At A Glance
AI can make your holiday advertising more efficient, but identity makes it accurate. This season, the brands that connect their AI tools to a strong identity foundation will see measurable performance.Originally appeared in Adweek
This holiday advertising season, identity is the real differentiator
Marketers are betting big on AI to run their holiday advertising, using it to build predictive audiences, generate creative at scale, and optimize media buys in real time. The draw is clear: greater efficiency, delivered at scale.
But here’s the problem: without a solid identity foundation, AI is just guessing. And in a year when consumers are cautious and competition is fierce, guesses won’t deliver the outcomes you need.
Experian’s 2025 Holiday spending trends and insights report shows that success this season will depend on connecting the right data to the right audiences in real time.
Are shoppers really using AI to make holiday purchases?
Not yet. Only 12% of consumers plan to use AI tools to shop this season, mostly for finding discounts. Instead, trusted influences (like retailer websites, product reviews, and recommendations) still guide buying decisions.
For marketers, that’s a signal to focus on credibility and connection. AI can support your holiday advertising strategy, but trust still wins the sale.
Consumer sentiment heading into the holidays is low, but that could mislead marketers
How marketers are really using AI in holiday advertising
Behind the scenes, AI is working overtime. Teams use it to segment audiences, test creative, and optimize media in real time. These capabilities are powerful, but only if they’re grounded in accurate, persistent data.
Think about the typical holiday shopper. They may browse a product online, validate it in store, and finally purchase days later from a different device than they used while browsing. If AI isn’t anchored in identity, it struggles to connect those touchpoints. Instead of amplifying relevance, it amplifies noise.
Why identity is the GPS for AI-driven holiday advertising
Identity is what turns AI from a blunt instrument into an accurate tool. By unifying fragmented signals across channels and devices, identity provides the consistent consumer view that AI needs to be effective.
With that foundation, AI can do more than churn out models. Instead, it can:
Identify the right audiences and filter out waste
Personalize with context, not just scale
Measure real outcomes, linking exposures to visits and purchases
Identity doesn’t just improve efficiency; it creates accountability. And in a season where every holiday advertising campaign dollar is scrutinized, accountability is the difference between investment and waste.
How to turn complexity into clarity this holiday season
This year’s holiday advertising season is complicated. Marketers are confident, consumers are cautious, and AI is somewhere in the middle. The challenge isn’t just speed or volume, it’s accuracy.
By pairing AI with identity, you can adapt to real behavior instead of assumptions. You can build campaigns that are consistent across connected TV, retail media, and social platforms. And you can prove results when it matters most.
AI isn’t a holiday miracle. But when it’s powered by identity, it can give you clarity in a noisy season and proof of performance when budgets are under scrutiny.
What’s the real takeaway for marketers this season?
Don’t assume AI alone will save your holiday advertising strategy. It won’t. Consumers still trust human voices more than machines, and your AI models are only as strong as the data beneath them. Identity is the difference between guesswork and accuracy, between activity and impact.
This holiday season, the winners won’t be the brands that simply spend more or automate faster. They’ll be the ones that put identity at the core of their AI strategy and meet consumers where they really are.
Download Experian’s 2025 Holiday spending trends and insights report to see where consumers are spending and how identity can help your holiday advertising campaigns more effective.
About the author
Colleen Dawe
VP, Advertiser Partnerships, Experian
Colleen Dawe is VP, Advertiser Partnerships at Experian Marketing Services, where she oversees revenue growth and client success, helping advertisers harness data and identity to fuel marketing strategies. With over 15 years of experience spanning TV and digital media, she brings deep expertise in data, identity, activation, and measurement to help her clients connect innovation with business outcomes.
Holiday advertising FAQs
AI works best when it’s grounded in accurate data. Without identity, it can’t connect actions across devices or channels, which limits its effectiveness.
Identity creates a single, persistent view of your audience. That means AI can personalize content, measure conversions, and cut waste with far greater accuracy.
It’s the data layer that connects people across their devices, browsers, and behaviors—so your campaigns reach real individuals.
By tying exposure to verified outcomes—like store visits or purchases—using identity-linked data. That’s how Experian helps brands move from impressions to impact.
Latest posts
London – 24 November, 2017 – Tapad, part of Experian, is the leader in cross-device marketing technology and continues to broaden its reach across EMEA. The business today reported a 20 percent growth in the scope of its regional device graph, a data set used by organisations to map consumers to their devices, enabling better, more personalised cross-device marketing. This news complements Tapad’s recent expansion of its UK team with the hire of experienced solutions engineer, Davide Rosamilia. As the demand for cross-device technology solutions continues to grow around the globe, coupled with the emergence of regulations such as Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Tapad is committed to offering suppliers the greatest level of insight without compromising consumer privacy. Since Tapad started licensing its proprietary Tapad Device GraphTM just over a year ago, demand for the company’s technology has experienced significant growth. New supply partnerships and proactive data sourcing have also meant an increase in devices across key markets, which contribute to the overall 20 percent growth of the EMEA device graph, including a 44 percent increase in the U.K., 47 percent in France, and 85 percent in Germany. “We’re continuing to invest heavily in growing our regional device graph, allowing us to better meet the needs of EMEA marketers as they strive to reach individuals with greater precision in some of the most tightly regulated marketplaces worldwide,” said Tom Rolph, VP EMEA, Tapad. “This year, we have also welcomed 10 new data suppliers whom we’ve helped to increase cross-device amplification, attribution and audience extension, helping to further set us apart in the marketplace and successfully expand our EMEA presence.” Available around the world, the Device Graph provides access to Tapad’s globally compliant and privacy-safe datasets across EMEA, APAC and the U.S., and offers deeper knowledge of consumer preferences, purchase intent, and conversion behaviors. “Tapad has shown a unique ability to adapt to the nuances of the local EMEA market and display impressive growth without sacrificing dedication to privacy,” said Alistair Hill, CEO and Co-founder at On Device Research. “When we started vetting technology vendors, we needed to be sure that we selected a partner that could offer compliant and privacy-safe datasets to operate within our stringent data standards. Tapad’s probabilistic solution offered us greater scale, greater device reach, and increased engagement without compromising on privacy.” Contact us today
The Tapad Device Graph™ Will Expand Sizmek’s Cross-Device Reach and Improve the Efficiency and Precision of Digital Advertising NEW YORK, November 16, 2017 – Tapad, part of Experian and a leader in cross-device marketing technology, today announced a new global partnership with Sizmek, the largest independent buy-side advertising platform delivering impressions that inspire. By integrating the Tapad Device Graph™, Sizmek will enhance its AI-powered predictive capabilities to deliver accurate, cross-device messaging at global scale in a privacy-safe environment. Combined with Sizmek’s existing data enablement, creative optimization and media execution capabilities, the proprietary Tapad Device Graph improves the efficiency and precision of digital advertising by accurately matching people and devices. This enables advertisers to get a clear view of individual customer journeys, achieve scale without compromising on efficiency, and uncover new opportunities for conversion. Sizmek’s customers will have access to Tapad’s globally compliant and privacy-safe datasets across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC. With deeper knowledge of consumer preferences, purchase intent and conversion behaviors, Sizmek and its customers are able to enhance advertising strategies including cross-device audience identification and more. “Tapad is known for their strong cross-device capabilities, and their offering is an excellent addition to our growing program for best-of-breed data and measurement partners" says Mike Caprio, Sizmek’s Chief Growth Officer. “For our customers, this partnership will add further people-based marketing precision and reach to our comprehensive offerings around creative optimization, data enablement and media execution." “Sizmek’s adoption of industry-leading AI and machine learning campaigns will be a great complement for the Device Graph,” said Chris Feo, SVP, strategy & global partnerships at Tapad. “Our ability to create smaller, more customized segments in conjunction with Sizmek’s AI modeling will deliver efficiency, effectiveness and increased ROI for marketers worldwide.” This partnership comes at a time of a massive shift in the marketing technology industry. Companies like Tapad and Telenor, as well as Rocket Fuel and Sizmek, are joining forces to adopt those technologies that are most efficient and accurate at reaching consumers at scale in a personalized and non-intrusive way. The combination of Tapad and Sizmek’s offerings will provide international marketers with exceptional resources to lead a more cost effective and results driven campaign. Contact us today
The Tapad Device Graph™ increases Throtle’s amplification by 475 percent. NEW YORK, Nov. 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ – Tapad, now a part of Experian, the leader in cross-device marketing technology, today announced a partnership with Throtle, a leading data onboarding company. The Tapad Device Graph™ will enhance Throtle's best-in-class onboarding capabilities by providing accurate and privacy-safe cross-device reach as well as precise audiences at scale. In partnership with Tapad, Throtle will deterministically link its services to a corroborated individual with hundreds of targeting attributes. This linkage allows Throtle to offer true cross-device identity management and identity resolution services to accompany its robust onboarding capabilities. Throtle will also work with Tapad to validate its device graph, building larger, more comprehensive audience segments. To date, the Tapad Device Graph™ has connected 61 percent of Throtle IDs to related ones in the graph, with an average amplification rate of 475 percent for Throtle's IDs, or 4.8 new IDs per each of Throtle's. Throtle has also seen its overall match rates involving Tapad's identity insights rise an average of 15 percent since the inception of the partnership. More specifically, Tapad's mobile advertising IDs (MAIDs) have increased Throtle's in-app identity inventory by 35 percent. "Tapad has proven to be a trusted source for cross-device matching and has a tremendous reputation in the advertising and marketing technology industries for delivering superior precision and scale with the utmost dedication to privacy," says Paul Chachko, CEO, Throtle. "Since we first began our test phase, and continuing through to this day, Tapad has met and exceeded our expectations for what a partner should be." With Tapad's strong commitment to precision and accuracy, Throtle was confident that this partnership would prove to be the right choice for the strategic expansion of its platform. Not only does Tapad deliver in-depth insights, parsing deterministic from probabilistic linkages, but its pool of device-level touchpoints enables Throtle to increase scale without seeing a decline in precision. "Accuracy and precision are core characteristics of our proprietary Device Graph," explains Chris Feo, SVP, Strategy & Global Partnerships, Tapad. "When Throtle approached our team, we knew we would be the right partner to assist their leading onboarding technology. We're excited to work with Throtle to achieve cross-device reach, audience scale and precise deterministic and probabilistic linkages for its clients." For more information about the Tapad Device Graph™, or to request a demo, visit https://www.experian.com/marketing/consumer-sync About TapadTapad Inc. is a marketing technology company renowned for its breakthrough, unified, cross-device solutions. The company's signature Tapad Device Graph™ connects millions of consumers across billions of devices. The world's largest brands and most effective marketers entrust Tapad to provide an accurate, privacy-conscious, and unified approach to connecting with consumers across screens. In 2015, Tapad began licensing the Tapad Device Graph™ and swiftly became the established gold-standard throughout the ad tech ecosystem. Tapad is based in New York and has offices in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, London, Los Angeles, Miami, Oslo, San Francisco, Singapore, and Tokyo. Tapad's numerous awards include: Forbes' Most Promising Companies, Deloitte's Technology Fast 500, Crain's Fast 50, TMCnet Tech Culture Award, and Global Startup Award's "Startup Founder of the Year". In 2016, Tapad was acquired by the Telenor Group, one of the world's largest mobile operators. About ThrotleThrotle is a data onboarding company focused on deterministic matching and identity resolution, empowering brands with true individual-based marketing. Our data centric onboarding approach guarantees the highest level of accuracy, scale, and responsiveness for our clients. For more information on Throtle, please visit, throtle.io. Contact us today