At A Glance
Yahoo DSP is building toward a “DSP as infrastructure” model that plugs into advertisers’ existing workflows, tools, and agents. In this Q&A, Yahoo DSP shares how Yahoo ConnectID, interoperability, and Yahoo Blueprint Performance support targeting and measurement across CTV, live sports, and the open web. The interview closes with practical activation plays using Experian Audiences in Yahoo DSP.
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 Jessica Rocco, a Business Development Senior Director at Yahoo DSP (demand-side platform), about the shift toward agentic workflows and identity-led performance.
How is Yahoo DSP shifting from a platform to infrastructure?
Yahoo DSP has been positioning itself as more of a data backbone than a destination UI. What are the most important integrations you’re building for, and what does ‘plug-in ready’ look like in practice for an advertiser?
We’re moving from DSPs as destinations to DSPs as infrastructure, as the industry shifts toward agentic workflows. This transformation is driven by data-led decisioning, greater standardization, with the ecosystem ready for it.
The last decade DSP competition has been primarily about UI features. That era is behind us. Today, differentiation comes from exclusivity, integrations, and interoperability. This means at Yahoo DSP we are thinking about where our partners and advertisers are and where they want to be. In practice, that may mean they never log into our UI at all.
Instead, Yahoo DSP becomes a flexible, plug-in-ready infrastructure that integrates directly into their workflows, tools, and agents. That’s why we’re building around two themes:
- Data: Yahoo DSP’s data can be made accessible through performance tools, transforming it into actionable insights that drive better outcomes for advertisers.
- Agentic AI: We see the opportunity to make a range of human and non-human activities more efficient, and we offer different paths based on the advertisers’ needs:
- Use our native agents in Yahoo DSP for better performance and faster execution.
- Combine our tools with external agents to unlock better decisioning and increased automation.
- Fully decouple the concept of UI and enable end-to-end workflows powered by your or your partners’ agents.
In summary, we’re building a flexible and interoperable environment where advertisers can bring their planning, buying, and measurement technologies and leverage the Yahoo data and tools to enable more efficient and higher-performing media buying.
Why does identity sit below the interface at Yahoo DSP?
When you say the advantage sits below the interface, what are the core identity building blocks today, and how are you measuring progress, authenticated reach, match rates, deduplication, or something else?
Yahoo DSP treats identity as the performance layer that runs through the full campaign lifecycle. At Yahoo DSP, the core building block of that advantage is Yahoo ConnectID. It’s always activated in Yahoo DSP and powers every step of the campaign lifecycle. Built on top of our Identity Graph and today reaches 213 million logged-in users in the U.S. and 345 million globally (Yahoo data Q1 2026).
The building blocks of our Identity Graph include:
The proof is in the numbers: 90% of Yahoo DSP spend runs on Yahoo ConnectID-enabled supply, reflecting the scale, trust, and performance that identity-driven activation delivers.
Why do CTV and live sports validate Yahoo DSP’s approach to identity?
Live sports are one of the toughest environments to get right on connected TV (CTV). Why is it a strong showcase for the Yahoo DSP identity approach, and can you share an example of impact you’ve seen on deduplicated reach or cost per unique household?
When it comes to live sports, the challenge is the scale of concurrent viewers. When an ad break occurs during a live sports event, our platform receives a spike of bid requests, which can cause buyers to exhaust their budgets too quickly, leaving valuable inventory unfilled later in the event.
We address this challenge with Yahoo Blueprint Performance, our enhanced AI-driven algorithm, which bids and paces more effectively, with 10x faster response times that consider the size of the spike and the advertiser’s remaining budget and flight (Internal Yahoo DSP data, Q4 2025). The result is not only more of the advertiser’s budget being spent during the event, but also a smoother distribution of impressions throughout the entire event.
Yahoo ConnectID is a key input into Yahoo Blueprint Performance. It enhances effectiveness by enforcing reliable frequency capping at the Household and/or user level, eliminating wasted impressions, improving media budget allocation, and ultimately driving better, more cohesive consumer experiences.
How should marketers activate commerce signals for intent with Yahoo DSP?
As shopper intent and transaction signals come in from commerce partners, what’s the recommended activation workflow, and where do those signals deliver the biggest lift alongside CTV and the open web?
Commerce signals have indeed brought new opportunities for advertisers. Commerce media networks are goldmines of deep audience insights such as consumer behavior, purchasing patterns, product preferences, and more. These addressable audiences offer a perfect opportunity for advertisers to activate effective campaigns. At Yahoo DSP we enable advertisers to activate data from all leading commerce data companies, from retail media networks to travel media networks and a wide range of complementary data partners.
The recommended activation for advertisers is to maximize the effect of these data signals by tying them to a strong identity. This ensures that they maximize their scale and reach consumers across devices and channels. That’s why in Yahoo DSP, Yahoo ConnectID is always on to ensure precision and scale.
Additionally, it’s important that data is being activated across channels, especially CTV. Combining commerce data with CTV enables advertisers to reach engaged audiences while delivering premium, relevant ad experiences. Today, CTV is increasingly influencing mid- and lower-funnel performance. At Yahoo DSP, we provide access to 100% non-walled garden CTV inventory, giving advertisers scaled reach beyond closed ecosystems and enabling consistent identity-based activation across the open web.
Finally, commerce media networks can maximize impact by leveraging solutions that enable them to use their data for measurement and optimization. For example, Yahoo In-Flight Outcomes (IFO) allows advertisers to tie programmatic media investments to sales – even on a SKU level – and in-store visits in near real time. Yahoo Blueprint Performance, our advanced AI model, uses this data for in-flight optimizations that drive results. For example, a leading retail network saw a 22% lift in ROAS when activating Yahoo IFO (Yahoo DSP Q1-Q2 2025).
What drives DSP selection/decision in buyer evaluations in 2026?
In competitive bake-offs, what’s pushing brands and agencies towards their choice of DSP right now: Identity, supply quality, measurement, service model, or economics? And what objections are you hearing most that you’ve had to address head-on?
Identity remains top of mind, as advertisers seek scaled, deterministic reach in a privacy-centric manner. Yahoo ConnectID provides that through the scale and quality of Yahoo data, built on hundreds of millions of authenticated users, enriched by interoperability with all leading data companies, such as Experian. Our foundation enables accurate targeting, holistic frequency management, and true omnichannel measurement, while delivering more cohesive ad experiences for consumers.
Second, supply quality and transparency are common concerns. Advertisers want assurance that they are accessing premium, brand-safe inventory and that their investments are working as intended. We address this through direct publisher relationships, curated supply paths, and transparent buying models that allow advertisers to make efficient, informed decisions.
Measurement is another challenge. Brands increasingly expect programmatic investments to prove impact against real business outcomes, not just media metrics. We meet this head-on with proprietary measurement solutions powered by Yahoo data, such as proprietary studies and Yahoo In-Flight Outcomes, complemented by partnerships with leading third-party vendors.
Our teams act as an extension of internal marketing teams, helping unlock smarter budget allocation and performance optimization. Ultimately, the connective tissue across identity, supply, measurement, and optimization is data. That’s why we continue to see programmatic investment consolidate around platforms that have scaled, high-quality first-party data. Strong 1P data is the backbone of effective programmatic, and we continue to see investment shift toward platforms that can offer it at scale and with quality, and Yahoo DSP remains top of mind for advertisers.
Finally, through our Agentic AI solutions, we increase team efficiency and minimize time spent on manual tasks, allowing them to focus on higher-value strategic decisions.
What are practical use cases for Experian Audiences in Yahoo DSP?
With Experian audiences available in Yahoo DSP, what are 2–3 ‘go-to’ plays advertisers should run (e.g., prospecting, mid-funnel qualification, suppression, measurement improvement), and what success metrics should they watch to prove incrementality?
I’ll start with a prospecting use case. Yahoo DSP advertisers can activate Experian’s demographic, lifestyle, household and credit propensity segments to identify high-value prospects, while suppressing their own first-party audiences such as CRM lists, site visitors or recent purchasers to ensure that they are truly reaching net new customers.
Advertisers can easily leverage the Yahoo Conversion API (CAPI) to send conversion data back to Yahoo DSP and be able to track incremental conversions from these new audiences.
Another example is reaching audiences that are in the market for a purchase. In this case, advertisers can combine Experian’s category-specific audiences, such as auto intenders, with Yahoo search signals to intersect household qualification with real-time intent. For example, an automotive brand can reach consumers who not only fall within priority income bands but are also actively searching for vehicle models or categories.
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About our experts
Jessica Rocco, Senior Director, Business Development at Yahoo DSP
Jessica Rocco is a Senior Director of Business Development for Yahoo Demand-Side Platform (DSP), with over 15 years of experience driving strategic data initiatives and partnerships across the programmatic advertising ecosystem, with a focus on identity, targeting, and measurement.
Latest posts
Experian Marketing Services and Data Quality President Genevieve Juillard recently sat down with Zach Rodgers, host of the AdExchanger Talks podcast to discuss the future of identity, the importance of data transparency and privacy, and our recent acquisition of Tapad. Genevieve focused on the opportunity for our industry to reimagine an advertising ecosystem that is resilient and adaptable; one that takes advantage of emerging data and prioritizes data transparency and consumer privacy. She also discussed the importance of advertising strategies that put consumers at the heart of every decision and give them more control over their data. Genevieve shared with AdExchanger that Experian’s acquisition of Tapad, a global leader in digital identity resolution, was a natural fit for our company. Tapad’s approach and role in the ecosystem is very much aligned with Experian’s, which is to develop solutions that are resilient to industry and consumer changes. The combination of our capabilities supports interoperability across all types of identifiers, both online and offline, and will position us to help our clients navigate the post-third-party cookie world. To learn more about Experian’s plans to support an effective advertising ecosystem that will evolve with our dynamic industry, listen to the full podcast Embracing ‘Healthy Fragmentation’ In Ad Tech, With Genevieve Juillard. Get in touch
It’s been over a year since Google announced they’d be deprecating the third-party cookie and in that time there’s been a major focus on two types of cookieless identity solutions. Identity vendors and marketers are strategizing which of these two future solutions best fits their needs so they can achieve privacy-safe scale once third-party cookies are no longer available for use on Chrome. Let’s break down these solutions and the considerations marketers need to take into account when deciding what partners to move forward with in the future of identity resolution. Authenticated Traffic Solutions Authenticated traffic solutions (ATS) are a type of digital identification that asks the end-user to identify themselves via personal information, most commonly email address. Often, you’ll see self-authentication at the point of entry to a website that asks you to create an account or login immediately to access the content you are seeking. E-commerce sites use authentication to keep track of consumer purchases and inform advertising decisions for that customer; and publishers use it to tailor featured content, or, more importantly for this discussion, leverage it within the ad ecosystem for targeting. While authentication can provide very valuable user data for audience segmenting and targeting, it can be limited in scale for a single publisher to leverage and monetize on their own. That’s why some identity vendors have worked to integrate themselves within as many publisher authentication modules as possible, so that they can create an aggregate of scale for the ad ecosystem to tap into. But, even this isn’t going to deliver the reach marketers truly thirst for. Alternatively, Facebook has the scale for authenticated traffic, but they keep their data inside a walled garden, so the utility of those authenticated users is only valuable within the Facebook ecosystem. So how can authenticated traffic solutions increase scale to broaden the scope of identifiers they can collect and leverage? Hint: a few of the biggest players have already figured it out. It’s the single sign-on. Google is probably the largest purveyor of a single-sign on solution that can directly impact advertising capabilities. Can you think of a site you visit that doesn’t offer a sign-in with your existing Google account? It’s a short list. Google has integrated themselves into so many applications and publishers that “Login with Gmail” is just second nature (you pictured the Gmail logo when you read that, didn’t you?). Now, if you’re about to purchase something you found off an Instagram ad, or perhaps a retailer you buy from regularly, you’ve probably noticed options to proceed with your checkout via “Amazon pay” or “Apple pay”. These are also single-sign ons. You’re authenticating yourself through Amazon or Apple to that retailer in exchange for A- the safety and security that Amazon or Apple provide for your financial information and B- skipping the annoying process of manually entering personal information over and over again at point of sale. It’s starting to sound like there’s a lot of authenticated data out there isn’t it? Well, that’s true, but again, Amazon and Apple are walled gardens. Amazon is working diligently to build out their own ecosystem to leverage their content and retail channel data for a holistic offering. And Apple keeps user data very close to the chest, constantly limiting its utility for themselves and advertisers. So what is identity resolution doing about it? The Trade Desk announced their solution; Unified ID 2.0, which promises to leverage email authenticated identity for a truly scaled solution for publishers via Javascript through Prebid. By handing over UID2.0 to an independent unbiased organization like Prebid, The Trade Desk is creating instant scale and trust in their solution. Unauthenticated Traffic Solutions Unlike ATS, unauthenticated traffic solutions do not rely on a log-in to identify a user, but they also don’t rely on third-party cookies. Instead, unauthenticated solutions (UATS) leverage their existing streams of real-time data through Javascript on publisher sites or an SDK (software development kit used by apps). The type of information UATS solutions can collect via Javascript or SDK vary, but it can include IP address, user agent and device level info. But being able to read this information at the point of entry to a website does not make a quality identifier. The best unauthenticated solutions will have the ability to set or ingest this information into a unique ID through an infrastructure with incredibly fast speed that can process trillions of anonymous data signals across multiple channels and devices. And even more so, be able to interpret those signals into a profile using machine learning– all at the moment a user enters a domain. It sounds complicated because it is, but it also has a lot of potential. The identity space cannot rest solely on authenticated traffic solutions, because, as you can see, it could limit ownership and operability to just a few power players/walled gardens. This doesn’t help the larger ecosystem monetize and personalize ad inventory. The right unauthenticated solution, however, can unify cross-device individuals and households at scale, because they’re integrated on the broadest number of publishers/SDKs across platforms, have the best algorithms to build confident connections between identifiers, and are universally transactable across the most common sell and demand side platforms. Think of it as the perfect partner- speaking a common language that everyone in the ecosystem understands and acts on. Today more than twenty cookieless identifiers are available in market for the ad ecosystem, and Google hasn’t even announced a date of deprecation. It’s important to be on the lookout for differentiators like scale and precision. Most importantly, choosing a truly cross-device partner will be key, especially as more digital devices and IDs grow in adoption, like CTV has this past year. Taking advantage of both What we will come to find, once the third-party cookie is obsolete, is that choosing just one of these solution types, or partners, will be a disadvantage. The more the industry comes together to collaborate on solutions, the more apparent it is that both of them have value, and thus employing both solutions will give marketers the best opportunities. Tapad, now part of Experian, recently announced the launch of Switchboard; a module within our identity solution; The Tapad Graph, to create this agnostic interoperability for identifiers of all types, and choice and control for the ad tech vendors and marketers who want them. By instantly creating the ability to partner with multiple solutions, Tapad + Experian is ensuring that all use cases for the third-party cookie live on in our cookieless future. Get in touch
Tapad launches global privacy-safe solution to provide continuity in the absence of third-party cookies Switchboard, a module within The Tapad Graph, will connect emerging cookieless identifiers to traditional IDs, creating a more holistic view of the consumer and driving value exchange within the advertising ecosystem Tapad, part of Experian, a global leader in cross-device digital identity resolution, and a part of Experian, announced today the launch of Switchboard, a first-of-its-kind solution to help navigate the evolving cookieless landscape. Switchboard, a module within The Tapad Graph, will operate as a global, privacy-safe solution to provide continuity in the absence of third-party cookies by connecting new cookieless identifiers to traditional digital IDs for a comprehensive view of consumers and their digital touchpoints. Switchboard will enable interoperability across the growing number of these digital identifiers and the value exchange between publishers, content creators and consumers. Leading digital identity solutions partnering with Tapad, part of Experian at the launch of Switchboard include Unified ID 2.0, ID5, Lotame Panorama ID, BritePool, Retargetly IDx and Audigent Halo ID. Tapad, part of Experian plans to expand support to additional identity solutions on an ongoing basis. In addition to these identity solutions, early partners across the ecosystem include The Trade Desk, Amobee, Martin, ShareThis, Eyeota and Catalina. “This diverse group of launch partners and testing customers will prove that Switchboard is an important tenet for the future of identity resolution. We’re excited to be proactive in our approach to give marketers time to adapt new solutions and test their function in tandem with the third-party cookie, while continuing to give our customers flexibility and control,” said Mark Connon, General Manager of Tapad, part of Experian. “Facilitating access and usage of 1st party identifiers is crucial to help marketers prepare for the cookieless future. Thanks to Switchboard, ID5's cookieless IDs will be available to a wider audience of brands and agencies and enable them to run effective, data-driven campaigns beyond the third-party cookie,” said Mathieu Roche Co-founder & CEO of ID5. Switchboard provides value across the marketing and advertising ecosystem as the need for the ability to support multiple cookieless ID’s across ad tech increases throughout 2021. With a decade of expertise creating digital identity resolution products, Tapad, part of Experian is poised to solve this challenge through innovation and quality, privacy-safe data-driven solutions. “Interoperability is paramount for brand marketers, agencies, publishers and platforms if we want to support an open and free Internet and break free of the stranglehold of walled gardens,” said Pierre Diennet, Global Partnerships at Lotame. ”Lotame Panorama ID’s participation in Switchboard reflects our steadfast commitment to collaborating across and within the industry and providing value to all of its players.” “As advertisers continue to contemplate the future of identity, Amobee is proud to partner with Tapad, part of Experian on this next-generation solution to provide a comprehensive view of consumers,” says Bryan Everett, Senior Vice President of Global Business Development at Amobee. “With the imminent loss of cookies, advertisers must think creatively in order to respectfully engage consumers in a privacy-compliant way and Switchboard can play an important role in addressing their respective identity needs.” Tapad, part of Experian is welcoming identity solutions and Tapad Graph customer participation in Switchboard throughout 2021. Stayed tuned for more updates and information on Switchboard in the coming months. Get in touch