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Marketing without segmentation is a lot like shouting into a crowded room and hoping the right person hears you. Without a clear way to communicate in a noisy marketing environment, your message gets lost in the mix.
With segmentation, you can identify your target audience, speak to their needs, and deliver the right message at the right moment. Companies that use segmentation are 130% more likely to understand customer motivations, resulting in more effective campaigns and deeper audience relationships.
In this article, we’ll break down four of the most effective customer segmentation methods, when to use each, and how Experian’s audience solutions can help.
What is segmentation in marketing?
Segmentation is the process of splitting a large audience into smaller groups that share similar traits, like demographics, location, behavior, or firmographic characteristics. As a marketer, these segments enable you to choose channels, messaging, and offers that resonate with each group.
Whether you’re targeting new homeowners in Texas, loyalty shoppers in retail, or small business decision-makers in finance, segmentation helps you stand out to them and get results.
Why should marketers segment their audiences?
Effective audience segmentation fuels accuracy, performance, and personalization at scale. Here’s why you should invest your time and marketing budget in honing your audience segments.
Maximize your marketing ROI
Nobody wants to waste money talking to the wrong crowd. Using various methods of segmentation, you can focus on those who want to hear from you — and the payoff can be huge. For marketing channels like email, segmentation can drive up to 760% more revenue than non-segmented campaigns. The more targeted your message, the better the return.
Create a unified omnichannel strategy
Segmentation helps ensure that every channel, from email and social media to display, SMS, and direct mail, operates from the same playbook.
Once you define your target audience segments, you also need a trusted identity partner to sync them across platforms and environments. This ensures you can deliver consistent, personalized experiences at every touchpoint and your audience receives the same message in the proper context, regardless of where they engage.
Strengthen customer loyalty
Roughly 75% of consumers are loyal to brands that “get” them. When you strive to understand your customers, they’re more likely to stay. Segmentation enables you to personalize communications based on your target segment’s values, behaviors, or preferences, encouraging repeat business.
Expand into new markets
With segmentation, you can analyze existing customers to identify common traits and use that data to pinpoint similar groups in new regions or markets. For example, if your top customers are middle-class parents in suburban areas, you can target lookalike segments in other cities with tailored messaging.
This makes it easier to expand with confidence, knowing you’re reaching people who are more likely to convert.
Lower customer acquisition costs
Rather than forcing you to cast a wide net, segmentation enables you to focus your budget on high-potential audiences across channels, reduce acquisition costs, and minimize wasted spend on low-intent audiences.
Four segmentation methods and examples
Let’s look at four different methods of market segmentation. We’ll define each, share when to use them, and give real-world examples to help you apply them.
1. Demographic segmentation
Demographic segmentation breaks your audience into groups based on gender, income, age, education, marital status, occupation, and household size. It’s one of the most foundational segmentation methods because it’s easy to implement and often tied directly to buying behavior.
Demographic data makes it easier to get the tone, offer, and channel right from the start. And when you combine demographic segmentation with other segmentation methods, such as behavior or location, the impact multiplies.
When to use it
Use demographic segmentation when your product or service is clearly more relevant to people in a specific life stage, income bracket, or household type.
Among all methods of market segmentation, demographic data is often the easiest starting point. It’s especially effective for industries such as financial services, healthcare, education, retail, and others, where consumer needs change based on demographics.
Examples
As a real-world example, a health supplement company used Experian data to segment its ambassador program audience into four demographic groups based on lifestyle and household makeup. These included younger singles, value-seeking families, high-income spenders, and older empty nesters.
Applying these insights at registration allowed the brand to deliver personalized, channel-specific communications that boosted acquisition and retention. The approach led to stronger engagement and more meaningful customer connections.
2. Geographic segmentation
This method of market segmentation categorizes people by location, including country, region, state, city, zip code, or even climate. It’s a simple yet effective way to tailor your marketing, as location often influences everything from lifestyle and language to shopping habits and product needs. It’s most often used among brands with physical locations or region-specific campaigns.
Whether you’re promoting snow boots in Colorado or sunscreen in California, geographic segmentation helps you stay relevant to the local context.
When to use it
Geographic segmentation is ideal when your offer or message changes depending on climate, culture, availability, or local regulations. It’s also helpful for planning market expansion or testing the performance of different methods of market segmentation across regions.
Examples
One home furnishings retailer partnered with Experian to understand how customer needs varied across store locations. Using a mix of client data and Experian demographics, we segmented stores based on their surrounding customer base, like urban, white-collar shoppers in metro centers versus lower-income households in more remote cities.
These insights enabled the retailer to tailor inventory, marketing strategies, and ad copy for each store type, resulting in more relevant customer experiences.
3. Behavioral segmentation
Behavioral segmentation centers on how people live their lives — their interests, habits, and decision-making patterns. It includes factors like past purchases, engagement frequency, brand loyalty, product usage, browsing patterns, and responsiveness to offers or promotions.
Among all of the segmentation methods, this one provides insight into intent, helping you go beyond who your audience is to understand what they do. You can use behavioral insights to re-engage former customers with relevant offers, reward loyal buyers with personalized perks, or guide high-intent shoppers toward conversion with timely nudges.
When to use it
Behavioral segmentation is best when you want to personalize based on intent, habits, or engagement stage. It’s particularly useful for retention, reactivation, or cross-selling strategies.
Examples
In practice, a national big-box retailer partnered with Experian to better understand customer behavior during grocery store visits. The goal was to identify distinct “trip missions” that could drive category trial and increase basket size. We analyzed everything from basket contents to customer composition and segmented visits into 11 unique missions.
For example, the “All Aisles Online” segment represented large households (often homeowners with families) stocking up on household staples through online orders. In contrast, the “Marketable Mission” segment captured smaller, likely renter households making quick trips for non-essentials.
These behavioral insights empowered the retailer to adjust promotions based on the intent behind each visit, strengthen customer relationships, and drive growth.
4. Firmographic segmentation (B2B)
Firmographic segmentation is like demographic segmentation for businesses. It groups B2B audiences based on attributes such as annual revenue, location, company size, industry, and organizational structure. You can also segment by job title or decision-maker role to better target key stakeholders.
This method is great for aligning your messaging, sales strategy, or product offerings with the unique needs of various business types. A startup in the tech sector will likely respond to a very different pitch than an enterprise manufacturer, and firmographic data helps you speak to both with precision.
When to use it
Use firmographic segmentation when marketing to other businesses, especially when your product or service has different benefits depending on business size or sector.
Examples
Recently, a B2B client partnered with Experian to gain a deeper understanding of the revenue potential of their existing business customers. Using firmographic data, we segmented the client’s customers into distinct groups based on the characteristics most strongly tied to spending behavior.
For each segment, we calculated potential spend, defined as the 80th percentile of annual spend within that segment. This allowed the client to identify high-value accounts with untapped growth potential.
For example, one customer, ABC Construction, had spent $4,750. But based on their segment’s profile, their annual potential was $9,000. That insight revealed a $4,250 opportunity to deepen the relationship through more targeted marketing and sales efforts.
Best practices for market segmentation
Regardless of the segmentation method you use, the following best practices will help you maximize the benefits of your efforts.
Start with clean, reliable data
Segments are only as good as the data behind them. If your data is outdated, inaccurate, or incomplete, your segments will result in ineffective targeting and a wasted budget. Utilize accurate, compliant, up-to-date sources like Experian Marketing Data, ranked #1 in accuracy by Truthset, to ensure your targeting is on point.
Test and refine segments continuously
Business goals, market conditions, and behaviors are constantly changing. What worked last month or even last week might not work today. By adjusting your segments over time, you make sure your marketing stays relevant, focused, and effective. Use A/B testing, performance metrics, and audience analytics to iterate on your segments and improve results over time.
Align segments with personalized messaging and offers
Each segment has distinct needs, preferences, and motivations, which means generic messaging won’t resonate effectively. Once you’ve built your segments, personalize your creative, copy, and offers to appeal to each group and increase the likelihood of engagement and conversions.
Integrate segmentation across all platforms
If someone sees one message in an email and a completely different one in an ad or on your website, it creates confusion and weakens trust. From CRMs and email platforms to ad tech and analytics tools, make sure your segmentation method is applied consistently across every channel to improve performance and build a cohesive brand experience.
Segment your audiences with Experian
Effective audience segmentation is at the heart of every successful marketing strategy, but in this fragmented, privacy-conscious landscape, grouping your audience into meaningful, actionable subgroups is more challenging than ever. That’s where we come in.
With coverage of the entire U.S. population, Experian helps marketers define and categorize broad audiences into precise segments using rich data on demographics, behaviors, financial profiles, and lifestyle traits. These insights make it easier to personalize messaging, optimize media spend, and drive better outcomes.
From ready-to-use syndicated audiences to custom segments and even Contextually-Indexed Audiences that align targeting with content, Experian offers flexible segmentation solutions that perform across digital, TV, programmatic, and social channels.
In our most recent release, we introduced over 750 new and updated audience segments across key categories, including a brand-new category for Experian, giving marketers more accurate, behavior-based targeting options than ever before.
- 135+ new CPG audiences, a brand-new category for Experian, built from opt-in loyalty card and receipt scan data
- 240+ new automotive audiences covering ownership and in-market shoppers
- 100+ new high-spending behavior audiences focused on specific merchant categories
- 24 new wealth and income segments with refined household net worth tiers
- 13 new lifestyle-based housing audiences for family- and household-focused targeting
- 250+ refreshed financial segments with improved naming conventions for better discoverability and clarity
Together, these segments give marketers more accuracy to reach high-intent consumers based on real-world behaviors, spending patterns, and financial capacity.
Audience solutions powered by consumer insights
Experian Marketing Data, one of the most comprehensive and accurate consumer databases in the U.S., is the core of our segmentation capabilities. Backed by over 5,000 demographic and behavioral attributes, it helps you understand not just who your customers are but how they live, shop, spend, and engage, too.
Each audience segment is built with privacy and precision in mind, using a blend of demographic data, financial behaviors, lifestyle signals, and media habits. With these consumer insights, we’ll help you uncover meaningful patterns that lead to smarter strategy.
Experian’s pre-built audiences
Our syndicated audiences are pre-built, ready-to-activate segments based on shared characteristics from age and income to purchase behavior and lifestyle indicators. When speed and scale are a priority, these segments offer a fast, effective way to reach your target audience.
Experian’s 2,400+ syndicated audiences are available directly on over 30 leading television, social, and programmatic advertising platforms, as well as within Audigent for activation within private marketplaces (PMPs).
Here’s what’s new from our August 2025 release:
- CPG shoppers by category (e.g., Frozen Food Shoppers, Multi-Vitamin Shoppers)
- Luxury EV owners and auto brand shoppers (e.g., Rivian, Polestar, Cadillac)
- High spenders in specific categories (e.g., men’s grooming and women’s accessories)
- Ultra high-net-worth households (e.g., Net Worth $50M+) and likely home sellers
- Young Family Homeowners and Growing Family Apartment Renters
Custom audiences for specialized targeting
Need a custom audience? Reach out to our audience team, and we can help you build and activate an Experian audience on your preferred platform. Additionally, work with Experian’s network of data providers to build audiences and send to an Audigent PMP for activation.
Contextually-Indexed Audiences
Experian’s Contextually-Indexed Audiences offer a privacy-safe way to reach relevant consumers in the moments that matter without relying on identity signals or third-party cookies. These segments combine Experian’s consumer insights with page-level content signals, enabling you to align targeting with intent and mindset, even in cookieless or ID-constrained environments.
Want to take your segmentation strategy to the next level? Let’s talk. We’ll help you define your audience in ways that drive real results.
Talk to our team about your segmentation methods today
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As marketers face growing signal fragmentation, Experian has launched a data marketplace that brings addressability, interoperability, and identity resolution into one activation-ready platform. Download the overview to see how our data marketplace connects high-quality identity to scalable activation across all screens. Download the overview Why does cross-channel audience consistency matter? Marketers plan campaigns to reach people wherever they watch, browse, and engage. Consistent identity allows those plans to carry across screens without fragmentation. Experian’s data marketplace starts with identity. Our data marketplace is built on our best-in-class identity graph which includes 126 million U.S. households, 250 million individuals, and more than four billion active digital IDs. This foundation supports reliable audience connections across channels and devices. What distinguishes Experian's data marketplace? Experian connects the entire ecosystem — TV operators, programmers, supply-side platforms (SSPs), demand-side platforms (DSPs), and brands — with activation-ready audiences that drive measurable performance. Buyers can access data from retail, CPG, healthcare, B2B, location intelligence, and more. Our audiences are built on verified offline data, which means they're grounded in real-world accuracy, not just digital assumptions. When you activate through our marketplace, you: Reach relevant audiences across screens Maintain accuracy at scale Support addressability as media environments evolve Whether you're running a campaign on connected TV (CTV), mobile, or display, we help you show up in the right place, to the right person, at the right time. Related reading Four CTV advertising misconceptions marketers need to drop "Experian has been a longstanding partner of DISH Media, and we’re excited to be an early adopter of their marketplace which leverages the foundation of their identity solutions to ensure maximum cross-channel reach as we look to expand the breadth and depth of data we use for addressable TV."Kemal Bokhari, Head of Data, Measurement & Analytics Want a quick overview of Experian's data marketplace? Watch our video for a quick overview of how Experian's data marketplace works. How does Experian's data marketplace support buyers, sellers, and platforms? Our data marketplace streamlines how teams plan, distribute, and activate data. Buyers and sellers align workflows while maintaining scale and accountability. Here’s how it delivers: Enhances addressability and match rates All audiences delivered from our marketplace benefit from our best-in-class offline and digital identity graphs, which ensure addressability across all channels like display, mobile, and CTV. Unlike other data marketplaces, Experian ensures all identifiers associated with an audience have been active and are targetable, improving the accuracy of audience planning. Simplifies audience planning and distribution for TV Operators TV operators can build custom audiences matched directly to their subscriber footprint and distribute them across all advanced TV channels (data-driven linear, addressable, digital, and CTV) for maximum impact. Reintroduces choice within the data marketplace ecosystem With the departure of Oracle’s advertising business, the optionality for buyers and sellers to connect with third-party data has become increasingly limited. With Experian's data marketplace, we’re excited to offer a new solution to the market that ensures data-driven targeting can continue to take place at scale. Reduces activation costs Experian’s data marketplace offers transparent, pass-through pricing with no additional access fees, enabling partners to maximize their earnings while reducing costs. Expands audience diversity and scale Platforms can access a broad range of audiences across top verticals from our partner audiences, which can be combined with 3,500+ Experian Audiences. This offers the flexibility, reach, and scale necessary to effectively execute advertising campaigns. Which data partners participate in Experian's data marketplace? Our data marketplace includes premium data from partners such as Alliant, Attain, Circana, Dun & Bradstreet, and more. Buyers activate these audiences alongside Experian Audiences within one workflow. “Circana and Experian have enjoyed a deep partnership for over a decade. We are exceedingly excited to extend our partnership and be an early adopter and launch partner of the Experian data marketplace. This additional capability will enable the ecosystem to more easily access Circana’s purchase-based CPG and General Merchandise (for example Consumer Electronics, Toys, Beauty, Apparel etc.) audience segments to drive performance outcomes across all media channels.”Patty Altman, President, Global Solutions “Capturing the attention of target audiences across channels is critical for marketers navigating an increasingly connected digital world. We are excited to be an exclusive provider of B2B solutions within Experian’s marketplace, helping brands and media agencies to accelerate their reach, addressability and targeting capabilities across TV, mobile and connected TV channels.” Georgina Bankier, VP of Platform Partnerships Q&A with Attain Q&A with Circana Q&A with Webbula How Yieldmo drove in-store traffic for an athletic retailer with Experian's data marketplace Yieldmo, a leading SSP known for its AI-powered creative formats and privacy-forward inventory, partnered with Experian to support an athletic retailer focused on in-store traffic during key sales periods. The team identified high-intent shoppers and activated them across channels. Using our data marketplace, Yieldmo combined Experian Audiences with partner segments from Alliant, Circana, Webbula, and Sports Innovation Lab. This approach allowed the team to: Identify in-store and conquest segments quickly Combine first- and third-party audiences in one place Improve match rates and cross-channel addressability Deliver measurable foot traffic lift “Experian’s data marketplace fills a critical gap, letting us quickly search by brand, build smarter conquest segments, and activate audiences fast. The platform is flexible and the support is hands-on and reliable.”Abby Littlejohn, Director of Sales Planning The campaign delivered faster setup, tailored audiences, and strong in-store performance with less manual effort. Download the full case study Learn more about our solutions for SSPs Get started with Experian's data marketplace Experian’s data marketplace, easily accessible from our Audience Engine platform, brings unparalleled addressability, enabling our clients to reach more relevant consumers and increase revenue. Talk to our team if you’re interested in learning more about our new data marketplace or becoming an active buyer or seller, or download our overview to learn more. FAQs What is Experian’s data marketplace? Experian’s data marketplace is a centralized, activation-ready platform that allows TV operators, programmers, supply partners, and demand platforms to access and activate high-quality, privacy-compliant audiences across CTV, mobile, and display. It supports both first-party onboarding and third-party audience activation. Who is the Experian data marketplace designed for? The Experian data marketplace is built for TV operators, programmers, supply partners, and demand platforms looking to improve audience targeting, match rates, and addressability across fragmented digital environments. What types of audiences are available in the Experian data marketplace? The Experian data marketplace offers a mix of Experian proprietary audiences and third-party data partner segments across verticals like retail, CPG, B2B, healthcare, financial services, and location intelligence. Users can activate over 3,500 Experian Audiences and premium partner segments from providers like Alliant, Attain, Circana, Dun & Bradstreet, Webbula, and more. How does Experian ensure addressability and match rate performance? Experian’s data marketplace is powered by our identity graphs which are rooted in verified offline data, spanning 126 million U.S. households, 250 million individuals, and over four billion active digital identifiers. This foundation ensures that audiences are accurate, actively targetable, and optimized for high match rates across CTV, mobile, and display platforms. Is Experian’s data marketplace privacy-compliant? Yes. All data in the Experian data marketplace is subject to Experian’s rigorous partner review process to ensure compliance with federal, state, and local consumer privacy regulations. Privacy and data stewardship are foundational to our data marketplace’s design. What makes Experian’s data marketplace different from other data marketplaces? Experian’s data marketplace stands out for its focus on audience accuracy, partner integration, privacy compliance, and deep identity expertise. Here’s how we’re different: – Accurate audience planning: Unlike many other marketplaces, Experian ensures that all identifiers tied to an audience are verified as active and targetable — improving match rates and reducing waste. – Seamless partner audience integration: In one platform, you can activate Experian Audiences alongside premium segments from our growing partner network — including Alliant, Attain, Circana, and more. – Privacy and compliance built in: Every partner and audience goes through Experian’s rigorous review process to meet federal, state, and local consumer privacy laws — so you can activate with confidence. – Trusted identity foundation: Experian’s identity graph is grounded in decades of offline data expertise, powering more reliable targeting and activation than marketplaces built solely on digital signals. Where can I learn more or get started? You can download the overview to explore the capabilities, or contact our team to become an active buyer or seller. The Experian data marketplace is available through Experian’s Audience Engine platform. Latest posts
2024 marked a significant year. AI became integral to our workflows, commerce and retail media networks soared, and Google did not deprecate cookies. Amidst these changes, ID bridging emerged as a hot topic, raising questions around identity reliability and transparency, which necessitated industry-wide standards. We believe the latest IAB OpenRTB specifications, produced in conjunction with supply and demand-side partners, set up the advertising industry for more transparent and effective practices. So, what exactly is ID bridging? As signals, like third-party cookies, fade, ID bridging emerged as a way for the supply-side to offer addressability to the demand-side. ID bridging is the supply-side practice of connecting the dots between available signals, that were generated in a way that is not the expected default behavior, to understand a user’s identity and communicate it to prospective buyers. It enables the supply-side to extend user identification beyond the scope of one browser or device. Imagine you visit a popular sports website on your laptop using Chrome. Later, you use the same device to visit the same sports website, but this time, on Safari. By using identity resolution tools, a supply-side partner can infer that both visits are likely from the same user and communicate with them as such. ID bridging is not inherently a bad thing. However, the practice has sparked debate, as buyers want full transparency into the use of a deterministic identifier versus an inferred one. This complicates measurement and frequency capping for the demand-side. Before OpenRTB 2.6, ID bridging led to misattribution as the demand-side could not attribute ad exposures, which had been served to a bridged ID, to a conversion, which had an ID different from the ad exposure. OpenRTB 2.6 sets us up for a more transparent future In 2010, the IAB, along with supply and demand-side partners, formed a consortium known as the Real-Time Bidding Project for companies interested in an open protocol for the automated trading of digital media. The OpenRTB specifications they produced became that protocol, adapting with the evolution of the industry. The latest evolution, OpenRTB 2.6, sets out standards that strive to ensure transparency in real-time bidding, mandating how the supply-side should use certain fields to more transparently provide data when inferring users’ identities. What's new in OpenRTB 2.6? Here are the technical specifications for the industry to be more transparent when inferring users’ identities: Primary ID field: This existing field now can only contain the “buyeruid,” an identifier mutually recognized and agreed upon by both buyer and seller for a given environment. For web environments, the default is a cookie ID, while for app activity, it is a mobile advertising ID (MAID), passed directly from an application downloaded on a device. This approach ensures demand-side partners understand the ID’s source. Enhanced identifier (EID) field: The EID field, designated for alternative IDs, now accommodates all other IDs. The EID field now has additional parameters that provide buyers transparency into how the ID was created and sourced, which you can see in the visual below: Using the above framework, a publisher who wants to send a cross-environment identifier that likely belongs to the same user would declare the ID as “mm=5,” while listing the potential third-party identity resolution partner under the “matcher” field, which the visual below depicts. This additional metadata gives the demand-side the insights they need to evaluate the reliability of each ID. "These updates to OpenRTB add essential clarity about where user and device IDs come from, helping buyers see exactly how an ID was created and who put it into the bidstream. It’s a big step toward greater transparency and trust in the ecosystem. We’re excited to see companies already adopting these updates and can’t wait to see the industry fully embrace them by 2025."Hillary Slattery, Sr. Director, Programmatic, Product Management, IAB Tech Lab Experian will continue supporting transparency As authenticated signals decrease due to cookie deprecation and other consumer privacy measures, we will continue to see a rise in inferred identifiers. Experian’s industry-leading Digital Graph has long supported both authenticated and inferred identifiers, providing the ecosystem with connections that are accurate, scalable, and addressable. Experian will continue to support the industry with its identity resolution products and is supportive of the IAB’s efforts to bring transparency to the industry around the usage of identity signals. Supply and demand-side benefits of adopting the new parameters in OpenRTB 2.6 Partner collaboration: Clarity between what can be in the Primary ID field versus the EID field provides clear standards and transparency between buyers and sellers. Identity resolution: The supply side has an industry-approved way to bring in inferred IDs while the demand side can evaluate these IDs, expanding addressability. Reducing risk: With accurate metadata available in the EID field, demand-side partners can evaluate who is doing the match and make informed decisions on whether they want to act on that ID. Next steps for the supply and demand-sides to consider For supply-side and demand-side partners looking to utilize OpenRTB 2.6 to its full potential, here are some recommended steps: For the supply-side: Follow IAB Specs and provide feedback: Ensure you understand and are following transparent practices. Ask questions on how to correctly implement the specifications. Vet identity partners: Choose partners who deliver the most trusted and accurate identifiers in the market. Be proactive: Have conversations with your partners to discuss how you plan to follow the latest specs, which identity partners you work with, and explain how you plan to provide additional signals to help buyers make better decisions. We are beginning to see SSPs adopt this new protocol, including Sonobi and Yieldmo. “The OpenRTB 2.6 specifications are a critical step forward in ensuring transparency and trust in programmatic advertising. By aligning with these standards, we empower our partners with the tools needed to navigate a cookieless future and drive measurable results.” Michael Connolly, CEO, Sonobi These additions to the OpenRTB protocol further imbue bidding transactions with transparency which will foster greater trust between partners. Moreover, the data now available is not only actionable, but auditable should a problem arise. Buyers can choose, or not, to trust an identifier based on the inserter, the provider and the method used to derive the ID. While debates within the IAB Tech Lab were spirited at times, they ultimately drove a collaborative process that shaped a solution designed to work effectively across the ecosystem.”Mark McEachran, SVP of Product Management, Yieldmo For the demand side: Evaluation: Use the EID metadata to assess all the IDs in the EID field, looking closely at the identity vendors’ reliability. Select partners who meet high standards of data clarity and accuracy. Collaboration: Establish open communication with supply-side partners and tech partners to ensure they follow the best practices in line with OpenRTB 2.6 guidelines and that there’s a shared understanding of the mutually agreed upon identifiers. Provide feedback: As OpenRTB 2.6 adoption grows, consistent feedback from demand-side partners will help the IAB refine these standards. Moving forward with reliable data and data transparency As the AdTech industry moves toward a cookieless reality, OpenRTB 2.6 signifies a substantial step toward a sustainable, transparent programmatic ecosystem. With proactive adoption by supply- and demand-side partners, the future of programmatic advertising will be driven by trust and transparency. Experian, our partners, and our clients know the benefits of our Digital Graph and its support of both authenticated and inferred signals. We believe that if the supply-side abides by the OpenRTB 2.6 specifications and the demand-side uses and analyzes this data, the programmatic exchange will operate more fairly and deliver more reach. Contact us Latest posts
Note: This Ask the Expert was recorded prior to Experian’s acquisition of Audigent and discusses industry trends and how we’ve worked together in the past. Adopting new strategies based on trust due to evolving privacy regulations and the gradual loss of traditional signals, like third-party cookies, is essential to successfully navigating the future of digital advertising. Advertisers and marketers are at a crossroads, facing the challenge of maintaining personalization and precision while respecting consumer expectations around privacy. To stay competitive, brands must adopt future-ready strategies that focus on trust, privacy-forward technologies, and scalable solutions. In our latest Ask the Expert segment, recorded before Experian acquired Audigent, we explore how first-party data and advanced contextual audience targeting are two critical approaches for successfully navigating these changes. With insights from Greg Williams, President of Audigent, now part of Experian, and Crystal Jacques, VP of Sales at Experian, we discuss how these tools can empower your brand for long-term success. First-party data as a cornerstone strategy First-party data, a powerful tool for building meaningful connections with your audience, has emerged as a fundamental pillar of future-ready strategies. When collected and used effectively, it provides brands with a detailed understanding of consumer preferences and behaviors, enabling real-time campaign adjustments for maximum impact. “Data has become part of every step of the digital advertising supply chain, and should be part of everybody’s buys… the more you can include data in your digital marketing, the better off and the more power you have."Greg Williams, President, Audigent With the continual loss of signal, including third-party cookies, first-party data has proven to be key for brands to stay both competitive and privacy-compliant. Brands using first-party data are better positioned to overcome the challenges of signal loss. This data facilitates improved media targeting and personalized messaging, driving greater engagement and return on investment. Contextually-Indexed Audiences build relevance Experian’s Contextually-Indexed Audiences enable advertisers to target users based on their interests in real-time, without relying on cookies or mobile ad IDs. Machine learning analyzes and maps traffic from over two million websites, linking to Experian’s 2,400 audience segments. With added benefits like audience customization and flexible activation through Audigent’s private marketplaces (PMPs) or demand-side platforms, Experian is setting a new standard for scalable audience targeting. For automotive advertisers, this could mean reaching consumers actively researching luxury electric vehicles on relevant sites. Unlike outdated methods, contextual targeting aligns the message with consumer intent, balancing high precision with consumer privacy. Automotive success story Audigent’s innovative solutions have delivered tangible results. Williams mentions how they helped an automotive brand achieve double the scale and triple their goal of driving test drives. This stands as a testament to the real-world effectiveness of contextual audience strategies and Experian's role in executing them. How to stay ahead of change Here are five strategies to help your brand remain future-ready amid privacy challenges and signal loss: Prioritize first-party data: Build trust and improve targeting accuracy by relying on data that you own directly from your consumers. Test privacy-forward tools: Experiment with solutions like contextual targeting and Google’s Privacy Sandbox to future-proof your advertising. Strengthen identity framework: Create systems to securely manage and use data for cross-channel decision making. Use scalable tools: Partner with trusted providers to deploy solutions that adapt to changing industry standards. Stay proactive and flexible: Continuously evaluate trends and refine approaches to align with emerging consumer and regulatory expectations. A deeper conversation For additional insights, watch our full Q&A. Greg Williams and Crystal Jacques discuss the future of audience targeting, how first-party data reshapes marketing strategies, and how Experian and Audigent have collaborated in the past. Watch now Contact us About our experts Greg Williams, President, Audigent Greg Williams is Audigent's President, responsible for managing Audigent’s vast portfolio of ecosystem partners, enterprise sales, marketing, and client success. An innovator in programmatic ad buying, Williams co-founded MediaMath and was instrumental in building and scaling that company in the US and internationally. He led MediaMath's international expansion in 2011 and grew that business from zero to a top revenue driver for the company in three years. During his 14 years at the company, Williams held global roles and built teams across every function of the organization — most notably leading business and market development, product development, and partnerships. Prior to co-founding MediaMath, Williams held senior positions at [X+1] (which was later acquired by RocketFuel), Nielsen, and Accenture. Crystal Jacques, Head of Enterprise Sales, Experian Head of Enterprise Partnerships, leading Experian's go-to-market team across all verticals. With over ten years of experience in the Identity space, Crystal brings a wealth of expertise to her role. She joined Experian in 2020 through the Tapad acquisition, following her successful stint as the head of Global Channel Partnerships for Adbrain, which The Trade Desk later acquired. Latest posts