and big-box retailers while cutting back in discretionary categories like apparel and restaurants. What to do about it Prioritize efficiency by focusing on the right audiences, not just more impressions. Make consistency your advantage: reach people once and connect across platforms instead of chasing fragmented signals. Balance aggressive media investment with messaging that acknowledges consumer caution — shoppers want value and trust, not hype. Measuring TV and streaming impact with iSpotiSpot’s Audience Builder, powered by Experian’s Marketing Attributes, helps brands reach high-value audiences. During the holiday season, a luxury retailer could target $100K+ households with affluent lifestyle interests. With iSpot’s Unified Measurement platform, they can track performance across linear TV and streaming and shift spend in real time to maximize results. The bottom line on 2025 holiday shopping trends This year’s holiday shopping season is, well…complicated. Shoppers are cautious but still engaged. They’re early planners and last-minute browsers. They want the ease of digital, but the confidence of in-person. For marketers, the opportunity lies in embracing that complexity, not trying to simplify it away. The brands that balance relevance, trust, and convenience across the full season and across every channel will be the ones that win. Download our full 2025 Holiday spending trends and insights report to explore all five shifts shaping this season and see how you can turn complexity into opportunity. Download About the author Fred Cheung Director, Partnership Sales, Audigent, a part of Experian Fred Cheung has spent over a decade in the programmatic advertising space, with roles at Mindshare, Jounce Media, Twitter, and The Trade Desk. His deep experience in trading and product management helps in his current function on the Experian Marketing Services’ Sales team where he focuses on data growth and adoption across the industries’ leading buy-side platforms. 2025 holiday shopping trends FAQs Why is holiday shopping in 2025 described as “complicated”? Because consumer behavior is full of contradictions. People will shop earlier but also later, browse online but purchase in-store, and want deals while demanding trust. Marketers need to navigate these push-and-pull dynamics. When do most shoppers plan to start their holiday shopping? Nearly half (45%) say they’ll start before November, but 62% admit they’ll still be buying in December, with momentum even continuing into January through gift card redemptions and deal-hunting. What role do physical stores still play in holiday shopping? Although many consumers begin online, the majority still make their final decisions in-store. In-person shopping acts as a validation step where customers can see, touch, or try products before buying. How should marketers adapt their strategies to shifting holiday timing? Instead of focusing only on Black Friday or Cyber Week, marketers should stretch campaigns across the full season, refresh offers frequently, and continue promotions into January. Are marketers and consumers aligned on holiday spending expectations? Not entirely. 66% of marketers expect spending to rise, but only 22% of consumers agree. Shoppers are cautious, prioritizing value and often trading down to discount or big-box retailers. What’s the best way to connect online discovery with in-store sales? An omnichannel approach using identity and location data can bridge digital impressions with real-world actions like store visits and purchases, ensuring consistency across touchpoints. What can brands learn from the case studies in the report? Brands like belVita and Duke Cannon successfully tied digital campaigns to in-store results by utilizing precise audience targeting, location data, and well-timed promotions. Where can I get the full insights report? You can download Experian’s 2025 Holiday spending trends and insights report to explore all five shifts shaping this season. Latest posts
We spend our days surrounded by screens: at work, at home, and everywhere in between. But audio is the one channel that moves with us, from morning routines to evening commutes, from workouts to household chores. More than two-thirds of U.S. consumers will listen to digital audio every month this year, making it one of the fastest-growing ways to connect with audiences. Experian and Audacy are working together to solve the challenges of fragmented listening, cross-platform targeting, and campaign measurement, helping brands reach people in the moments other channels can’t. Why audio sticks with us Audio fits into life’s in-between moments, from the commute to the workout to the chores, when other media can’t. Unlike video, it doesn’t demand full attention; it joins the flow of daily routines. This makes audio uniquely personal, creating connections that other formats can’t replicate. Audacy’s expertise in understanding listener behavior ensures that audio campaigns feel like a natural part of daily life. Experian's data helps advertisers identify the right audiences, while Audacy ensures the message is delivered at the right time. Together, we help brands create campaigns that resonate deeply with listeners. By meeting audiences in their moments of focus, audio becomes a powerful tool for building meaningful and lasting connections. "Audio is a companion in people’s daily rituals. Whether it’s doing dishes, folding laundry, or going for a run, you have audio going in your ears, and you’re really engaged with it. From an advertising perspective, that’s incredibly powerful because listeners are paying attention to the content.”Kevin Greenwald, SVP of Advertising and Audience Products Making sense of scattered listening habits Today’s listeners consume audio across a variety of devices and platforms. Devices like smart speakers and smart home hubs now account for over 27% of digital audio time spent daily among U.S. adults, highlighting the growing role of connected devices in audio consumption. When listeners bounce between apps, stations, and devices, it’s easy for advertisers to lose track of them. Audacy’s advanced platform capabilities, combined with Experian’s identity solutions, simplify this process by providing a unified view of audience behavior, ensuring campaigns remain cohesive. Audio is highly adaptable, letting advertisers tweak a message on the fly by shifting tone, length, or format to stay relevant in the moment. This flexibility ensures that campaigns remain cohesive and impactful, no matter where or how listeners engage. “Audio has a degree of flexibility that other channels don’t. You’re not tied to a programming clock, and ad lengths can vary. It’s also easy to create a great audio ad quickly, which makes it a channel ripe for experimentation and innovation.”Kevin Greenwald, SVP of Advertising and Audience Products Following listeners wherever they go Today’s listeners don’t stay in one place: they bounce from live radio in the morning to streaming music during the day, then wind down with a favorite podcast at night. For advertisers, that creates a challenge: how do you keep up with an audience that’s always moving? Without a unified view of the listener journey, campaigns can lose impact. With the right insights, though, every handoff becomes an opportunity to stay relevant and connected. Audacy’s platform, combined with Experian’s identity solutions, bridges these gaps. Together, we help you follow your audience wherever they go, creating consistent experiences that drive results. This approach improves targeting and ensures that messages remain impactful. "I hope that there’s a day coming where we can understand ad exposure in the car as well as more cars are connected and things like that. That would be really powerful."Kevin Greenwald, SVP of Advertising and Audience Products Your audience is listening, let's make sure they hear you Audio helps you connect with your audience in moments other channels miss. With Experian’s marketing data and Audacy’s expertise, you can simplify cross-platform targeting, improve campaign measurement, and create messages that truly resonate. Let’s work together to make your message heard. Let's talk audio strategy. Contact us today About our experts Kevin Greenwald SVP of Advertising and Audience Products, Audacy Kevin Greenwald is the SVP of Advertising & Audience Products, where he partners closely with Audacy's sales team to deliver leading ad product and measurement capabilities for their clients. Crystal Jacques VP of Enterprise Partnerships, Experian Crystal Jacques is the VP of Enterprise Partnerships, leading Experian's go-to-market team across all verticals. With over ten years of experience in the Identity space, Crystal brings a wealth of expertise to her role. She joined Experian in 2020 through the Tapad acquisition, following her successful stint as the head of Global Channel Partnerships for Adbrain, which The Trade Desk later acquired. Latest posts
Reach de-identified patient and provider segments at scale across every channel. Pharmaceutical brands and media platforms, including connected TV (CTV), can activate HIPAA-compliant audiences built on real-world clinical and claims data through a new collaboration between PurpleLab and Experian. Targeting de-identified audiences is essential for engaging the right patients at pivotal moments in their health journey, maximizing ROI while safeguarding privacy and improving outcomes. Overall, prescription drugmakers spent $2.97 billion on national TV advertising in the first half of 2025, a 12.2% year-over-year increase, underscoring the growing demand for scalable, privacy-compliant healthcare advertising in premium media environments. Now, whether you're a pharma advertiser launching a new therapy or a platform curating health-focused inventory, PurpleLab’s integration refreshes the media planning ecosystem, offering marketers easier access to the audiences needed to drive impact. Activate with accuracy and scale PurpleLab’s de-identified healthcare segments, categorized by condition, treatment, specialty, and prescription behavior, are now accessible through Experian's data marketplace, streamlining media planning. This integration enables PurpleLab’s privacy-safe audiences to travel from discovery to omnichannel delivery. Experian then handles onboarding, activation, and audience expansion, in accordance with HIPAA and with industry standards. Utilizing Experian’s identity graph, spanning household and individual-level insights, as well as marketing attributes, these healthcare audiences can be: Onboarded securely, matching hashed emails or tokens to digital identifiers Activated across major channels, including CTV, mobile, display, and social Expanded with confidence, reaching more of the target population, patients, or healthcare professionals, without relying on third-party cookies This infrastructure unlocks greater scale and completeness for niche pharma audiences that have historically been hard to reach in digital and streaming environments. For brands navigating fragmented media and tightening privacy regulations, this collaboration provides the clarity and consistency they’ve been seeking. “We know healthcare marketers are under pressure to get it right: to respect privacy, be accurate, and scale. That’s why we’re excited to bring PurpleLab audiences into the Experian data marketplace and make them available through Audigent’s curated deals. It gives pharmaceutical brands and platforms a clear way to plan and measure campaigns, with the assurance that they’re reaching patients and providers when it matters in the right way.”Kim Gilberti, General Manager Curation through Audigent: Premium supply meets premium data For advertisers seeking turnkey media solutions, PurpleLab audiences are now also available through Audigent’s curated deals. Audigent’s curated deals simplify media buying by packaging PurpleLab’s clinically grounded audiences with premium, brand-safe inventory, thus creating a unified package. Instead of stitching together data and supply separately, media buyers can now access pre-built or custom-curated media deals where PurpleLab audiences are already integrated, ideal for health and wellness programming, premium CTV, or contextual content aligned to therapeutic areas. This approach gives marketers both efficiency and accuracy, streamlining execution while maintaining compliance and relevance. “Bringing together PurpleLab’s clinically precise audiences with Experian’s powerful identity and activation capabilities, and pairing it with Audigent’s premium inventory, gives advertisers more than a turnkey solution. It’s the power to launch campaigns that truly resonate, with data and media working in harmony from day one to deliver both efficiency and impact."Scott Ronay, VP, Advertising Sales Real-world use cases: Accuracy with purpose CTV awareness for cardiovascular therapies A cardiovascular brand is launching a CTV campaign to reach healthcare providers involved in treatment decisions. Using PurpleLab’s provider-level segments from the Experian data marketplace, a brand can activate audiences across brand-safe, streaming environments. This strategy enables meaningful engagement with prescribers while maintaining scale and compliance across CTV and complementary digital channels. Cross-device activation for high-impact health campaigns A biotech firm promoting a new therapy needs to reach patients who are likely to have a relevant condition, based on modeled audience segments. Using PurpleLab’s real-world patient segments, the advertiser activates across mobile, display, and CTV, with Experian’s identity graph ensuring household-level consistency across devices. Privacy and scale are preserved, while the brand ensures it’s not wasting impressions on ineligible or misaligned audiences. Closed-loop measurement, built for healthcare Beyond targeting, the PurpleLab–Experian integration empowers advertisers to measure real-world outcomes, not just digital proxies. By utilizing tokenization, Experian enables ad exposure data to be securely matched back to de-identified health events within PurpleLab’s platform. This means marketers can assess outcomes such as: Prescription lift among exposed vs. unexposed audiences Healthcare professional engagement and treatment initiation Patient adherence or follow-through behavior This type of closed-loop reporting is critical in pharma, where traditional metrics like clicks or impressions do not reflect business impact. Now, with token-based match-back, brands can see whether their campaigns are driving real results, securely and compliantly. Ready to reach the right patients and providers securely and at scale? Explore PurpleLab audiences in the Experian data marketplace and Audigent curated deals to activate clinically grounded, privacy-compliant segments across CTV, display, mobile, and more. Contact us Latest posts