Consumers engage with content and advertisements across various devices and platforms, making an identity framework essential for establishing effective connections. An identity framework allows businesses to identify consumers across multiple touchpoints, including the relationships among households, individuals, and their devices. Combined with a robust data framework, businesses can understand the relationship between households, individuals, and marketing attributes. Consequently, businesses can tailor and deliver personalized experiences based on individual preferences, ensuring seamless consumer interactions across their devices.
We spoke with industry leaders from Audigent, Choreograph, Goodway Group, MiQ, Snowflake, and others to gather insights on how innovations in data and identity are creating stronger consumer connections. Here are five key considerations for advertisers.
1. Embrace a multi-ID strategy
Relying on a single identity solution limits reach and adaptability. Recent data shows that both marketers and agencies are adopting multiple identity solutions. By embracing a multi-ID strategy with solutions like Unified I.D. 2.0 (UID2) and ID5, brands can build a resilient audience targeting and measurement foundation, ensuring campaigns remain effective as identity options evolve across channels.
A diversified identity approach ensures that advertisers are not left vulnerable to shifts in technology or policy. By utilizing multiple ID solutions, brands can maintain consistent reach and engagement across various platforms and devices, maximizing their campaign effectiveness.
“I don’t think it will ever be about finding that one winner…it’s going to be about finding the strengths and weaknesses and what solutions drive the best results for us.”
Stephani Estes, GroupM
2. Utilize AI and machine learning to enhance identity graphs
Identity graphs help marketers understand the connections between households, individuals, their identifiers, and devices. This understanding of customer identity ensures accurate targeting and measurement over time. AI and machine learning have become essential in making accurate inferences from less precise signals. These technologies strengthen the accuracy of probabilistic matches, allowing brands to understand consumer behavior more effectively even when data fidelity is lower.
Adopting a signal-agnostic approach and utilizing various ID providers enhances the ability to view consumers’ movements across platforms. This strategy moves measurement beyond isolated channels, providing a holistic understanding of campaign effectiveness and how different formats contribute to overall performance. By integrating AI and machine learning into identity graphs, advertisers can develop more cohesive and effective marketing strategies that guide customers seamlessly through their buying journey.
“What we’re finding is more and more identity providers are using Gen AI to locate connections of devices to an individual or household that maybe an identity graph would not identify.”
David Wells, Snowflake
3. Balance privacy with precision using AI
AI-driven probabilistic targeting and identity mapping provide effective solutions for privacy-focused advertising. Rather than relying on extensive personal data like cookies, AI can use limited, non-specific information to predict audience preferences accurately. This approach allows advertisers to reach their target audience while respecting privacy—a crucial balance as the industry shifts away from traditional tracking methods.
According to eMarketer, generative AI can further enhance audience segmentation through clustering algorithms and natural language processing. These tools enable more granular, privacy-compliant targeting, offering advertisers a pathway to reach audiences effectively without needing third-party cookies.
“I think the biggest opportunity for machine learning and AI is increasing the strength and accuracy of probabilistic matches. This allows us to preserve privacy by building models based on the features and patterns of the consumers we do know, instead of transmitting data across the ecosystem.”
Brian DeCicco, Choreograph
4. Activate real-time data for better engagement
Real-time data enrichment introduces dynamic audience insights into the bidding process, enabling advertisers to respond instantly to user actions and preferences. This agility empowers marketers to craft more relevant and impactful moments within each campaign.
“Real-time data enrichment–where data companies can have a real-time conversation with the bid stream–is an exciting part of the future, and I believe it will open the door to activating a wide variety of data sets.”
Drew Stein, Audigent
5. Create and deploy dynamic personas using AI
Generative AI transforms persona-building by providing advertisers with richer audience profiles for more precise targeting. This approach moves beyond traditional demographic categories, allowing for messaging that connects more meaningfully with each consumer.
By using generative AI to craft detailed personas, advertisers can move beyond generic messaging to create content that truly resonates on an individual level. This personalized approach captures attention and strengthens consumer relationships by addressing their specific needs and interests.
“One cool thing we’ve built recently is a Gen AI-based personas product that generates personas to create highly sophisticated targeting tactics for campaigns.”
Georgiana Haig, MiQ
Seize the future of data-driven engagement
Focusing on these five key innovations in data and identity allows you to adapt to the evolving media landscape and deliver personalized experiences to your audience.
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Partnership combines customer connections and cross-device scale to deliver more strategic customer insights NEW YORK AND CHICAGO — March 16, 2017 – Signal, the global leader in customer identity, today announced a partnership with Tapad, now part of Experian and the leading provider of unified, cross-screen marketing technology solutions. This global integration extends device connectivity for Signal’s clients across North America, APAC and EMEA by leveraging Tapad’s proprietary Device GraphTM. With Signal’s Customer Identity Solution, brands benefit from more visibility of known customers, lower costs to reach those customers and decreased expenses and data loss that often results from using multiple vendors. Integrating with Tapad’s Device Graph, which connects billions of devices, enables Signal clients to build an even broader view of their known customers across multiple devices. This integration combines Signal’s customer identity scale with Tapad’s device scale to expand the reach of addressable media channels and enhance customer journey insights across touchpoints. Tapad and Signal were able to drive incremental device connections for more than 65 percent of customer profiles, linking an average of 6.8 browsers and devices per customer. With this combined data set, Signal clients can expand their authenticated view of a customer to all associated devices and realize more strategic insights into their high-value users. The partnership also allows Signal’s clients to integrate in real-time with Tapad’s media platform, Unify. This proprietary technology enables advertisers to make real-time activation and buying decisions with maximum scale, as well as automated reporting and measurement. “Continuously recognizing customers across devices instantly and in a privacy-safe way is essential for marketers to stay competitive,” said Marc Kiven, founder and CRO of Signal. “We are thrilled to enter this unique, global partnership with Tapad, enabling our clients to access their technology and more effectively reach customers in real-time and at scale.” “Being able to leverage a persistent view of customer connections across devices is a huge challenge for brands,” said Pierre Martensson, SVP and GM of Tapad’s global data division. “With Tapad, Signal is now able to connect with the billions of existing data points in our device graph to help clients better understand customer behavior and realize even stronger customer engagement.” Contact us today
Early successes include revenue increases, global partnerships and fundraising NEW YORK, March 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ – Tapad's entrepreneurial mentorship initiative, the Propeller Program, has seen extremely positive results since it began in September 2016. The five early-stage startups selected from Norway have gained momentum in establishing a U.S. presence. Tapad, now a part of Experian, is the leader in unified cross-device marketing technology. The company was acquired by the Telenor Group in 2016. Among the successes within Propeller: Xeneta, the leading ocean freight price comparison platform and contracted rate database, has raised an additional $12M in funding since beginning the Propeller Program. Before the end of 2016, the company had exceeded its revenue expectations by nearly 30 percent, proving the European-focused business could succeed in the American market. "Aside from directly impacting our revenue, the Propeller Program has provided us with incredible access to a countless number of external resources, including subject matter experts from the fields of fundraising, public speaking, corporate structuring and immigration law," said William Di Ieso, GM of North America for Xeneta. "We remain extremely grateful for the opportunity and exposure the program has provided for Xeneta." Bubbly, an in-store real-time engagement tool for non-buyers, now has clients on four continents. After only a few months in the U.S. market, Bubbly has signed deals with one major retail brand, one major toy manufacturer and a major global consulting firm. The Propeller Program has also opened doors for greater opportunities in Scandinavia and EMEA. After an introduction to Telenor Group's President and CEO Sigve Brekke, Bubbly is currently piloting its IoT kiosk with the company. "The mentoring sessions have been very valuable and have given us guidance as to how to best enter the U.S. market," said Marianne Haugland Hindsgaul, Bubbly CEO and co-founder. "Learning to do business in the U.S. is not something you can necessarily learn from a book. The most impactful lessons are based on real-world experience, and that is what the Propeller Program has given us." BylineMe, a marketplace for freelancers, publishers and brands to connect for content creation and distribution services, has built an extensive network of potential clients and investors. The company has tested its product in the U.S. market and gained valuable feedback for further development. Eventum, a property-sharing group that digitally assists in securing venues for meetings and corporate events, has closed a seed round of funding for nearly $1M. Eventum has also made key hires in the areas of business development and engineering "It is so rewarding to be able to support these Norwegian startups in a meaningful way," said Are Traasdahl, CEO and founder at Tapad. "Mentor relationships are critical for strategic growth, and I am proud to be able to pay forward the experiences I have gained as an entrepreneur. To me, the Propeller Program is a shining example of the magic that can happen when Norwegian innovation meets American opportunity." Contact us today
Tapad’s TV analytics solutions now include premium national cable inventory– Travelocity asserts industry need, praises partnership — NEW YORK, February 28, 2017 — Tapad, a part of Experian, has announced its partnership with clypd, the leading audience-based sales platform for television advertising. By integrating clypd’s national cable network inventory, the partnership will expand Tapad’s extensive supply of TV inventory to include premium national cable inventory. Tapad is the leading provider of privacy-safe, cross-screen marketing technology solutions and was first-to-market with a device graph. Clypd’s robust sell-side advertising platform was one of the first built exclusively for the television industry, empowering media owners with solutions that deliver workflow automation, data-enhanced decisioning and, overall, maximize TV campaign performance. Through this partnership, Tapad’s Device Graph-powered TV tools will work in tandem with clypd’s sales platform to enable more precise audience engagement for TV ad buys. This will enable marketers to integrate their customer data or third-party digital segments into Tapad’s TV platform and use them to precisely engage their audience across clypd’s industry-leading footprint of national TV inventory. Campaigns are then optimized using Tapad’s graph-powered TV attribution, ensuring ads are aligned with the best context for each brand’s message. “Clypd is a pioneer in building TV marketplaces,” says Marshall Wong, SVP of TV market development at Tapad. “They were quick to recognize the benefits a device graph could bring to TV so that advertisers can activate linear inventory curated for any digital audience.” “Tapad’s TV activation platform increases the efficiency in which marketers can reach their intended audience on traditional linear TV,” says Doug Hurd, co-founder and EVP of business development at clypd. “Their customized, data-driven campaigns launch with precision and really increase the value marketers can extract from linear TV inventory.” "At Travelocity, we are always looking for ways to more efficiently reach our target audiences,” says Ashley Parker, head of brand marketing at Travelocity. “The combination of traditional linear TV and solutions like this offering from Tapad and clypd are bringing both the tools and the supply to make this vision a reality." Contact us today