As privacy regulations, signal loss, and consumer expectations change, marketers face growing challenges in creating meaningful connections. In our latest Ask the Expert segment, Tom Wolfe, SVP at Viant, and Ali Mack, VP of AdTech Sales at Experian explore how first- and third-party data strategies, advancements in connected TV (CTV), and AI tools empower marketers to build smarter campaigns tailored to modern demands.
Identity-driven advertising built on first-party data
With the decline of traditional third-party signals and the rise of privacy-first advertising, first-party data is more important than ever. By collecting data directly from customers, marketers ensure they have accurate, user-consented data to fuel personalized advertising. Viant’s identity graph takes these first-party signals—such as email addresses, household locations, and phone numbers—and connects them with additional attributes in a privacy-safe way. This approach empowers marketers to build precise audience segments without relying on cookies, which Viant phased out over a decade ago.
Combining first-party data and privacy-first solutions to build trust
By combining first-party data strategies with privacy-first solutions, marketers can build long-term success while earning consumer trust. The Viant Household ID eliminates reliance on cookies while enabling secure, compliant campaign management. Additionally, Viant’s partnerships with cleanrooms further protect their clients’ data integrity and ensure smooth collaboration between trusted parties. Beyond safeguarding consumer information, the Viant ecosystem allows their clients to integrate data seamlessly from audience segmentation to campaign activation and reporting.
How first and third-party data work together
While first-party data is crucial for precise, personalized advertising, it isn’t always sufficient—especially for smaller or emerging brands that haven’t yet amassed audience data. Third-party data plays a pivotal role in these scenarios by supplementing first-party insights, offering a broader view of consumer behavior, leading to new growth opportunities.
Viant collaborates with partners like Experian to help marketers seamlessly merge their customer information with additional consumer insights. Viant and their clients benefit from Experian’s identity data to match various identifiers such as hashed emails, device IDs, or other platform-specific tags and map them back to a single consumer profile. With a unified view of the consumer, marketers can refine targeting, expand their reach, and maintain consistency across channels. By utilizing first- and third-party data solutions, marketers can build well-rounded, effective campaigns that resonate with diverse audiences.
“Our clients have embraced the Viant Household ID because it powers a comprehensive, seamless flow from segment creation to targeting, activation, and measurement.”
Tom Wolfe, SVP Business Development, Viant
CTV as a core marketing channel
CTV is emerging as the core platform for immersive and effective advertising by merging the visual storytelling power of traditional TV with the precision of digital tools. Viant helps marketers optimize CTV capabilities by building connections between premium publishers and data, allowing marketers to personalize experiences. Whether it’s tailored ads for families watching a live sports event or pinpointing niche interests, CTV enables marketers to reach diverse audiences with meaningful ads. Beyond awareness, Viant drives results for their clients and monitors that performance across each stage of the funnel. Marketers can use the key insights to optimize their media buys on CTV and achieve even higher ROI.
Viant takes CTV performance a step further with its direct access programs. Stronger data matching via publisher partnerships improves accuracy, helping marketers connect with their ideal audience. Viant’s recent data shows that campaigns incorporating CTV achieve a conversion rate of 12.89%, outperforming campaigns lacking it by a wide margin. This dramatic improvement highlights the power of precise targeting combined with Viant’s advanced CTV tools. For marketers, this translates to impactful storytelling supported by tangible results.
“CTV drives high-level brand awareness via sight, sound, motion, and emotion, but it also powers activity through the funnel.”
Tom Wolfe, SVP Business Development, Viant
AI is streamlining marketing from start to finish
AI is transforming advertising by automating tasks like performance tracking and audience segmentation, allowing marketers to focus on strategy and creativity. At Viant, AI is part of the company’s DNA, helping marketers drive more efficient and effective campaigns.
With real-time data insights and streamlined processes, teams can quickly refine messaging and optimize budgets. This efficiency not only saves time but also empowers marketers to channel their energy into creating impactful strategies that resonate with their audiences. The integration of AI into Viant’s ecosystem also simplifies overall workflows, optimizing campaign execution from start to finish. With performance tracking made easier and segmentation automated, marketers can rely on data accuracy and actionable insights to make confident decisions.
How Experian and Viant work together
Experian’s syndicated audiences—demographic, auto, TV, FLA (Financial Fair Lending Act), and more—are available within Viant’s platform. Experian’s partnership with Viant enables the deployment of custom audiences specifically designed to meet distinct campaign objectives. Together, Experian and Viant provide solutions that support first-party data strategies, third-party data integration, CTV optimization, AI-driven insights, and identity resolution, creating a cohesive and privacy-forward marketing ecosystem.
“At Viant, we focus on the sensible, scalable, impactful opportunities.”
Tom Wolfe, SVP Business Development, Viant
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About our expert
Tom Wolfe, SVP Business Development, Viant
As SVP of Business Development at Viant, Tom and his team forge strategic business partnerships that fuel the company’s growth and business strategy. He is a seasoned industry veteran with more than 25 years of expertise in content distribution, advertising, and technology, particularly in CTV. Throughout his career, Tom has played a pivotal role in establishing and managing multiple businesses at major companies such as Roku, TiVo, YuMe, and Comcast. Additionally, he has provided valuable advisory services to organizations including VIZIO, Vice Media, and many others across the ecosystem. Tom holds a B.A. in Political Science from Lehigh University and has shared his knowledge as a guest lecturer at both New York University and Drexel University.
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The result of epic shifts from traditional cable to streaming television, the CTV ecosystem is experiencing compounded fragmentation, making it challenging for marketers to leverage in the most effective way for both activation and measurement. Heralded as the hot new household level device for highly engaged viewers, CTV brings massive opportunities for brands to move users down the funnel and incorporate CTV into their attribution modeling post-campaign. Leveraging CTV IDs within a cross-device identity resolution strategy can yield big benefits if you know how to do it right. Check out our breakdown of today’s CTV landscape to help you better understand how and what you can leverage for activation and measurement in the streaming-verse today. CTV Ecosystems as identifiers (for illustrative purposes only) This is just a small peak at the players and complexities of CTV IDs available for marketers today, but it illustrates the need to understand what IDs can benefit your strategies and where you can use them. Addressability and attribution Not all CTV devices and IDs are addressable; or have ad slots for biddable inventory for advertisers. For example, Apple TV devices and Apple TV + are not ad supported, but could still appear within an identity graph for measurement purposes; helping understand customer behavior and habits, which can inform marketing strategies. Having a household to individual view that’s as inclusive as possible can provide valuable insights. CTV identity strategy Whether or not CTV devices or apps are addressable for advertisers, they can bring immense value when leveraged as part of a holistic identity resolution strategy. As a household level device with user authentication it can provide marketers a top-down view; unlocking household:individual targeting opportunities and unification of IDs at both levels for frequency management and customer journey mapping Get started with us Tapad, part of Experian, offers CTV ID onboarding and extension to our CTV ID Universe as a part of The Tapad Graph suite of products.
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Identity resolution strategies are critical for marketers to continue consumer engagement and satisfaction in an increasingly complex ecosystem
Marketing data and identityStudy reveals that brands with more mature identity programs were significantly more likely to be successful in achieving their key objectives Tapad, a part of Experian, a global leader in cross-device digital identity resolution and a part of Experian, has commissioned Forrester Consulting, part of a leading research and advisory firm, to conduct a new study that evaluates the current state of customer data-driven marketing and explores how marketers can use identity solutions to deliver privacy safe and engaging experiences, in an evolving data landscape. The study highlights the changing ground rules for digital marketing and the threat that poses to marketers’ ability to deliver against long standing KPIs and campaign goals. Nearly two-thirds (62%) of respondents said that the forces of data deprecation will have a significant (40%) or critical (21%) impact on their marketing strategies over the next two years. Among those surveyed, identity resolution strategies have surfaced as an opportunity to create more powerful customer experiences, with 66% aiming to have it help improve customer trust and implement more ethical data collection and use practices, while nearly 60% believe it will point the way to more effective personalization and data management practices. Although organizations are eager to implement identity resolution strategies, a complex web of solutions and partners makes execution a challenge. For example, respondents report using at least eight identity solutions on average, across nearly six vendor partners, and they expect that fragmentation to persist in the ‘cookieless’ future. Additionally, brands’ identity resolution technologies typically represent a patchwork of homegrown and commercial solutions. Eighty-one percent of respondents use both in-house and commercial identity resolution tools today, and 47% use a near-equal blend of the two. Despite the challenges, many brands have the foundation for a strong identity resolution strategy in place, and they are thriving as a result. Specifically, more mature brands were 79% more successful at improving privacy safeguards to reduce regulatory and compliance risk, 247% more successful at improving marketing ROI, and over four times more effective at improving customer trust compared to their low-maturity peers. Additional insights include: Marketers Are Increasingly Playing a Key Strategic Role Within the Organization, But There is a Mandate to Demonstrate Value. Nearly three-quarters of respondents in our study agree the marketing function is more strategically important to their organization than it used to be, while almost two-thirds agree there’s more pressure than ever to prove the ROI or business performance of their activities. Consumers Expect Brands to Deliver Engaging Experiences Across Highly Fragmented Journeys: Tapad, a part of Experian found that 72% of respondents agree that customers demand more relevant, personalized experiences at the time and place of their choosing. At the same time, 67% of respondents recognize that customer purchase journeys take place over more touchpoints and channels than ever, and 59% of respondents agree that those journeys are less predictable and linear than they once were. Marketing Runs on Data, But the Rules Governing Customer Data Usage are Ever-Evolving: According to the study, 70% of decision-makers agree that consumer data is the lifeblood of their marketing strategies – fueling the personalized, omnichannel experiences customers demand. At the same time, 69% of respondents recognize that customers are increasingly aware of how their data is being used. At least two-thirds agree that data deprecation, including tighter restrictions on data use (66%), as well as operating system and browser changes impacting third-party cookies (68%) means that legacy marketing strategies are unlikely to remain viable in the long-term.“ Our latest survey findings give us a better understanding of how our customers and other companies around the world are trying to master the relationship between people, their data and their devices,” said Mark Connon, General Manager at Tapad, a part of Experian. “This research shows why it’s fundamental for the industry to continuously work to develop solutions that are agnostic. Tapad, a part of Experian has worked tirelessly to deliver on this with our Tapad Graph, and by introducing solutions like Switchboard to help the evolving ecosystem and in turn helping customers reap the benefits of better identity in both short and long-term.” The study is founded on an online survey of over 300 decision-makers at global brands and agencies, which was fielded from March to April, 2021. Data deprecation and identity are fast-developing, moving targets, so this study delivers targeted insights and recommendations for how to prepare for coming shifts in customer data strategies – whether they manifest tomorrow or a year from now. Get in touch