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.
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With Tapad, part of Experian, technology, AdsWizz AudioMatic is the first Audio buying platform to offer cross-device identity resolution across the U.S. and EMEA NEW YORK and LONDON, July 17, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Tapad, part of Experian and a global leader in digital identity resolution, today announced a new joint capability with AdsWizz , the leading technology provider for digital audio advertising solutions. The partnership combines Tapad's digital cross-device technology with AdsWizz's AudioMatic buying platform, enabling the ability to connect audio ad experiences across screens. AudioMatic, AdsWizz's audio-centric buying platform, supports programmatic audio buying and entirely new audio ad experiences for listeners. The integration of The Tapad Graph onto its platform enables new opportunities for marketers to reach, engage and measure each interaction with their desired consumers on digital radio and podcasts channels, and across devices. This partnership makes AdsWizz the first audio buying platform to offer this enhanced cross-device identity capability in the US and EMEA markets. "Marketers need privacy-safe digital identity resolution to reach their consumers," says Tom Rolph, VP of EMEA at Tapad. "With audio becoming an increasingly powerful medium for engagement, it's important that our technology extends to this channel, which is why we are excited to announce our integration with AdsWizz's AudioMatic platform." Digital audio is experiencing high growth, with 84% of advertisers and agencies saying it will play a bigger role in their media plans in the future. Today, 60% of digital audio is consumed via a mobile device.* The Tapad Graph is the largest digital identity resolution graph with differentiated global scale. The partnership enables audio advertisers to leverage The Tapad Graph for enhanced attribution, analytics, and targeting. Alexis van der Wyer, CEO at AdsWizz, added, "Digital audio is increasingly becoming ubiquitous in our media consumption and in our daily digital interactions, and because of that, audio advertising offers tremendous opportunity to personally interact with consumers in every moment of their daily lives. By integrating with Tapad, we enable our advertising partners to increase the effectiveness and the relevance of their marketing messages across audio channels." To learn more about Tapad and our digital identity resolution products, visit our identity solutions page. *Digital Audio Exchange, "The Rise of Digital Audio Advertising," https://thisisdax.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/DAX-Whitepaper.pdf 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 AdsWizz: AdsWizz has created the end-to-end technology platform that is powering the digital audio advertising ecosystem. AdsWizz powers well-known music platforms, podcasts and broadcasting groups worldwide with a comprehensive digital audio software suite of solutions that connect audio publishers to the advertising community. From dynamic ad insertion to advanced programmatic platforms to innovative new audio formats, AdsWizz efficiently connects buyers and sellers in digital audio. AdsWizz is headquartered in San Mateo, California, with an IT Development hub in Bucharest, Romania, and presence in 39 markets around the world. About AudioMatic: AdsWizz Demand Side, audio-centric DSP and audio buying platform, AudioMatic, enables programmatic audio buying and entirely new audio ad experiences that are proven to be more engaging and more effective, and have delivered measurable results for agencies and their brands all over the world. All the biggest ad agencies have used our programmatic trading platform, including Omnicom, GroupM, Havas, Publicis, Mobext, and more. Contact us today