At A Glance
Healthcare marketing now runs across mixed-identity conditions, where authenticated data, contextual signals, and aggregated measurement all show up in the same campaign. Pharma brands need infrastructure that keeps DTC and HCP identity separate and still connects fragmented signals across activation, privacy, and measurement. Experian acts as an independent, privacy-first identity, data, and workflow layer for pharma marketers, designed specifically for this operating environment.Originally published in Digiday
Key takeaways
- Pharma campaigns now span environments with very different identity conditions, from strong addressability to contextual only signals, which makes coordination a core infrastructure challenge.
- Privacy and compliance rules require DTC (patient) and HCP (healthcare professional) data to stay in separate, non-overlapping workflows at every stage.
- Experian’s identity and workflow layer governs DTC tokenized matching and HCP deterministic National Provider Identifier (NPI) resolution as two distinct processes, never one merged identity path.
- Partner-enabled measurement connects exposure data to outcomes like script lift and qualified HCP engagement through trusted partners including IQVIA Digital, PurpleLab, and OptimizeRx.
A pharmaceutical brand launching a campaign today might rely on authenticated data in one environment, contextual signals in another, and aggregated measurement somewhere else entirely. That’s the reality of healthcare marketing right now, and most brands are still building the operational model to match it.
In a mixed-identity ecosystem, performance comes from the ability to coordinate multiple signal types across activation, privacy, and measurement workflows. Accuracy and scale depend on knowing which approach fits which environment and having the infrastructure to execute across all of them.
From onboarding to outcomes
Pharma marketing teams need identity workflows that can support accurate audience creation, governed activation, and partner-enabled measurement without combining DTC and HCP identity paths.
Download our pharma marketing playbook to help your team:
- Plan DTC and HCP identity strategies with clearer separation
- Prepare audiences for activation across approved channels and partners
- Evaluate audience quality, usable reach, and governance
Healthcare campaigns run across different signal conditions
Healthcare campaigns now run across environments with very different identity conditions, from fully addressable channels to contextual only placements. Digital advertising has long assumed that better identity leads to better targeting, frequency management, orchestration, and measurement, but healthcare has always operated with more constraints than most categories. Those constraints are becoming impossible to ignore as budgets move into connected TV (CTV), point-of-care, publisher-direct, programmatic and retail media-adjacent environments.
That shift changes the operating model. Marketers now have to manage audience strategy, supply quality and performance across channels that don’t support the same level of addressability, interoperability, or measurement visibility. In some environments, identity is strong and can support targeting and measurement. In others, identity is limited or unavailable, and marketers have to rely on contextual or aggregated signals. Managing across both environments is now a core infrastructure challenge for healthcare marketers, and it’s one that requires a deliberate strategy rather than a channel-by-channel patch.
Privacy risk is a media infrastructure issue
Privacy risk in healthcare marketing now shapes how campaigns get built and run from the ground up, extending well beyond compliance into media infrastructure itself. Tighter privacy and compliance expectations mean audience construction, exposure management, and outcomes analysis all get more complex once tracking is restricted.
Data can’t move freely across partners or workflows, and DTC and HCP data environments need to stay isolated from one another. This is especially true in pharma, where the stakes of a compliance misstep extend well beyond a campaign. This creates a more demanding operating model. Healthcare marketers have to balance identity-based and privacy-forward approaches while maintaining reach, relevance, and accountability. That balance requires governance that’s built into the infrastructure, not layered on top of it after the fact.
Experian acts as an independent, privacy-first identity, data, and workflow layer for pharma marketers, designed specifically for this operating environment:
These workflows are governed separately by design, with governed onboarding connecting fragmented DTC and HCP signals to activation-ready audiences without collapsing the two identity paths.
The mixed-identity playbook starts with matching the approach to the environment
The right mixed-identity approach depends on what each environment can support and what the campaign is needs to achieve. A pharmaceutical team may want more addressability, a publisher may only offer contextual or cohort signals, and a measurement partner may need exposure data, while platforms limit how identifiers can be shared.
Healthcare marketers need an operating model built for multiple identity conditions, with clear rules for how signals can be connected, activated, and measured without increasing privacy or compliance risk. That may include:
Experian’s infrastructure supports all three modes:
The missing layer in pharma marketing. Watch our Q&A
Supply quality is a prerequisite for measurement
Supply quality determines whether measurement in a mixed-identity environment can be trusted. When tracking and addressability vary across channels, advertisers need confidence that impressions ran in the right environments and under the right conditions before they can trust any downstream outcomes.
This is especially true in CTV and programmatic, where campaigns span fragmented supply paths, publishers, devices, and partners. Outcomes like script lift or provider engagement are only meaningful if the underlying exposure is reliable and well understood. In healthcare, this also ties directly to brand suitability and disclosure control. Curated supply, publisher-direct deals and placement-level transparency help campaigns run in appropriate environments and give measurement a more defensible foundation.
Clean rooms and tokenization support this, but their effectiveness depends on governance, interoperability, and whether insights can move cleanly across partners and workflows. Partner-enabled measurement, connecting exposure data to outcomes through trusted partners including IQVIA Digital, PurpleLab, and OptimizeRx, is structured in two steps:
- Link activation and measurement IDs without collapsing them into an open identity environment
- Produce aggregated, defensible outcomes including script lift, qualified HCP engagement, and verified delivery
Mixed-identity is the operating reality, and infrastructure is how you manage it
Mixed-identity is now the operating reality for healthcare marketing, not a temporary phase to work around. Performance depends on working across environments where identity is sometimes strong and sometimes limited by design. Healthcare marketers don’t need to pick a single identity approach and apply it everywhere. Building infrastructure that connects deterministic identity, tokenized matching, and contextual signals, keeping compliance, operational flexibility, and trust intact at every step, is what separates the brands managing this well from the ones still patching it channel by channel.
Talk to our team about your healthcare identity strategy
Whether you’re running DTC, HCP, or both, our team can help you build an infrastructure that works across identity environments. Let’s connect.
About the author
Kevin Dunn
Chief Revenue Officer, Experian
Kevin Dunn joins Experian Marketing Services with more than 20 years of leadership experience across marketing and advertising technology, most recently serving as Senior Vice President of Brands and Agencies at LiveRamp. In that role, he led growth across retail, CPG, travel, hospitality, financial services, and healthcare, overseeing new business, account expansion, and channel partnerships.
Kevin is known for building cohesive, accountable teams and leading with optimism, clarity, and a strong sense of shared purpose. His leadership philosophy centers on empowering people, driving positive outcomes for clients and fostering a culture where teams can grow, take smart risks, and succeed together.
FAQs
Mixed-identity means a healthcare campaign relies on more than one type of signal at once, such as authenticated data in one channel, contextual data in another, and aggregated measurement in a third. Pharma brands increasingly need infrastructure that coordinates all of these signal types together instead of treating each channel as a separate problem.
Experian keeps DTC and HCP identity in distinct, non-overlapping workflows so patient data and healthcare professional data never combine. DTC activation runs on high-fidelity tokenized matching, and HCP activation relies on deterministic National Provider Identifier (NPI) resolution using verified attributes like specialty and practice location.
Supply quality matters because outcomes like script lift or provider engagement only mean something if the underlying ad exposure is reliable. Curated supply, publisher-direct deals, and placement-level transparency give healthcare marketers a more defensible foundation before they trust any downstream measurement result.
Partner-enabled measurement connects exposure data to outcomes through trusted third parties such as IQVIA Digital, PurpleLab, and OptimizeRx, without merging activation and measurement identifiers into one open identity environment. The result is aggregated, defensible outcomes like script lift, qualified HCP engagement, and verified delivery.
Healthcare marketers don’t have to choose one approach over the other, since most campaigns already run across both conditions at the same time. Building infrastructure that connects deterministic identity, tokenized matching, and contextual signals is what allows a campaign to stay compliant while still reaching the right audience.
Latest posts
It’s been over a year since Google announced they’d be deprecating the third-party cookie and in that time there’s been a major focus on two types of cookieless identity solutions. Identity vendors and marketers are strategizing which of these two future solutions best fits their needs so they can achieve privacy-safe scale once third-party cookies are no longer available for use on Chrome. Let’s break down these solutions and the considerations marketers need to take into account when deciding what partners to move forward with in the future of identity resolution. Authenticated Traffic Solutions Authenticated traffic solutions (ATS) are a type of digital identification that asks the end-user to identify themselves via personal information, most commonly email address. Often, you’ll see self-authentication at the point of entry to a website that asks you to create an account or login immediately to access the content you are seeking. E-commerce sites use authentication to keep track of consumer purchases and inform advertising decisions for that customer; and publishers use it to tailor featured content, or, more importantly for this discussion, leverage it within the ad ecosystem for targeting. While authentication can provide very valuable user data for audience segmenting and targeting, it can be limited in scale for a single publisher to leverage and monetize on their own. That’s why some identity vendors have worked to integrate themselves within as many publisher authentication modules as possible, so that they can create an aggregate of scale for the ad ecosystem to tap into. But, even this isn’t going to deliver the reach marketers truly thirst for. Alternatively, Facebook has the scale for authenticated traffic, but they keep their data inside a walled garden, so the utility of those authenticated users is only valuable within the Facebook ecosystem. So how can authenticated traffic solutions increase scale to broaden the scope of identifiers they can collect and leverage? Hint: a few of the biggest players have already figured it out. It’s the single sign-on. Google is probably the largest purveyor of a single-sign on solution that can directly impact advertising capabilities. Can you think of a site you visit that doesn’t offer a sign-in with your existing Google account? It’s a short list. Google has integrated themselves into so many applications and publishers that “Login with Gmail” is just second nature (you pictured the Gmail logo when you read that, didn’t you?). Now, if you’re about to purchase something you found off an Instagram ad, or perhaps a retailer you buy from regularly, you’ve probably noticed options to proceed with your checkout via “Amazon pay” or “Apple pay”. These are also single-sign ons. You’re authenticating yourself through Amazon or Apple to that retailer in exchange for A- the safety and security that Amazon or Apple provide for your financial information and B- skipping the annoying process of manually entering personal information over and over again at point of sale. It’s starting to sound like there’s a lot of authenticated data out there isn’t it? Well, that’s true, but again, Amazon and Apple are walled gardens. Amazon is working diligently to build out their own ecosystem to leverage their content and retail channel data for a holistic offering. And Apple keeps user data very close to the chest, constantly limiting its utility for themselves and advertisers. So what is identity resolution doing about it? The Trade Desk announced their solution; Unified ID 2.0, which promises to leverage email authenticated identity for a truly scaled solution for publishers via Javascript through Prebid. By handing over UID2.0 to an independent unbiased organization like Prebid, The Trade Desk is creating instant scale and trust in their solution. Unauthenticated Traffic Solutions Unlike ATS, unauthenticated traffic solutions do not rely on a log-in to identify a user, but they also don’t rely on third-party cookies. Instead, unauthenticated solutions (UATS) leverage their existing streams of real-time data through Javascript on publisher sites or an SDK (software development kit used by apps). The type of information UATS solutions can collect via Javascript or SDK vary, but it can include IP address, user agent and device level info. But being able to read this information at the point of entry to a website does not make a quality identifier. The best unauthenticated solutions will have the ability to set or ingest this information into a unique ID through an infrastructure with incredibly fast speed that can process trillions of anonymous data signals across multiple channels and devices. And even more so, be able to interpret those signals into a profile using machine learning– all at the moment a user enters a domain. It sounds complicated because it is, but it also has a lot of potential. The identity space cannot rest solely on authenticated traffic solutions, because, as you can see, it could limit ownership and operability to just a few power players/walled gardens. This doesn’t help the larger ecosystem monetize and personalize ad inventory. The right unauthenticated solution, however, can unify cross-device individuals and households at scale, because they’re integrated on the broadest number of publishers/SDKs across platforms, have the best algorithms to build confident connections between identifiers, and are universally transactable across the most common sell and demand side platforms. Think of it as the perfect partner- speaking a common language that everyone in the ecosystem understands and acts on. Today more than twenty cookieless identifiers are available in market for the ad ecosystem, and Google hasn’t even announced a date of deprecation. It’s important to be on the lookout for differentiators like scale and precision. Most importantly, choosing a truly cross-device partner will be key, especially as more digital devices and IDs grow in adoption, like CTV has this past year. 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Tapad launches global privacy-safe solution to provide continuity in the absence of third-party cookies Switchboard, a module within The Tapad Graph, will connect emerging cookieless identifiers to traditional IDs, creating a more holistic view of the consumer and driving value exchange within the advertising ecosystem Tapad, part of Experian, a global leader in cross-device digital identity resolution, and a part of Experian, announced today the launch of Switchboard, a first-of-its-kind solution to help navigate the evolving cookieless landscape. Switchboard, a module within The Tapad Graph, will operate as a global, privacy-safe solution to provide continuity in the absence of third-party cookies by connecting new cookieless identifiers to traditional digital IDs for a comprehensive view of consumers and their digital touchpoints. Switchboard will enable interoperability across the growing number of these digital identifiers and the value exchange between publishers, content creators and consumers. Leading digital identity solutions partnering with Tapad, part of Experian at the launch of Switchboard include Unified ID 2.0, ID5, Lotame Panorama ID, BritePool, Retargetly IDx and Audigent Halo ID. Tapad, part of Experian plans to expand support to additional identity solutions on an ongoing basis. In addition to these identity solutions, early partners across the ecosystem include The Trade Desk, Amobee, Martin, ShareThis, Eyeota and Catalina. “This diverse group of launch partners and testing customers will prove that Switchboard is an important tenet for the future of identity resolution. We’re excited to be proactive in our approach to give marketers time to adapt new solutions and test their function in tandem with the third-party cookie, while continuing to give our customers flexibility and control,” said Mark Connon, General Manager of Tapad, part of Experian. “Facilitating access and usage of 1st party identifiers is crucial to help marketers prepare for the cookieless future. Thanks to Switchboard, ID5’s cookieless IDs will be available to a wider audience of brands and agencies and enable them to run effective, data-driven campaigns beyond the third-party cookie,” said Mathieu Roche Co-founder & CEO of ID5. Switchboard provides value across the marketing and advertising ecosystem as the need for the ability to support multiple cookieless ID’s across ad tech increases throughout 2021. With a decade of expertise creating digital identity resolution products, Tapad, part of Experian is poised to solve this challenge through innovation and quality, privacy-safe data-driven solutions. “Interoperability is paramount for brand marketers, agencies, publishers and platforms if we want to support an open and free Internet and break free of the stranglehold of walled gardens,” said Pierre Diennet, Global Partnerships at Lotame. ”Lotame Panorama ID’s participation in Switchboard reflects our steadfast commitment to collaborating across and within the industry and providing value to all of its players.” “As advertisers continue to contemplate the future of identity, Amobee is proud to partner with Tapad, part of Experian on this next-generation solution to provide a comprehensive view of consumers,” says Bryan Everett, Senior Vice President of Global Business Development at Amobee. “With the imminent loss of cookies, advertisers must think creatively in order to respectfully engage consumers in a privacy-compliant way and Switchboard can play an important role in addressing their respective identity needs.” Tapad, part of Experian is welcoming identity solutions and Tapad Graph customer participation in Switchboard throughout 2021. Stayed tuned for more updates and information on Switchboard in the coming months. Get in touch
Adapt with Tapad, a part of Experian Leading browsers have made public announcements and technical deployments to reduce the digital advertising accessibility of third-party cookies for data collection, storage, and sharing due to growing privacy concerns. As a result, there has been growing momentum to find an alternative via cookieless IDs, with the intent to create a replacement that helps ensure continuity across the ecosystem. At Tapad we’ve chosen to approach the market with a solution that provides agnostic interoperability for these cookieless identifiers, so that marketers can continue to work with the identity providers of their choice while maintaining the most holistic view of consumers across digital touchpoints. Introducing switchboard Switchboard is a module within The Tapad Graph that leverages our core capabilities across machine learning and identity management to provide a connection between traditional digital identifiers and the new wave of cookieless IDs that will be utilized in the future. Customers of Tapad can take advantage of its broad ecosystem of identifiers to drive targeting and frequency capping strategies and enable detailed measurement and attribution post-deprecation of the third-party cookie. Our goal is to accelerate the adoption, scale, and utility of cookieless IDs with the release of the Switchboard module within The Tapad Graph, while maintaining an agnostic approach to the market. Switchboard for identity solutions In the evolving landscape agencies and marketers will need to invest, test, and analyze the best combination of cookieless ID partners to meet their objectives. The Switchboard module will increase the utility and value of the cookieless ID space in conjunction with other addressable IDs, by providing a layer of connectivity that will be natively missing with the deprecation of third-party cookies. Identity solutions at launch: Switchboard for graph customers For existing Tapad customers who leverage the Switchboard module in The Tapad Graph, it will provide a seamless way to facilitate interoperability while resolving identity back to a Household or Individual. By providing this translation layer, Tapad will take on the responsibility of encryption and decryption protocols where applicable, which will deliver added functionality to our customers. Tapad + Experian partners at launch: Use cases Resolve existing first-party data with new cookieless solutions through The Tapad Graph to minimize data loss Frequency cap at the Individual and Household level via Cookieless and traditional ID Reach consumers at scale across all touchpoints and IDs Build a more inclusive and holistic view of the consumer journey Run accurate and scalable measurement before and after the formal deprecation of third-party cookies in Chrome Map online data into offline activities Hear why industry leaders are adapting with Tapad + Experian As advertisers continue to contemplate the future of identity, Amobee is proud to partner with Tapad, a part of Experian, on this next-generation solution to provide a comprehensive view of consumers. With the imminent loss of cookies, advertisers must think creatively in order to respectfully engage consumers in a privacy-compliant way and Switchboard can play an important role in addressing their respective identity needs. — Bryan Everett | Senior Vice President of Global Business Development | Amobee Connecting offline and online shopper activity in a privacy-compliant way is fundamental to marketing effectiveness and determining return on ad-spend. That’s why we’re excited to be a launch partner for Tapad + Experian’s Switchboard offering; it provides a unified solution for supporting the variety of proprietary and anonymous user ID standards required by advertising demand-side platforms today. — Brian Dunphy | SVP Digital Business and Strategic Partnerships | Catalina As the industry evolves, Tapad + Experian’s Switchboard presents a privacy-safe solution that allows for the continued activation of data and an alternative to advertising within walled garden environments. We look forward to collaborating with Tapad and the industry as we collectively transition to support cookieless identity. — Don Lee |SVP of Global Platform Partnerships | Eyeota We are excited to participate in this proactive solution to the sunset of third-party cookies. Switchboard’s agnostic interoperability, with BritePool and other ID providers, will create high-value for marketers as they transition to the era of cookieless web advertising. — David J. Moore | CEO | BritePool Interoperability is paramount for brand marketers, agencies, publishers and platforms if we want to support an open and free Internet and break free of the stranglehold of walled gardens. Lotame Panorama ID’s participation in Switchboard reflects our steadfast commitment to collaborating across and within the industry and providing value to all of its players. — Pierre Diennet | Global Partnerships | Lotame At this pivotal moment in the industry, we are excited to be partnering with Tapad, a part of Experian on their cookieless initiative and making Retargetly IDx available into the Switchboard solution, providing global brands, platforms and publishers with a compliant, cookieless ID solution for the Latin American market; enabling them to target, reach and measure users at scale through the region. — Daniel Czaplinski | CEO and Co-Founder | Retargetly With Audigent’s Halo ID, we’re architecting a cookieless future where clients and partners have confidence in the actionability and interoperability of exclusive 1st party audiences, originated from some of the world’s leading publishers and creators. We see collaboration as being critical to a collective understanding of identity and Tapad, a part of Experian as a trusted partner with solutions such as Switchboard to support continuity for marketers’ addressability. — Drew Stein | CEO and Founder | Audigent Facilitating access and usage of 1st party identifiers is crucial to help marketers prepare for the cookieless future. Thanks to Switchboard, ID5’s cookie-less IDs will be available to a wider audience of brands and agencies and enable them to run effective, data-driven campaigns beyond the third-party cookie. — Mathieu Roche | CEO and Co-Founder | ID5 Addressing the current identity challenge requires transparency and collaboration. We are pleased to align ShareThis data with Tapad + Experian’s growing ecosystem. ShareThis data helps marketers evolve beyond the cookie to complete the picture. Tapad + Experian’s Switchboard offering will support ShareThis’s deep connections to clients and technology platforms, preserving and growing the accessibility of our data. — Michael Gorman | SVP Product and Business Development | ShareThis Get in touch