At A Glance
Curation in AdTech packages enriched audience data and premium inventory into curated private marketplace deals designed for performance and transparency. As identity signals fragment and privacy expectations rise, curated programmatic buying gives marketers greater control, cleaner supply paths, and measurable outcomes. Experian powers end-to-end curation across data, inventory, and optimization.In this article…
Curation in AdTech is the strategic packaging of enriched audience data and premium inventory into a single, performance-ready deal, typically executed through private marketplaces (PMPs). It gives marketers greater control over targeting, supply paths, and measurement in a privacy-first environment.
Programmatic buying has grown more complex. Buyers face inefficient advertising and audience definition and identification, shrinking margins, and growing pressure to perform in a privacy-first world. Add in fragmented tech, shifting privacy regulations, and inconsistent identity signals, and reaching the right audience at scale has never been more complex (or costly).
Meanwhile, advertisers demand more transparency, publishers want control, and consumers expect relevance without feeling watched. Open exchanges, legacy data management platforms (DMPs), and spray-and-pray strategies just aren’t cutting it.
That’s why curation has seen increased adoption in the AdTech space. In programmatic advertising, curation refers to the strategic integration of enriched data and quality inventory into a single package — often executed as a PMP deal. This approach reshapes how campaigns are built, activated, and optimized by enabling performance-ready buys that reduce waste, increase relevance, and give marketers greater control over outcomes.
Curation does more than bundle data and inventory. It modernizes audience activation by enriching bidstreams with real-time, privacy-safe signals and optimizing the full supply path before inefficiencies impact performance.
It’s no wonder then that curation investments are accelerating, PMPs are gaining traction, and buyers are shifting budgets accordingly. Over 66% of the $150 billion+ open exchange programmatic market now flows through curated PMPs, with industry giants like Google publicly backing curation as a core strategy.
What does programmatic curation mean in AdTech?
Programmatic curation is the process of filtering, structuring, and packaging enriched data with high-quality programmatic inventory — enhanced by real-time optimization to create more targeted, efficient, and transparent media buys. The most effective approaches enrich bidstreams with real-time, privacy-safe signals and apply AI-powered optimization across supply and informed by demand signals. This creates curated private marketplaces that are designed for performance, not just packaging.
Instead of buying at scale and hoping for the best, curation prioritizes accuracy and value over volume, resulting in more targeted, efficient, and transparent media buys.
As privacy regulations reshape targeting, curation is becoming a key differentiator in an increasingly crowded AdTech space. It connects robust data with quality supply, helping marketers stay effective while giving publishers new ways to monetize with control.
But not all curation is created equal. Programmatic curation requires these core elements:
1. Comprehensive identity
To help drive addressability and consistency in today’s omnichannel world.
2. Unique audiences
Unique, high quality, privacy-compliant, and valuable.
3. Full signal visibility
Real-time integrations across supply and demand opening unfiltered views across the buy.
4. Strong supply connections
Access to quality inventory from publishers at scale.
5. AI-powered optimization
To measure, refine, and improve performance during a campaign and improve performance throughout the campaign lifecycle. Ideally, this includes supply path optimization (SPO) that routes spend toward more efficient supply sources and reduces waste.
6. Ability to report on outcomes
To close the loop attributing media exposure to real-world outcomes.
Without all of these elements, a so-called “curator” may simply be repackaging inventory without delivering the full value of a curated approach.
Experian Curated Deals take curation a step further by unifying premium data and premium inventory into optimized private marketplaces that simplify activation and help solve media inefficiencies by unifying audience signals across channels and enriching inventory with real-time data at scale. Delivered through simple Deal IDs, Curated Deals are designed to fit directly into agency and brand workflows in leading demand-side platforms (DSPs), without contracts, minimums, or hidden fees.
Why does curation matter if cookies still exist?
Curation matters even though cookies still exist because identity fragmentation is already here. While third-party cookies and mobile IDs like the identifier for advertisers (IDFA) haven’t gone away, the industry has already pivoted in anticipation of their decline.
Even without Google flipping the switch, signal loss is here thanks to Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT), tighter compliance rules, and new tracking restrictions. Marketers are dealing with less data, more fragmentation, and fewer reliable IDs. So if you want to run an effective, scalable media campaign today, you need tools that go beyond third-party cookies.
That’s why programmatic curation is gaining ground as a better, more sustainable way to buy media. Investments in programmatic curation are growing, and not just for identity resolution. Marketers are leaning in because it:
- Combines verified audience data with premium inventory
- Supports ID-free or context-aware targeting
- Enables scalable, identity-agnostic strategies
- Improves data quality through enrichment
- Supports cookieless and deviceless strategies that are not tied to a single identifier
- Enables persistent targeting across environments where traditional IDs are unavailable
- Creates more controlled, pre-approved media paths via PMPs and reduces wasted spend through SPO applied on the supply-side.
“Curation will be bigger than header bidding and as big as programmatic or real-time bidding — that’s our bet.”
Index ExchangeAndrew Casale, CEO
Whether cookies stay or go in the future, curation works for an ecosystem that demands better, cleaner, and adaptable media buying. The priority isn’t “cookies vs no cookies.” It’s building addressable, privacy-safe activation that performs even when identity signals are fragmented.
Who benefits from programmatic curation?
Curation creates value across the media ecosystem because it aligns incentives around data quality, supply integrity, and measurable outcomes. By bringing better data, cleaner supply, and more intentional targeting into programmatic advertising, it helps brands, agencies, and media buyers drive stronger performance, gives publishers more control, and creates a more respectful experience for consumers.
And unlike traditional approaches, curation is built for what’s now and what’s next. Here’s how each group benefits and why it matters.
Agency holding companies
Curation helps agency holding companies run more efficient campaigns by connecting high-quality data with premium supply. It delivers:
- Streamline fragmented supply paths and reduce wasted spend
- Integrate seamlessly with existing data and SPO strategies
- Improve audience accuracy in privacy-constrained environments
- Package premium data and inventory into performance-ready PMPs
- Increase transparency and control across buying strategies
- Accelerate testing and optimization without rebuilding campaign structures
When executed through Experian Curated Deals, these benefits become even more actionable. Curated Deals unify premium data and premium inventory into optimized private marketplaces delivered via simple Deal IDs that integrate directly into leading DSP workflows.
Holding companies can activate instantly through self-service deal creation, without contracts or minimum commitments. Built-in supply path optimization routes spend toward more efficient sources, while real-time signal enrichment enhances audience relevance at the moment of bid. A percent-of-media pricing model bundles data and inventory into one streamlined package, helping teams reduce complexity while improving performance.
Independent agencies
Independent agencies operate with leaner teams and fewer internal resources, yet face the same expectations for performance and innovation as larger firms. Curation helps level the playing field by simplifying execution and packaging premium data with quality inventory into scalable private marketplaces.
Curation enables independent agencies to:
- Access performance-ready inventory without building custom integrations
- Improve efficiency through cleaner supply paths
- Strengthen audience targeting in cookieless or fragmented environments
- Launch campaigns more confidently with predictable scale
- Engage with accessible minimums that support agency growth
Through Experian Curated Deals, independent agencies gain access to enterprise-grade data, premium publisher relationships, and optimization tools without enterprise friction. Curated Deals are delivered as ready-to-activate Deal IDs with no contracts, minimums, or hidden fees. Agencies can choose between self-service activation or flexible managed service support that scales with their workflow. Built-in supply path optimization and real-time signal enrichment help smaller teams drive measurable performance gains without adding operational burden.
This approach empowers independent agencies to compete confidently, expand capabilities, and grow client relationships with more efficient media strategies.
Brand direct marketers
For brand marketers, curation simplifies programmatic activation while improving transparency and performance. In-house marketers often face limited resources, evolving privacy requirements, inconsistent access to partners, and pressure to deliver measurable results across fragmented channels. Curation helps consolidate data and inventory into more intentional, performance-ready private marketplaces that are easier to activate and optimize.
Curation enables brand marketers to:
- Reduce reliance on legacy identifiers while maintaining scalable reach
- Improve media efficiency through cleaner supply paths
- Align audience strategy more closely to business goals
- Increase transparency into where and how media dollars are working
- Future-proof campaigns in an increasingly privacy-conscious environment
- Simplify media investment with bundled data and inventory pricing
When powered through Experian Curated Deals, brands gain even greater simplicity and flexibility. Curated Deals unify premium data and premium inventory into optimized private marketplaces delivered via Deal IDs, allowing teams to activate instantly with no contracts, minimums, or hidden fees.
With built-in supply path optimization, real-time signal enrichment, and a percent-of-media pricing model that bundles data and inventory into one package, Curated Deals help brand teams streamline workflows while driving stronger performance. Flexible managed service support and transparent reporting ensure in-house marketers can scale confidently, whether operating independently or alongside agency partners.
Publishers
For publishers, curation makes inventory more addressable without giving up control. It enables:
- Smarter packaging that aligns with buyer needs and campaign goals
- Higher CPMs by curating inventory above open exchange floors
- More control over how audiences are accessed and how inventory is monetized
- Access to higher-value demand through curated, data-backed deals
- Better protection of proprietary audience in a privacy-conscious environment
Consumers
At the end of the chain, curation improves the ad experience for your audience. It supports:
- Higher-quality content alignment for more natural, less disruptive ad experiences tailored to their interests
- Less invasive tracking, as targeting becomes more data-smart and privacy-aware, with reduced reliance on legacy identifiers and personally identifiable information (PII).
Curation is setting a new standard for how data, inventory, and experience come together across the ad ecosystem. When media is smarter, cleaner, and more intentional, everyone wins.
What’s Experian’s role in powering curation?
Experian powers curation by combining identity, premium audiences, and outcome measurement into integrated private marketplace deals. With our acquisition of Audigent, Experian is now more than just a premier data provider. We’re also a full-service curation partner. Together, we deliver end-to-end programmatic curation across data, inventory, and optimization, helping brands and publishers unlock smarter, more scalable media strategies.
What do Experian Curated Deals enable?
Experian Curated Deals unify premium data and premium inventory into optimized PMPs delivered through simple Deal IDs. They are designed to integrate directly into agency and brand workflows within leading DSPs. Experian Curated Deals make it easier to activate high-performing, privacy-compliant campaigns at scale with:
- End-to-end curation across data, inventory, and real-time optimization
- Pre-packaged and custom PMP deals with built-in performance signals
- Scalable, privacy-first media solutions aligned to brand objectives, verticals, and KPIs
- Delivered as simple Deal IDs that activate instantly in leading DSPs, with no minimums, fees, or contracts
Flexible support models
Curated Deals are available via self-service activation or fully managed support, based on your team’s workflow and resourcing needs:
- Audience and data strategy guidance
- Performance strategy and optimization support
- Transparent reporting and insights across audience, supply, and creative
These aren’t just theoretical; curated marketplace deals are already delivering measurable gains. In OpenX, Audigent-curated campaigns increased bid competition by 20% and drove a 118% spike in impressions won over a two-month period.
Key benefits of curation for our partners
By bringing together our data depth and Audigent’s curation technology, we offer our partners a full suite of value-added capabilities, including:
- High-quality, verified data ranked #1 in accuracy by Truthset ensuring confidence in audience accuracy across fragmented environments. Powered by Experian’s identity graph and deep programmatic data insights plus real-time, privacy-safe signal enrichment that improves relevance at the moment of bid.
- Data enrichment layers that boost addressability, accuracy, and contextual relevance.
- Privacy-compliant infrastructure built for secure, cookieless data use at scale.
- Platform integration across leading DSPs and supply-side platforms (SSPs) for seamless activation and optimization. including built-in supply path optimization to reduce waste in fragmented supply chains. This reduces reliance on legacy DMP layering or fragmented SSP-native curation tools.
Experian Curated Deals are built for scale across today’s fragmented ecosystem. This scale enables advertisers to build once and activate everywhere, maintaining reach and accuracy even as identifiers fragment.
- 7.26+ billion first-party IDs
- 24.3+ billion first-party device graph
- 1.7+ billion MAIDs
- 1.8+ billion monthly traffic across 900K+ web and mobile sites, plus 2.5+ million daily contextuality indexed webpages.
How did Boiron improve performance through curated PMPs?
A leading homeopathic brand, Boiron, partnered with Audigent to scale customer acquisition for its flu relief product without increasing media investment. They wanted to reach new, privacy-compliant audiences while improving CPA across display and video. Using Audigent’s curated SmartPMPs and CognitivePMPs, the campaign delivered measurable performance improvements:
- 80% lower CPA on display than historical benchmarks
- 40% lower CPA on video
- 30% reduction in data costs
- Significant media efficiency gains through real-time supply and data optimization
- Fully future-proof targeting with zero reliance on cookies or MAIDs
Boiron’s success story is just one example of how Experian Curated Deals can deliver efficiency and impact in a privacy-conscious environment. It also shows how percent-of-media pricing can create savings opportunities by bundling data and inventory into a single deal.
Experian’s curation capabilities
Together with Audigent, our curated solutions go beyond basic packaging. Every deal is designed for performance, privacy, and relevance, so you can activate smarter media with greater confidence:
- Deal ID-ready audiences for fast, turnkey activation
- Performance-specific curation, including viewability, CTR, and outcome-based targeting
- Custom audience + inventory packages tailored to campaign goals
- Vertical-specific curation for industries like auto, retail, CPG, and financial services
- Real-time optimization signals embedded into every curated deal with supply path optimization built in to route spend toward more efficient supply sources.
What types of Curated Deals does Experian offer?
Experian Curated Deals support multiple activation strategies depending on campaign goals.
Contextual-based deals
Contextual-based deals are built for persistent relevance. Contextual PMPs reach consumers based on the content they’re engaging with and remain effective across environments where IDs are limited or unavailable.
Audience-based deals
Audience-based deals are built for bottom-funnel tactics. These private marketplaces use audiences to refine inventory and create custom curated deals, combining first-party publisher segments, Experian Audiences, Partner Audiences, and your first-party data where needed, including onboarding and lookalike modeling for expanded scale.
Predictive Indexed deals
Predictive Indexed deals are built for scalable, privacy-friendly reach. Predictive indexing analyzes signals and content consumption across a network of over two million web and mobile sites and apps to build ID-less private marketplaces that are cookieless, deviceless, and futureproofed.
Audience-based deals
Audience-based deals are built for bottom-funnel tactics. These private marketplaces use audiences to refine inventory and create custom curated deals, combining first-party publisher segments, Experian Audiences, Partner Audiences, and your first-party data where needed, including onboarding and lookalike modeling for expanded scale.
Don’t wait: Curate today
The future of programmatic advertising will be won by marketers and publishers who embrace cleaner ways to activate their data, inventory, and strategy now. With Experian, you’re getting Curated Deals that unify premium data and premium inventory into optimized private marketplaces, enriched with real-time signals and built-in supply path optimization.
Whether you’re trying to reduce media waste, gain supply path control, or future-proof your campaigns, Curated Deals can get you there faster. And because Curated Deals are delivered via simple Deal IDs, you can activate instantly across your preferred platforms with no minimums, fees, or contracts. Let’s activate your first Curated Deal. Smarter buying starts where premium data meets premium inventory.
Get started with curation
FAQs about curation in AdTech
Programmatic curation is the packaging of trusted audience data with premium publisher inventory into private marketplace deals built for performance and accountability. It gives marketers more control over targeting, supply quality, and measurement.
Open exchange buying emphasizes broad reach across diverse inventory sources while curation pre-selects enriched audiences and vetted supply paths before bidding begins, which improves transparency, efficiency, and outcome alignment.
Private marketplaces are central to curation strategies because they provide structured, pre-approved access to inventory. When combined with enriched data and identity resolution, PMPs create accountable media paths that reduce waste and support measurable performance.
Experian’s data is built on a privacy-conscious identity foundation that connects offline and digital identifiers responsibly. Experian Curated Deals integrate identity resolution, enrichment, and outcome measurement without relying solely on legacy identifiers.
Experian’s measurement approach ties media exposure to real-world outcomes such as visits, conversions, and sales. By using identity resolution across channels, Experian connects activation directly to business impact.
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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
Sixty-Nine Percent Organic Sales Growth Spurred by Expanded Business and Continued Investment in The Tapad Graph™ NEW YORK, May 7, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Tapad, a part of Experian, a global leader in digital identity resolution, today announced a record start to the year, following its highest earning year in the company's history. Since January, Tapad has experienced a 69 percent organic increase in global revenue; with strategic investments in talent, continued high retention rates, and an expanded range of clients across global markets. Globally, Tapad increased its client base across multiple categories and verticals, catering to agencies, brands, telecoms, and data providers. The Tapad Graph™'s varied use cases and differentiated global scale have been instrumental to the company's overall success to-date. With an ongoing investment in product, and expected feature releases slated for 2019, the company anticipates these accomplishments to continue. "Since the inception of our business, Tapad has heavily focused on enabling marketers to boost the performance of their campaigns with the help of our advanced digital identity resolution technologies," said Sigvart Voss Eriksen, CEO at Tapad. "While we continue to grow, creating privacy-safe solutions that solve marketers evolving needs remains integral to our evolution. As pioneers in cross-device, we're constantly innovating and pushing ourselves to be at the forefront of industry change. Our leadership in the space is recognized across the industry, as is evident by our current success." In addition to partner expansions, Tapad also invested in new talent. In February, Tapad announced Ajit Thupil as the company's first Senior Vice President of Identity, deepening the company's commitment to creating ground-breaking digital identity resolution products for brands, agencies and platforms. Tapad's investment in talent has been recognized by One World Identity's 2019 Top 100 Influencers in Identity Award and by ClickZ's 2019 Marketing Technology Awards. To learn more about Tapad and our digital identity resolution products, visit Experian.com Open job opportunities across the globe can be found on Tapad's career page here: https://www.experian.com/careers/ About Tapad Tapad, Inc. is a global leader in digital identity resolution. The Tapad Graph™, and related solutions, provide a privacy-safe approach to connecting device identifiers to brand and marketer data, thereby allowing marketers around the world to maximize campaign effectiveness. Tapad is recognized across the industry for its innovation, growth and workplace culture, and has earned numerous awards, including the TMCnet Tech Culture Award. Based in New York, Tapad also has offices in Chicago, London, Oslo, Singapore and Tokyo, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Telenor Group. Contact us today
The UK digital advertising market is worth £13.44bn, an increase year-on-year of 15%, reveals the 2018 IAB UK & PwC Digital Adspend Study. Report highlights The majority of all growth is coming from smartphone advertising, which has increased by £1.65bn (35%) from 2017. Smartphone advertising now represents 51% of all UK digital ad spend, up from 45% in 2017. Video is now the largest display format (£2307m), overtaking standard display banners (£1486m). Outstream/social in-feed has increased its majority in total video spend, now occupying a share of 57%, up from 52% in 2017. Social revenue now represents 23% of all digital ad spend. Growth is predicted to slow during 2019, with 5% estimated growth (+9% digital, +11% display, +9% search) compared to 15% in 2018. 2018 marks the tipping point towards a mobile-first ecosystem “For the past few years, industry commentators have been hailing the year of mobile. Each January the predictions come and the waiting commences for evidence to mark a tipping point, a shift to a mobile-first digital ad ecosystem. Well, drumroll… it was 2018! The latest Adspend report from IAB UK and PwC reveals that spend on smartphones outstripped spend on desktop for the first time last year. Brands spent 51% of total spend (which stands at £13.44 billion) on smartphones in 2018, up from 45% in 2017 – a significant milestone in the evolution of digital advertising. “This evidence shows that advertisers are increasingly thinking mobile-first. Growth in investment has historically lagged behind the amount of time spent on the device and we expect to see growth continue at a rapid pace to keep up with audience behaviour – two thirds of time spent online is now on mobile, according to UKOM. Other areas of growth highlighted by the report include video, which accounts for 44% of the total display market, while mobile video now makes up 51% of smartphone display. This is no doubt down to bigger mobile screens, better 4G and more readily available WiFi making video ads an increasingly attractive option. “Across the board, advertisers are investing in digital for longer-term brand building as well as short-term activation, with the direct-to-consumer market helping to drive this trend. What’s more, digital continues to be an accessible and popular route to market for businesses of all sizes, from leading advertisers to SMEs.” Tim Elkington, Chief Digital Officer, IAB UK Content & context crucial for attracting audiences “As people spend more and more of their time on mobile, it’s comes as no surprise that advertisers will follow where audiences are with their marketing spend. “Video has been the driving force in this growth, indicating that engaging visual content is still key in helping brands to achieve great results and to capture consumer attention in a vast sea of digital noise. “Video still has a way to go if it is to reach the level of effectiveness of traditional formats like cinema, but it will be interesting to see how the format develops over the next year or so. Ultimately, brilliant content and properly considered context are crucial for advertisers hoping to attract relevant audiences and build strong brands long term.” Kathryn Jacob OBE, CEO, Pearl & Dean Mobile-first approach driving investment in user experience “As a mobile-first approach has become the norm for many businesses, we’ve seen significant innovation and investment in the user experience that has fuelled the rise in mobile commerce. “Yet, for some years, limitations in the technology and formats available have meant that mobile advertising couldn’t always keep pace with changing consumer behaviours – delivering weaker performance when compared to desktop. “Fortunately, mobile has made huge strides in recent years. Mobile advertising affords great targeting opportunities for brands and a more interactive and immersive experience for consumers. “There is no reason to doubt this trend will continue as advertisers design their media, creative, and targeting strategy with mobile at the heart – optimising performance, enhancing the customer experience, and delivering the best results.” James Cragg, UK Managing Director, Tug New technologies to improve investment efficiency “The UK digital ad market has continued to grow despite the various challenges that the market has faced, including the current socioeconomic climate and general changes in the industry. As spend increases, it’s important to look at how media buying can be made as efficient as possible, minimising waste and maximising the return on investment. “Marketers will start to look to new technologies, like AI, to offer an impartial and more efficient approach to media buying, allowing marketers to measure effectiveness of campaigns and allocate spend accordingly.” Carl Erik Kjaersgaard, Chief Executive, Blackwood Seven Industry going from strength to strength “This significant growth in ad spend is great to see and shows that our industry is going from strength to strength. It’s especially good to see that as advertisers invest more and more in digital advertising, they’re becoming more considered in where they’re spending their money – with a large portion of the growth coming from companies that are part of IAB’s Gold Standard. “At The Trade Desk, we’ve long been ambassadors for the importance of transparency. These findings show that it isn’t just the right thing to do, but makes good business sense as advertisers increasingly choose partners who are demonstrating a commitment to best practice.” Anna Forbes, UK General Manager, The Trade Desk Advertisers embracing mobile “As consumers spend more of their time online, it’s no surprise that digital ad spend has continued its rise, up 15% to £13.4bn. With digital, in every sense, becoming further embedded in our daily lives, it is inevitable that this number is set to rise further next year. “Given the vast majority of people using their smartphone as their primary digital device, evident from site traffic stats we see across the board, the IAB report shows that advertisers have started to fully embrace this shift by following with ad spend. Over the last few years, a combination of faster wireless connectivity along with more capable devices has made it the go-to device for consumers to get online. This is set to continue over the next few years with 5G and even faster, more capable smartphones arriving (i.e. foldables) that will further cement ‘mobile’ as the main digital device to reach consumers.” Wajid Ali, Head of Paid Search, ForwardPMX Budgets must go to professionally produced content “In the IAB’s latest ‘Digital Adspend Study’ it is positive to see that outstream continues to dominate video spend, showing close to a 10% year-on-year increase. “Unsurprisingly, the study highlights that mobile is the most important distribution device (76% of all video spend is on the smartphone), and it’s great to see the format we invented dominating that space. “However, it’s now more pertinent than ever that clients and agencies invest their outstream budgets into professionally produced content and not social infeeds. Budgets must go where content is being produced, rather than aggregators and distributors, where the content is read rather than where a click happened. “We must remember how important local, national, and vertical press are to the global digital ecosystem. By unifying the best publishers at scale, delivering mobile-optimised creativity and outcome-orientated distribution, we are fighting to ensure publishers are getting their fair share of revenue in comparison to the social platforms.” Justin Taylor, UK MD, Teads UK market in robust health “The latest IAB digital ad spend report shows encouraging signs that the UK digital advertising market is in robust health, with mobile advertising continuing its upward trend. “The rise of up-and-coming ad formats like Shopping Ads, Google’s Responsive Search Ads, and Facebook Messenger Ads show that advertisers are looking for ways to capture consumer attention in the evolving digital landscape. As a result, the lines across search, social, and e-commerce are more blurred than ever with the introduction of features like Checkout for Instagram and Shopping ads on Google Images. Furthermore, with the rapid growth of Amazon’s ads business, e-commerce has quickly emerged as a third pillar of digital advertising, making it vital for marketers to have a complete view of the customer journey across channels and devices, if they hope to more accurately understand campaign performance and attribution.” Wesley MacLaggan, SVP of Marketing, Marin Software Digital identity resolution essential in understanding customer journey “Last year’s figures show that UK ad spend is starting to mirror the behaviour of consumers who, according to UKOM data, spend two-thirds of their time online on a smartphone. The fact that mobile ad spend now surpasses that of ad spend on desktop highlights marketers’ understanding that digital identity resolution is essential, not a nice-to-have. “Appreciating the cross-device behaviours of consumers allows brands to gain a better understanding of the customer journey and build stronger relationships with their audiences long term.” Tom Rolph, VP EMEA, Tapad, a part of Experian. Contact us today