At A Glance
Microsoft is moving curation toward an operating system for premium media buys, bringing deal packaging, transparency, and audience intelligence into one workflow. In this Ask the Expert conversation, Microsoft Advertising’s Erik Zamkoff shares how curated packages help buyers assess supply, help publishers track where inventory appears, and support AI-assisted planning with Experian.A closer look at media curation
Media buying depends on dependable inventory, clear package details, and results that justify spend. In this Ask the Expert session, Erik Zamkoff, Global Packaging Lead at Microsoft Advertising, joins Matt Petiton, Director of Partnership Sales at Experian, to discuss how media curation is expanding from deal packaging into a more complete system for premium buying and how inventory and audience intelligence work together to drive stronger outcomes.
How does curation solve discovery and scale challenges?
Curation helps media buyers access reliable information faster, compare packages, and reduce manual work. What started as a way to organize deal discovery has become a system for structuring supply, managing updates, and responding to buyer needs at scale.
Curation helps teams:
- Consolidate deal information in one place, so buyers have the detail they need to evaluate a package
- Act as a decisioning layer, organizing supply in a way that makes comparison easier
- Automate real-time updates, so buyers are working from current options rather than static documents
- Respond faster to custom requests, turning repeat asks into repeatable packages
- Bring speed and structure to a process that has often been manual
How does total transparency set winning curators apart?
Total transparency is becoming a baseline expectation in premium media buying. For buyers, that means knowing what inventory is inside a deal, how it’s sourced, and it’s expected to perform. For publishers, transparency means seeing how inventory is packaged, where it appears in market, and how those packages are represented back to buyers.
The strongest curation platforms build that visibility into the system itself. A source deal can be traced through its naming, packaging, and downstream use, giving publishers a clear view of where their inventory shows up and gives buyers more confidence in the information they use to make decisions.
That clarity strengthens working relationships on both sides. Publishers want partners who can show how supply is being used. Buyers want curators who stand behind the accuracy of their deal data. When that level of visibility is present, curated transactions feel more trustworthy, more organized, and easier to act on.
“The value proposition for publishers is straightforward: total transparency. I can sit down with a publisher and clearly identify which packages their specific deals appear in, ensuring clarity and trust.”
Microsoft AdvertisingErik Zamkoff, Global Packaging Lead
Why does curation clarity matter to publishers?
Publishers need a clear view of how their inventory is distributed, who has access to it, and where it appears across a fast-moving market. Gaps in that visibility make it harder to manage pricing, plan inventory strategy, and protect the value of supply.
A transparent curation system gives publishers a clearer view of how each source deal is merchandised across packages and campaigns. With that visibility, they can spot overlap, have more informed conversations with buy-side teams, and take a more active role in how their inventory is presented.
For publishers in premium marketplaces, that level of clarity matters. It supports stronger planning, control, and more confidence that supply is being used in a way that aligns with business goals.
How does audience intelligence make curation more effective?
Audience intelligence makes curated media more useful by connecting premium supply to the audiences marketers need to reach. Most campaign briefs require both quality inventory and relevant audiences to succeed, which is why curation works better when it’s connected to trusted data.
The next major shift in media buying is the move from standard inventory curation to a model that combines premium supply with audience intelligence. To bridge this gap, solutions like Experian’s act as a critical intelligence layer. Experian turns standard inventory into highly targeted, data-rich media packages. By pairing powerful data and identity with premium properties, advertisers can reach the exact people they want to connect with.
Experian Marketing Data plays an important role in this model. For example, if a marketplace offers an inventory package for professional sports, Experian audience data can augment that package by bringing in verified sports fans. This strategy adds richness and depth to campaigns, making the media buy more relevant to the audience. It allows clients to pick a category and extend it to reach a highly relevant audience. Bringing premium supply and audience intelligence together gives buyers a more complete solution for their advertising needs.
How is artificial intelligence changing the media curation interface?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing how buyers search, compare, and package curated media supply. It can turn natural-language campaign requirements into recommended opportunities, helping teams move faster without replacing human strategy.
AI is poised to change how buyers interact with curated media supply, serving as both a facilitator and connective tissue across the entire transaction process. Human expertise remains essential for interpreting campaign goals and making strategic decisions. AI supports that work by automating routine, data-heavy tasks, accelerating the planning process.
“From an artificial intelligence perspective, it has been an amazing journey. We are now exploring an agentic pivot on the front end, allowing natural language search applications to simplify how buyers find supply.”
Microsoft AdvertisingErik Zamkoff, Global Packaging Lead
Tasks that previously required hours of manual effort, such as sorting through multiple audience taxonomies, cross-referencing deal details, and compiling package comparisons, are now automated. Buyers use platform interfaces in a natural language. They quickly describe campaigning requirements. AI instantly proposes new opportunities that correspond to stated objectives. This simplifies planning and drives a more consistent delivery from campaign to campaign or client to client. Reduced manual oversight allows teams to spend less time on repetitive steps. Teams can focus on client relationships, campaign strategy, and overall performance.
At Experian, AI integration is powered by our high-quality data, ranked #1 by Truthset, that meets critical standards of accuracy, freshness, consent, and interoperability. Our data is accurate, continuously updated, and human-centered. Our commitment to data quality enables AI to deliver real-time package recommendations, optimize campaigns with predictive insights, and surface opportunities that reflect current consumer behavior. By combining automation with human expertise, AI helps buyers make faster, more confident decisions.
Learn what’s possible with curated media solutions
For marketers planning premium buys, curated media solutions can help connect quality supply, audience relevance, and clearer decision-making in one workflow. Experian and Microsoft Advertising can help you solve your advertising challenges and find the right media solutions for your goals.
About our experts
Erik Zamkoff
Global Packaging Lead, Microsoft
Erik Zamkoff is currently the Global Packaging Lead at Microsoft, where he drives strategy and innovation across the company’s programmatic advertising and media marketplace offerings. He brings over a decade of experience spanning digital marketing, marketplace development, and product management, with prior roles at Microsoft, Xandr, and other technology firms.
Matt Petiton
Director of Partnership Sales, Experian
Matt Petiton is a senior revenue and go-to-market leader with over a decade of experience scaling strategic partnerships and driving revenue growth within CTV, digital and programmatic channels. Currently, Matt operates within the Partnership Sales org where he leads revenue generation and manages the end-to-end go-to-market strategy for some of Experian’s most strategic, enterprise-level platform partners.
FAQs
Curation in media buying is the process of organizing premium supply into structured packages that buyers can evaluate, compare, and activate more easily. It helps reduce manual work, improve deal clarity and connect inventory to campaign goals.
Transparency matters in curated deals since buyers and publishers both need confidence in how inventory is packaged and represented. Buyers want accurate deal data, and publishers want visibility into where their supply appears and how it is used.
Experian’s data, ranked #1 in accuracy by Truthset, helps make curation more effective by connecting premium inventory with audience intelligence. Experian’s identity foundation and marketing data can help buyers move from broad inventory packages to media opportunities tied to more relevant audiences.
A marketer would use curation to find a media package that combines quality inventory with the audience needed for a campaign goal. For example, a professional sports package can become more relevant when paired with Experian audience data for verified sports fans.
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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 Samantha Zhang, Senior Data Scientist, and Jim Meyer, General Manager of the DASH TV Universe Study at the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF). DASH is an annual tracking study conducted by the ARF to define and better understand TV audience behavior and household dynamics. What does DASH measure, and how does it help the industry understand TV consumption today? By capturing hundreds of individual- and household-level data points from each respondent in a rigorous and nationally projectable sample, DASH creates a comprehensive picture of U.S. consumer TV “infrastructure” – how America watches. Core elements in DASHElements that create context in DASHTV setsLocation | brand | smartness | service modes | sources DemographicsConnected devices Game consoles |video players | streaming devicesYesterday viewing Daypart | TV/device genre | Out-of-home viewingMobile devicesOwners | sharing usersShoppingOnline and in-store | Exposure to major RMNsInternet serviceModes | ISPs | connectivity by device Streaming audio Streaming TVSVOD/AVOD tiers and sharing | FAST Email accounts and apps Live TV Modes of access | including casting from devices Social media For example, DASH gathers: Data on every TV set, including brand, room location, age, “smartness,” and connection devices and modes Household connectivity and video service data, even in homes with no TV set Internet Service Providers (ISP) and TV service usage, including Multichannel Video Programming Distributors (MVPDs), virtual vMVPDs, streamers (ad-supported and premium), and Free Ad-Supported Television (FAST) channels Person-level ownership and usage of video-capable mobile devices, including smartphones, tablets, and laptops Measures of viewing and co-viewing across dayparts, devices, and services Additional modules covering shopping and retail media networks, streaming audio, social media, email, and apps Broad coverage and granularity make DASH a uniquely robust source of truth for practitioners across the industry, including measurement experts and ad programming strategists. DASH also reports regularly (and publicly) on key industry dynamics. DASH identified a growing segment of device-only viewers – now nearly 9 million households that watch TV, but do not own a TV set – and highlighted the implications of that trend for traditional ratings systems based only on households with TV sets. Households (HHs – million)2025 HHs (M) U.S. penetrationChange vs. 2024 (M)Total US134.8100%+2.7Connected TV (CTV)114.685%+2.1TV (Set)124.292.2%+1.1Device-only8.86.6%+1.6TV-Accessible133.198.7%+2.7 DASH called out the rise in app-based pay TV and proposed a new connection framework that better represents the modern TV world, in which linear and streaming overlap. DASH also defines the universes of households reachable with advertising. This graphic, for example, shows how all ad-supported linear and streaming properties in aggregate define the true scale of TV advertising. While 35 million households (and growing) are reachable only with streaming ads and 13 million (and falling) only with linear ads, most households are reachable with both, underscoring the importance of understanding the “overlap.” Who uses DASH data, and what decisions does it help inform? There are three primary users of DASH, each with its own use cases: Measurement providers, including Nielsen, use DASH to calibrate viewership data, turn household data into persons data (and vice versa) and estimate potential reached audiences–what the providers call media-related universe estimate (MRUEs)–for the calculation of ratings. Not surprisingly, measurement companies were the first to see the value that an independent TV universe study could provide. Media companies, including major broadcasters and streamers, use DASH to add context and color to their ad sales presentations – and to track the measurement providers, whose ratings play a major role in valuing ad inventory. AdTech companies, including Experian, use DASH to create high-value audience segments for activation. The recent accreditation of DASH by the Media Rating Council (MRC) and adoption by Nielsen as an input to its TV ratings have generated interest from a broad range of companies. We are actively pursuing new licensees and partners to make DASH more useful within, and even outside, the TV ecosystem. What does MRC accreditation signify, and why is it meaningful for DASH? MRC accreditation means DASH passed a rigorous audit conducted by Ernst & Young over many months, which validated our methodology, controls, and data quality. MRC accreditation establishes that DASH is an industry-standard dataset. While the service provider normally announces its own accreditation, the MRC took the unusual step of issuing its own release on DASH, announcing the accreditation of DASH for TV universe estimation and endorsing the study for broader, cross-media use. How does Experian use DASH data to build audiences? The segments combine specific TV usage habits and behaviors from DASH with Experian data on demographics, spending, and other contextual inputs to create a fuller view of consumer viewing behavior. They are designed to be valuable to advertisers in many categories and planning contexts – and to be customizable to fit advertisers’ media targets. The segments can be used to: Apply or suppress audiences to improve target coverage across a campaign Better align media and creative Reach elusive but high-value viewers, such as Ad Avoiders Drive valuable consumer behavior Achieve specific advertising objectives What are some practical use cases for DASH-based audiences? Here are some practical use cases for four different kinds of DASH segments in five different advertiser categories. Travel Co-WatchersA couples-only resort uses TV Co-Watching Households without Children to strengthen target reach and ad memory recallA big theme park destination uses TV Co-Watching Households with Children to reach families in moments of togetherness Home Entertainment TV Owners and Brand LoyalistsA premium TV manufacturer uses the overlap of Multi Brand TV Owners and Single Brand TV Loyalist Households to market its newest TV model to its most loyal consumers. Fast Food Screen Size ViewersA fast food chain with a high-impact new brand campaign uses Large Screen TV Viewers to better align the media and creativeThat same fast food chain uses Small-Screen TV Viewers to drive store traffic by increasing exposure of its retail campaign among on-the-go viewers Financial Services Cord Cutters A personal cost management app and a cash-back credit card target Streaming-First Cord Cutter Households to reach young, tech-savvy, cost-conscious consumers Thanks for the interview. Where can readers learn more about DASH? We started work on DASH seven years ago, and it’s been fun to watch it “grow up.” Our partnership with Experian is a big step toward putting DASH to work for advertisers and agencies. To learn more, visit our site at https://theARF.org/DASH or contact us at DASH@theARF.org. Contact us About our experts Samantha Zhang, Senior Data Scientist at ARF Samantha Zhang is a Senior Data Scientist at the Advertising Research Foundation working on the DASH TV Universe Study, with additional research spanning areas including attention measurement, digital privacy, and artificial intelligence. Jim Meyer, General Manager, DASH, at ARF Jim Meyer is general manager and co-founder of the ARF DASH TV Universe Study and managing partner of Golden Square, LLC, which advises media and research technology companies on growth strategy and development. Latest posts