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.
Latest posts
Tapad, a part of Experian and the future of cookies Earlier this week, Google announced plans to create “.. a path towards making third-party cookies obsolete”; which will result in the phasing out of support for third-party cookies in its Chrome browser within two years. While there has been much discussion and debate on the future of the third-party cookie, an announcement from Google has been anticipated for some time. As many have said this week, the use of cookies and other identifiers has and will continue to evolve. What will never change is the value exchange between publishers and consumers that is enabled by relevant advertising. Notably, the need for independent companies to develop solutions that enable this value exchange has never been greater to ensure that publishers, consumers, and advertisers derive the most value from their relationship. We are well-positioned for the future From the start, Tapad, a part of Experian has led with a consumer-first, privacy-centric approach to technology as the use and proliferation of devices and global privacy regulations continue to evolve. Over the past two years, Tapad, a part of Experian has gone through a technical overhaul. Calling on almost ten years of expertise in identity resolution, we have created a modern platform that is flexible in terms of identity input as well as output. Anticipated change in the identity landscape was the driver behind our architecture decisions and what enables us to be responsive to a dynamic market. Consumer behavior and device use continue to change, bringing additional digital IDs into the equation – namely across the mobile and CTV environments. Our technology, however, is not tied to any specific type of identifier, but rather is focused on associating disparate identifiers at the individual and household level. Where do we go from here? Google’s announcement has been characterized as a conversation starter, but we see it more as a call to action. With a timeline set, there is a need to converge on one or more solutions that can scale across the web. In a post cookie world, publishers and advertisers will continue to require ways to create fair marketplaces across platforms and devices. Further, the platforms that currently power the programmatic advertising ecosystem will need to be able to invest and differentiate to bring value to their customers. Scaled privacy-safe identity solutions will be needed not only for classic targeting, attribution, measurement, and frequency capping use cases but also to carry consumer preferences and consent. Tapad, a part of Experian will continue to play a leading role here. However, we are not going to do this alone. As solutions around Google’s Chrome browser evolve, we will continue to take a leadership position and will work with Google, key industry groups, partners and customers to meet current and future needs for an independent identity solution at scale. In the meantime, we will continue to support an independent ecosystem where consumers come first and privacy standards are a priority. It’s business as usual…for now. There will not be any changes to our graph products or services as a result of Google’s announcement in the near term. Any changes related to the Chrome third-party cookie will evolve and will no doubt be subject to significant industry participation and feed-back, indeed at the invitation of Google. We will proactively communicate any changes and product updates during this time period. We look forward to the opportunities resulting from these changes and ushering in a new era of identity resolution in digital advertising. Contact us today
Knorex partners with Tapad, part of Experian, to enable enhanced cross-device marketing capabilities for brands and agencies
FeaturedTapad’s integration with Knorex’s XPO™ platform will complement cross-channel optimization capabilities for brands and agencies in the U.S. and APAC markets NEW YORK and SINGAPORE, Dec. 10, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Tapad, part of Experian and a global leader in digital identity resolution, has partnered with Knorex, a leading provider of digital performance marketing. Knorex’s self-service online advertising platform, Knorex XPO™, enables marketers to advertise globally in real-time across different media channels, formats, platforms and devices. Tapad’s global, privacy-safe digital cross-device solution, The Tapad Graph, will compliment Knorex XPO™’s own device data set for enhanced marketing capabilities. For Knorex, the integration enables their brand direct and agency customers to gain a more accurate understanding of consumers across devices to reduce campaign inefficiencies and duplication, and to effectively manage frequency capping and attribution. Abhishek Kumar, VP of Engineering at Knorex commented, “Today’s digital consumer is raising the bar for marketers. With increasing marketing complexities and consumer device usage, this integration enables marketers to understand the consumer decision journey with heightened ease. Our combined offering will empower agencies in the APAC and US markets, providing an improved marketing solution that will help to streamline their efforts.” Abhay Doshi, Head of APAC at Tapad added: “The Tapad Graph, when integrated with the Knorex XPO platform, should not only help U.S. and APAC marketers optimize campaign performance through cross device marketing – but also increase the opportunity for brands to reach out to their target customers within a desired time.” To learn more about Tapad and our digital identity resolution capabilities, visit https://www.experian.com/marketing/consumer-sync. About TapadTapad, Inc. is a global leader in digital identity resolution. The Tapad Graph and its related solutions provide a transparent, privacy-safe approach connecting brands to consumers through their devices globally. Tapad is recognized across the industry for its product innovation, workplace culture, and talent, and has earned numerous awards including One World Identity’s 2019 Top 100 Influencers in Identity Award. Headquartered in New York, Tapad also has offices in Chicago, London, Oslo, Singapore, and Tokyo. About KnorexKnorex provides programmatic advertising products and technologies to advertising buyers worldwide. With its cloud-based online advertising platform, Knorex XPO™ enables ad buyers to self-serve and advertise real-time across the globe regardless of the media channels (social, search, OTT/CTV, video, web/mobile etc.), ad formats (display, native, search, social, video etc) and devices (desktop, laptop, smartphones and tablets) to deliver personalized marketing messages to the target audience in an automated way, powered by machine learning/AI. Underpinned by a multi-layered data-driven approach, XPO simplifies the execution and optimization of marketing campaigns, while delivering measurable and attributable performance. Contact us today
Tapad, part of Experian, and Lifesight sign partnership to power cross device capabilities within Lifesight’s Real World Intelligence Platform
FeaturedTapad, now part of Experian, technology now powers Lifesight’s real world intelligence platform with cross-device and reach expansion in the Asia Pacific Region SINGAPORE, Nov. 20, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Tapad, part of Experian and a global leader in digital identity resolution, today announced a new partnership with Lifesight, a leading provider of real world intelligence for advertisers in the Asia Pacific region (APAC). With the combined offering of The Tapad Graph, Tapad’s global, privacy-safe digital cross-device solution, and Lifesight’s real world intelligence platform, brands and agencies across APAC can benefit from better consumer targeting, expanded reach for targeted audiences and web-to-mobile footfall attribution. Through this multi-layered offering, Lifesight’s brand and agency partners can access an omnichannel view of consumers’ paths to purchase, thereby enabling them to increase the reach, measurability and ROI of their advertising campaigns. Rohit Maheswaran, Co-founder of Lifesight commented, “The consumer journey is getting increasingly more complex with ever changing digital and physical world behaviours, making it difficult for marketers to make strategic marketing spend decisions. That’s why it’s our mission at Lifesight to empower the brands and agencies within the APAC market to achieve better targeting and measurement capabilities, and our partnership with Tapad will help further this cause.” Abhay Doshi, Head of APAC at Tapad added, “The Tapad Graph, which enables a unified view of consumers across their multiple digital devices, has a reach of 1 billion devices across the APAC market today. Paired with Lifesight’s consumer insights of more than 500 million unique devices, this valuable partnership will offer the market extended consumer reach and prove beneficial to brands and advertisers across APAC who have historically struggled with resolving attribution.” To learn more about Tapad and our digital identity resolution capabilities, visit www.experian.com/marketing/consumer-sync About Tapad Tapad, Inc. is a global leader in digital identity resolution. The Tapad Graph, and its related solutions, provide a transparent, privacy-safe approach connecting brands to consumers through their devices globally. Our one-of-a-kind Graph Select offering enables marketers the flexibility and freedom of choice to correlate devices to varied objectives, driving campaign effectiveness and business results. Tapad is recognized across the industry for its product innovation, workplace culture and talent, and has earned numerous awards including One World Identity’s 2019 Top 100 Influencers in Identity Award. Headquartered in New York, Tapad also has offices in Chicago, London, Oslo, Singapore and Tokyo. About Lifesight Lifesight is Asia’s leading real world intelligence company that helps marketers understand, target, and measure consumers based on their real world behaviour. Lifesight’s robust platform and data solutions power business decisioning, audience activation, footfall measurement, and in-depth location analytics for leading brands and enterprises. The company is headquartered in Singapore with a rapidly expanding footprint in the Asia Pacific region operating in India, Malaysia, Indonesia, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. To learn more, visit https://www.lifesight.io/. Contact us today