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Artificial intelligence (AI) and connected TV (CTV) have a perfect synergy that’s revolutionizing how advertisers connect with their audiences. CTV serves as a medium for streaming content, while AI acts as a sophisticated technology that improves the performance of CTV advertising campaigns. The integration of these two technologies has paved the way for advertisers to reach their target audience more effectively, making CTV advertising a powerful and efficient tool.
In this blog post, we’ll dive into how these technologies work together —and why you should jump on board with AI for CTV advertising if you haven’t already.
Why AI and CTV are a great match
CTV and AI are transforming how advertisers connect with their audiences and improving the performance of their advertising campaigns in the CTV space. They work together to make advertising smarter and more enjoyable for everyone involved. AI uses sophisticated computer programs to analyze and understand data, while CTV refers to the streaming services that consumers use at home. But what makes them a great match in advertising?
AI uses data to determine which TV ads are most exciting and relevant to certain people, and it can even adjust ads in real time to ensure viewers are always getting the most personalized experience. AI can provide suggestions to viewers based on previously watched content to help them find what they’d enjoy watching next. To sum it up, AI allows for:
- Precise targeting: AI uses data to determine which TV ads are most exciting and relevant to certain people.
- Personalization: AI can adjust ads in real time to ensure viewers are always getting the most personalized experience.
- Effective ad insertion: AI can provide suggestions to viewers based on previously watched content to help them find what they’d enjoy watching next.
CTV facilitates these AI-driven strategies for enhanced user engagement and satisfaction.
The rising popularity of CTV
CTV has become increasingly popular as people change the way they watch TV. Instead of the traditional approach, more viewers are now choosing CTV platforms for their entertainment. One of the main reasons for this shift is that CTV offers greater flexibility and lets viewers watch content at their convenience. The ability to skip ads on many CTV platforms also improves the experience.
CTV offers a great opportunity to interact with your target audience in a more engaging way. CTV allows for highly targeted advertising capabilities so you can reach specific demographics and households with tailored messages. Additionally, CTV provides valuable data insights that enable you to measure campaign effectiveness accurately.
If you haven’t embraced this advertising channel yet, you may be missing out on a growing and engaged audience. Here are three reasons you should add CTV to your advertising strategy.
Global video ad impressions
As a global platform, CTV has the unique ability to reach audiences worldwide. Unlike traditional TV, CTV transcends geographical boundaries and brings marketers a global audience, which makes it an ideal channel for global ad campaigns. No matter your target audience, they’re consuming content on CTV. In fact, a recent study showed that 51% of global video ad impressions came from CTV in 2022.
This abundance of global video ad impressions generates vast amounts of data, which AI can process in real time to help you make data-driven decisions and optimize your campaigns for diverse international audiences. AI can analyze viewer data from various regions, identify audience preferences and behaviors across borders, and tailor ad content accordingly. These data analysis capabilities ensure your ads get in front of the right viewers.
Viewers prefer ad-supported CTV
In 2020, the viewing time of ad-supported CTV surged by 55% while subscription video on demand decreased by 30%, according to TVision Insights. Viewers have a well-established preference for ad-supported CTV due, in part, to cost-effective access to premium content. Viewers are more engaged and less resistant to ads, as AI tailors ad content to viewer preferences and behavior to enhance ad relevance.
AI-powered insights can also aid in viewer retention and help you optimize your CTV campaigns. By accommodating viewers’ preference for ad-supported CTV and harnessing AI to improve the ad experience, you’re more likely to be successful in your marketing efforts.
CTV outpaces mobile and desktop for digital video viewing
eMarketer recently reported that U.S. adults spend 7.5+ hours each day on CTV —more than half of their digital video viewing time. Comparatively, they only spend 37.5% of their viewing time on mobile and 10% on desktops and laptops. These statistics demonstrate that CTV has become the preferred platform for digital video consumption, as viewers enjoy larger screens with superior quality for an immersive experience.
It’s important to note that AI is an essential CTV marketing tool, as it allows for precise targeting and content optimization. By utilizing AI on CTV, you can take advantage of this trend and deliver more engaging and effective campaigns to a growing and engaged audience.
How is AI already being used in CTV?
CTV has been integrated with AI across various facets and has revolutionized the television landscape. Here’s a look at how AI is already shaping the CTV experience:
Generative AI ads
Generative AI ads are taking CTV personalization to a whole new level. These innovative ads are customized versions of the same CTV ad to suit individual viewers. Some AI tools can generate several versions of the same CTV ad — swapping the actor’s clothing and voiceover elements like store locations, local deals, promo codes, and more — and can create up to thousands of personalized iterations in just a few seconds. Such capabilities are a game-changing approach to connecting with your audience.
Next, we dive into the advantages and impact of generative AI ads, and explore their transformative role in CTV advertising.
Contextual ads vs personal data
Generative AI ads use personal data, such as viewing history and demographics, to create highly personalized ad experiences. This sets them apart from contextual ads, which rely solely on the content being viewed. Using AI to harness this data, you can move beyond traditional contextual targeting and ensure your ads connect with viewers on a more individualized level.
Generative AI ads can be used to A/B test
Generative AI ads are not just about personalization; they also open the door to A/B testing. Being able to create several versions of one ad quickly allows you to experiment with various ad elements, such as messaging, visuals, and calls to action, to identify what works best for different segments of your audience and drives the best performance. This flexibility is especially valuable for refining ad campaigns and maximizing their impact.
What’s next for AI-generated ads like this?
The potential of AI-generated ads is exciting. As AI technologies constantly advance, we can expect even more personalized and automated CTV advertising. It’s a good idea to keep up with the latest AI-driven innovations to create more effective ad campaigns in the fast-evolving CTV space. The possibilities are endless, and you’ll likely find the most success when you embrace AI in CTV advertising.
Optimize streaming quality
AI helps viewers enjoy more seamless CTV experiences. By assessing network speed and user preferences, AI optimizes video quality in real time to reduce buffering interruptions. For instance, streaming platforms use AI to adjust video settings based on a user’s connection speed. This guarantees an uninterrupted and enjoyable viewing experience.
Review content for compliance
AI also has a part to play in quality assurance and compliance management. It assesses content alignment with technical parameters and moderates compliance with local age restrictions and privacy regulations. This means AI can identify and filter out unsuitable content to provide a safer and more enjoyable viewing environment for audiences while safeguarding brands from association with undesirable material.
Voice command
AI-powered voice command technology is increasingly used to control CTV viewing. This technology is embedded in streaming devices and smart TVs and allows viewers to interact with their CTV content through voice-activated commands. This personalizes the viewing experience and improves convenience, as it eliminates the need for remote controls.
CTV-integrated voice assistants like Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, and Samsung Bixby offer a more human-like interaction with the television, allowing users to give commands and receive tailored responses.
Content recommendations
AI can offer content recommendations that provide viewers a more personalized and engaging experience. Major over-the-top (OTT) services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime use AI-driven data analysis to deliver tailored content suggestions to their audiences. By analyzing user habits in detail, AI can recommend content based on factors such as actors, genres, reviews, and countries of origin. This personalized approach helps viewers discover content that matches their preferences and enhances their viewing experience.
Advertising
Programmatic ad buying, driven by AI, automatically matches ad placements to specific audience segments based on behavioral patterns. It improves ad delivery by moving away from gross rating points (GRP) to more intelligent and targeted placements. This benefits marketers by ensuring ads are seen by the right people at the right time. It’s also cost-effective for publishers, as it maximizes the sale of ad spots to suitable buyers.
Automatic content recognition (ACR) technology, which AI powers, is integrated into smart TVs and streaming devices to improve ad relevance. It provides contextual targeting and extends the reach of ads across multiple devices. For example, platforms like Roku use ACR data to display ads to viewers who haven’t seen them on traditional TV. Similarly, Samba TV retargets mobile users based on IP address and aligns their viewing habits with their smart TVs.
Demand-side platforms
CTV advertising relies heavily on demand-side platforms (DSPs) to efficiently manage and optimize ad campaigns. These platforms use machine learning and AI in several important ways:
Using machine learning and AI to address data fragmentation
Data is abundant but fragmented when it comes to CTV advertising. DSPs are flooded with a massive amount of data, including information about households, viewer behavior, and viewing patterns. This data is far too much for manual analysis to handle effectively, which is where AI comes in.
By integrating machine learning algorithms into DSPs, AI can harmonize this fragmented data and provide valuable insights and a holistic view of your audience. AI can process zettabytes of data in real time, which streamlines the decision-making process and empowers you to compete quickly for limited CTV impression opportunities.
Predicting advertising outcomes with AI
AI is quickly changing the way we predict and optimize advertising outcomes. TV buying and optimization platforms are now using AI to improve ad performance. With machine learning, these platforms can anticipate which ad creatives will produce the best results based on various non-creative factors. These include the context of the ad, the audience’s profiles, the time of day it is displayed, and the frequency of the ad display.
By relying on AI to make these predictions, you can make sure your campaigns are highly optimized for success and deliver more relevant, compelling ads to viewers.
Optimizing generative ads
AI is also driving optimization in generative ads. These personalized versions of the same CTV ad can be tailored to suit individual viewers. By utilizing AI-driven analytics, DSPs can process extensive amounts of data in real time and optimize generative ads to ensure they align with viewers’ preferences and behaviors. This level of personalization is a game-changer in CTV advertising that boosts engagement and delivers content that truly resonates with the audience.
Add AI to your CTV strategy today
Integrating AI into your CTV strategy can help you stay competitive and ensure your ad campaigns are effective and engaging.
At Experian, we’re ready to help you elevate your CTV advertising and implement AI as part of your strategy. Our solutions, such as Consumer View and Consumer Sync, provide valuable audience insights, enhance targeting capabilities, and optimize engagement on TV. Plus, our partnerships with leading media marketing solutions can help you achieve greater success through effective advanced television advertising.
As you incorporate AI into your CTV strategy, you’ll be able to make more data-driven decisions, deliver more relevant content, and reach the right audience at the right time. Explore Experian’s TV solutions and empower your CTV advertising with AI today.
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Back-to-school season remains one of the biggest retail moments of the year—and 2025 is expected to follow suit. Total spending is projected to reach $84.51 billion, with K–12 shoppers alone contributing nearly $50 billion—59% of the total. E-commerce will also play a major role, accounting for 37.4% of total back-to-school sales. However, 2025 shoppers may be facing even higher costs due to the incoming tariffs with everything from laptops and lunchboxes to kids' clothing and crayons becoming more expensive. In anticipation of these rising prices, shoppers might once again start early to score deals. Last year, 55% of back-to-school and college shoppers had already started buying items in July for the upcoming school year. This early start coincided with major July promotions like Amazon Prime Day, in which U.S. shoppers spent a record $14.2 billion online, where school-related purchases surged by over 200%. Whether you’re marketing school essentials or offering services to help students succeed, it’s easy to default to the same go-to audiences. This blog post highlights overlooked back-to-school segments to help you build personalized back-to-school strategies that resonate with students, parents, and educators. You can find the complete audience segment names in the appendix. School the competition: How Experian can help you connect with 2025 shoppers With summer just around the corner, back-to-school might not be top of mind, but there’s no better time to start planning. Whether you're reaching parents, students, or educators, Experian’s syndicated audiences can help ensure your marketing messages make the honor roll by landing with the right people at the right time. Experian’s 2,400+ syndicated audiences are available directly on over 30 leading television, social, programmatic advertising platforms, and directly within Audigent for activation within private marketplaces (PMPs). Reach consumers based on who they are, where they live, and their household makeup. Experian ranked #1 in accuracy by Truthset for key back-to-school attributes such as Presence of Children. Access to unique audiences through Experian’s Partner Audiences available on Experian’s data marketplace, within Audigent for activation in PMPs, and directly on platforms like DirectTV, Dish, Magnite, OpenAP, and The Trade Desk. Meet your overlooked back-to-school audiences Back-to-school shoppers aren’t one-size-fits-all. From parents prepping supply lists to students outfitting dorms, reaching the right audience is key to making the grade with your campaign. Let's go beyond the basics. Here are four back-to-school audience categories you can target with Experian: New year, new gear-ers Weeknight TV watchers Parenting personas School-season meal planners Let’s open our notebooks and break down the audience segments within each group. Whether your customers are buying backpacks, stocking the fridge, or searching for school essentials, these insights will help your campaign pass with flying colors. New year, new gear-er From teens picking out their first-day outfit to college students stocking up for dorm life, these audiences represent a wide range of priorities, needs, and spending behaviors. They’re also heavily influenced by trends, technology, and value-driven purchases. Don’t overlook these five high-potential audiences in your strategy: Big-Box Electronics Stores: High Spenders Amazon Frequent Spenders Department Store Deal Shoppers In Store Spenders Teen Apparel (Clothing): Online and In Store High Spenders Dell Computer and Apple Mac Purchaser Weeknight TV watchers Back-to-school season is also back-to-routine season. Families are gathering for more shared TV time in the evenings—especially in August and September. This makes co-viewing households a prime audience for messaging tied to school-year prep. Rethink your back-to-school approach with these five overlooked segments: Co-Watchers Co-Watchers with Children Cord Cutters: Recent Engagement Channel Preference: Streaming TV Digital Video Parenting personas Targeting by household structure helps tailor messaging to the right family dynamic—whether it’s parents with toddlers or households with college students. Four audiences you might be missing this back-to-school season: Digital Moms and Dads Sports Utility Families Colleges and Cafes Kids and Cabernet School-season meal planners Food and grocery shopping routines shift during the school season. These audiences are ideal for promotions tied to lunch prep, after-school snacks, and weeknight meals. Add these four under-the-radar audiences for back-to-school success: Online Grocery Delivery Services: High Spenders Grocery Stores: High Spenders Fast Food/QSR Frequent Spenders Fast Food/QSR Pizza Frequent Spenders Core back-to-school shoppers Of course, you’ll want to add traditional back-to-school audiences to your strategy. These audiences are highly engaged and often the decision-makers, making them ideal for marketers looking to drive purchase intent early and often. Here are four key back-to-school audiences you can target–all are available by life stage to reach PreK, elementary, middle, and high school households: Back to School Supplies Back to School Moderate Spend Back to School High Spend Back to School Apparel Make the grade with Experian this back-to-school season As marketers gear up for the back-to-school season, it’s the perfect time to sharpen your strategy and connect with back-to-school shoppers. Whether you’re building tried-and-true segments or exploring more unexpected, high-potential groups you might have not considered, Experian can help you reach the right audience. If you’re looking to create targeted segments for activation across digital and TV or gain insights to guide your campaign planning, Experian has you covered. Need a custom audience? Reach out to our audience team and we can help you build and activate an Experian audience on the platform of your choice. Additionally, work with Experian’s network of data providers to build audiences and send to an Audigent PMP for activation. Connect with our audience team You can activate our syndicated audiences on-the-shelf of most major platforms. For a full list of Experian’s syndicated audiences and activation destinations, download our syndicated audiences guide. Explore our other seasonal audiences that you can activate today. View now Activate back-to-school audiences today with Audigent Ready to ace your back-to-school campaigns? Audigent will build customized deals that combine premium Experian syndicated or Partner Audiences and inventory into a single, streamlined deal ID – tailored to your campaign needs. Plus, our powerful supply-side optimization ensures your campaigns deliver top marks in performance. Connect with the Audigent team today at AudigentAgency_Brands@experian.com to get a head-start on back-to-school success. Download our back-to-school audience guide now Contact us Latest posts Appendix New year, new gear-ers Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Shopping Behavior > Big-Box Electronics Stores: High Spenders Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Shopping Behavior > Big Box and Club Stores: Amazon Frequent Spenders Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Shopping Behavior > Department Store In Store Spenders Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Apparel > Teen Apparel (Clothing): Online High Spenders Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Apparel > Teen Apparel (Clothing): In Store High Spenders Lifestyle and Interests (Affinity) > Technology > Dell Computer Model Lifestyle and Interests (Affinity) > Technology > Apple Mac Purchaser Model Weeknight TV watchers Television (TV) > Household/Family Viewing > Co-Watchers Television (TV) > Household/Family Viewing > Co-Watchers with Children Experian > Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Entertainment > Streaming/Video/Audio/CTV/Cable TV: Cable/Broadcast TV: Cord Cutters: Recent TrueTouch: Communication Preference > Engagement Channel Preference > Streaming TV TrueTouch: Communication Preference > Engagement Channel Preference > Digital Video Parenting personas Lifestyle and Interests (Affinity) > Personas > Digital Moms Lifestyle and Interests (Affinity) > Personas > Digital Dads Mosaic – Personas – Lifestyle and Interests > Group D: Suburban Style > D15 – Sports Utility Families Mosaic – Personas – Lifestyle and Interests > Group O: Singles and Starters > O53 – Colleges and Cafes Mosaic – Personas – Lifestyle and Interests > Group A: Power Elite > A03 – Kids and Cabernet School-season meal planners Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Grocery > Online Grocery Delivery Services: High Spenders Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Grocery > Grocery Stores: High Spenders Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Food and Drink > Restaurants: Fast Food/QSR QSR Frequent Spenders Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Food and Drink > Restaurants > Fast Food/QSR Pizza Frequent Spenders Core back-to-school shoppers Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School Moderate Spend – PreK (Early Ed – PreK) Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School Moderate Spend – Elementary School Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School Moderate Spend – Middle School Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School Moderate Spend – High School Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School High Spend – PreK (Early Ed – PreK) Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School High Spend – Elementary School Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School High Spend – Middle School Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School High Spend – High School Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School Apparel – PreK (Early Ed – PreK) Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School Apparel – Elementary School Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School Apparel – Middle School Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School Apparel – High School Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School Supplies – PreK (Early Ed – PreK) Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School Supplies – Elementary School Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School Supplies – Middle School Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School Supplies – High School

For decades, television advertisers have faced a trade-off: Traditional linear TV: Delivers broad reach, utilizing the power of sight, sound, and motion on the big screen to capture more focused attention and foster immersive brand-building. However, it lacks the precise targeting modern marketers crave. Digital and addressable channels: Offer highly precise targeting and robust measurement capabilities but struggle to replicate linear TV’s unique combination of visual impact and viewer engagement on the big screen. Connected TV (CTV) bridges this gap by preserving television’s immersive, large-screen experience—where audiences are more attentive to the content—while offering the precise targeting capabilities long associated with digital and addressable channels. Yet, as the industry evolves, there’s a growing realization that lower-funnel performance marketing—which emphasizes quick wins from in-market shoppers—doesn’t fully support long-term brand growth. Leading brands have increasingly noted that relying solely on performance tactics can limit sustained demand and brand equity. Within CTV lies a powerful subset: Free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST). As consumers gravitate toward free streaming options, FAST has emerged as a key focal point for reaching immediate and future buyers. In this article, we’ll explore why focusing only on in-market shoppers risks missing the larger pool of “future-ready buyers” and how FAST platforms enable brands to engage them effectively. The challenge: Over-fixation on "in-market" shoppers One common marketing hurdle is "lower-funnel myopia"—focusing almost exclusively on in-market shoppers who are ready to buy immediately. While this can yield quick wins, it also means brands miss opportunities to improve in three critical areas: Competition and costs: By chasing the same immediate buyers, brands drive up media costs, especially as programmatic ad spending continues to climb each year. Missing out on future buyers: Most consumers aren’t looking to buy right now. In fact, only 5% of potential consumers are active ‘in-market,’ meaning the other 95% represent future-ready buyers open to purchasing soon. Over-focusing on in-market audiences overlooks people who could be primed to purchase soon. Inefficient spend on “sure bets”: Over-targeting likely buyers inflates costs for conversions you'd capture naturally. Shifting budget toward brand priming boosts incremental ROI. Expanding the funnel isn't just smart – it's necessary While many advertisers have prioritized short-term conversions, the data shows a growing imbalance—and a potential risk to long-term brand health. According to The CMO Survey (eMarketer, Nov 2024), CMOs allocated nearly 69% of their 2024 budgets to short-term brand performance, leaving just 31% for long-term brand building. If you’re only engaging consumers when they’re already in-market, you’re effectively joining the race at the final lap—and often paying a premium to do so. So where does that leave the vast majority who aren’t buying right now? That’s where future-ready buyers come in. The solution: "future-ready buyers" So, how can you broaden your reach without resorting to a “spray-and-pray” strategy? Enter category future-ready buyers—consumers who aren’t actively shopping right now but remain open to your product category. They’re not firmly opposed or “locked out” of it. For example, existing electric vehicle (EV) owners may not be in-market this very moment, but they could be ready to purchase another EV when their lease ends or a new model debuts, making them ideal future-ready buyers. Why they matter: Cultivate future demand. Engage buyers early to stay top-of-mind when they’re ready. Build a sustainable brand pipeline. Develop ongoing interest instead of repeatedly chasing immediate leads. Expand your reach. Broaden targeting beyond active shoppers for long-term growth. Use marketing data to avoid overspending on future buyers Identifying future-ready buyers is powerful—but how do you avoid wasting spend on unlikely buyers? Marketing data helps refine your targeting with real consumer insights, maximizing ROI and campaign efficiency. Precisely define your segments: Use lifestyle, demographic, and psychographic data to target consumers who are open to your product, avoiding wasted impressions on uninterested audiences. Prioritize privacy and compliance: Choose partners who prioritize data security and adhere to regulations, ensuring your campaigns stay both trustworthy and effective. FAST: The strategic channel for reaching future ready buyers FAST services, like Samsung TV Plus, have evolved into a crucial medium for advertisers eager to strike a balance between scale and precision. Here’s why: Engaged audience: Viewers access free, premium content in exchange for ads, making them receptive and attentive. Advanced targeting: FAST offers precise segmentation beyond traditional TV, helping you reach Samsung consumers both in-market and future buyers effectively on the biggest screen in the household. Positive viewer experience: Free content creates a relaxed viewing environment, increasing ad attention and recall. Samsung TV Plus and Experian Marketing Services: Scale meets precision Samsung TV Plus offers expansive reach and contextual targeting aligned to viewer interests. Experian Marketing Services complements this by identifying consumers most likely to buy, leveraging demographic, lifestyle, and intent data—helping you effectively engage future-ready buyers. Putting it into practice: A use case Scenario An electric vehicle (EV) brand, EVolution Auto, wants to reach eco-conscious consumers who aren’t shopping for a car right now but might consider one soon. They also want to track how ads influence brand consideration and sales over time. Approach Identify future-ready segmentsUsing Experian data, EVolution Auto focuses on “eco-conscious drivers”—people interested in sustainability who are likely to be open to an EV in the near future. Activate on Samsung TV PlusThe brand places targeted ads on channels with environmental or tech content. With millions of monthly users and a relaxed viewing experience, EVolution Auto’s spots get more visibility, boosting ad recall. Outcome By pairing Samsung TV Plus’s broad reach with Experian’s precise audience data, EVolution Auto achieves measurable lifts in brand consideration, website traffic, and dealership visits—effectively priming future EV buyers and driving long-term sales momentum. Building a future-proof strategy Exclusively targeting in-market consumers can limit your brand’s long-term potential. By focusing on those not currently shopping—but still open to your category—you widen your future buyer pool and keep your brand top of mind. FAST services like Samsung TV Plus, paired with Experian’s marketing data, offer a powerful way to balance scale with precision–delivering strong engagement today while priming your brand for long-term growth. By shifting your focus toward tomorrow’s buyers today, your brand doesn’t just stay relevant—it sets the stage for sustained market leadership and growth. Contact us Latest posts

As the days get longer and the weather warms up, spring’s revitalizing energy naturally leads to realignment. For marketers, it’s the perfect moment to reevaluate strategy, especially as consumer behavior changes ahead of summer and brings a renewed interest in travel, outdoor activities, and social events. Making seasonal adjustments to your marketing strategy helps you adapt to these shifting behaviors, capitalize on 2025 marketing trends, and keep your brand relevant year-round. When it comes to your marketing strategy, spring cleaning means clearing out outdated tactics, optimizing what works, and making room for smarter, more connected solutions. Take the time to ask yourself questions like: Are our audiences still relevant? Are we activating our data across the right channels? Are we collaborating with the right partners and using the right data clean room providers? If there’s room for improvement, now is the best time to audit, refine, and refresh your marketing strategy before the high-stakes summer and winter seasons. With identity resolution, data enrichment, data clean room collaboration, and omnichannel activation through Experian, you can clean up what’s outdated and prep your strategy for summer success! Rethink your data and identity resolution strategy Your data is foundational to your strategy and is a great place to start your marketing strategy spring cleanup. If your customer information is outdated, incomplete, or fragmented across systems, every campaign built on top of it risks underperforming. Before jumping into segmentation, activation, or partnerships, assess the health of your data and identity infrastructure. This is your deep clean and an essential first step in ensuring everything else works better. With signals disappearing, buying channels proliferating, and customer journeys getting more complex, the key to maintaining addressability is investing in persistent identity, complete consumer data, and collaborative measurement strategies that can weather these changes. Here are some ways to rethink your marketing data management and identity strategies for the current environment. Set the data foundation A solid identity resolution strategy starts with high-quality, unified data. Consider a comprehensive refresh of your customer records by auditing and enhancing what you have for accuracy and depth. As you’re thinking through spring marketing ideas, it’s an ideal time to enrich your first-party data by appending missing details, removing outdated records, and ensuring you enter summer with reliable, up-to-date profiles. Data enrichment Customer data naturally degrades, and eventually, you’ll need to dust it off by supplementing consumer records with current, high-quality insights and attributes. Experian data enrichment can help you seamlessly refresh records with updated demographic and behavioral data, giving detailed insights for precise targeting and relevant campaigns. With over 5,000 attributes available, covering everything from age and income to shopping habits and media preferences, you can maintain the deepest, most up-to-date view of your consumers through every season. Offline identity resolution and append Offline identifiers — like names, physical addresses, and phone numbers — are the most persistent identity markers as they rarely change compared to digital cookies and device IDs. They’re essential for a stable identity foundation, and you can use them to develop a consistent, unified view of each household and individual. Use this season to audit and tidy up your offline records. Are key identifiers missing? Are you relying on outdated addresses or duplicate names? Experian’s Offline Graph serves as the foundation to help unify those fragmented pieces, resolving identities across households and individuals to create a clean, consistent view of every customer. Think of this step as scrubbing baseboards or cleaning behind the fridge. It’s often overlooked but a prerequisite to a thorough spring refresh. You can also use Offline Identity Append to append missing identifiers to improve match rates, boost data accuracy, and ensure addressability so that when summer campaigns launch, you’re ready to confidently meet your audience where they are. Digital resolution via Digital Graph This next step is like replacing your air filter each spring. You won’t see it, but you’ll definitely feel the difference in performance. Digital resolution ensures persistent, accurate targeting across devices and channels in a fragmented omnichannel environment. Experian’s Digital Graph facilitates easy consumer identification and connection across the digital ecosystem. Our graph links digital identifiers like mobile ad IDs (MAIDs), connected TV IDs, and hashed emails to consumer profiles. So, when a customer interacts on a smartphone, a smart TV, and a laptop browser, those actions can all be tied back to the same individual or household in your database. Collaborate securely in data clean rooms to close gaps Matching partner data within your own secure space, a trusted third-party clean room, or Experian’s privacy-safe environment is an essential next step in your marketing spring cleaning strategy. But what is a data clean room? A data clean room is a privacy-first way to enhance marketing data in a secure environment that allows brands and partners to match and analyze data without exposing personally identifiable information. It’s almost like organizing a shared closet. You both bring what you have, sort it safely, and leave with something more valuable without mixing up or exposing what’s personal. Secure collaboration enriches your understanding of consumers, boosts match rates, and ensures the highest data security standards. Here are key data challenges you can tackle through data collaboration—whether in a clean room or across your broader data strategy. Lack of insights or usable data Without third-party cookies, marketers run the risk of losing valuable consumer insights. Collaborating with key partners lets brands enrich their first-party data and obtain a more comprehensive view of customer behaviors for informed decision-making. Let’s say, for example, that an advertiser with sales data but no exposure data struggles to attribute sales to specific campaigns. By collaborating securely with a measurement partner who provides exposure data, the advertiser can confidently link sales to ad exposure and optimize future campaigns with an understanding of who saw their ad and made a purchase. We anticipate that data collaboration will be a key marketing trend in 2025 alongside signal loss. Low or no match rates When businesses handle matching internally, discrepancies like name variations (e.g., John Doe vs. Jonathan Doe) or mismatched identifiers (hashed emails vs. MAIDs) often result in poor match rates. Experian’s identity resolution capabilities, meticulous hygiene processes, resolution logic, and comprehensive identity graphs significantly enhance these match rates. For example, if a data provider had physical addresses and a demand-side platform (DSP) had email addresses, they couldn’t collaborate with different identifiers. Using Experian Collaboration, however, their data could be resolved with offline identity data from our graph, enabling them to share their collaboration data and improve their marketing efforts. Data security When it comes to data collaboration, protecting your proprietary and customer information is non-negotiable. That’s why Experian operates with some of the industry's strictest data security, privacy, and compliance protocols. We support identity resolution and data collaboration within the most secure environments available — data clean rooms built to prevent sensitive customer data from ever being exposed. Instead of moving or sharing your raw data, we ensure all records are anonymized before any analysis occurs. Additionally, Experian’s clean room integrations with trusted partners give clients flexibility without compromising compliance. All solutions are designed to meet GDPR, CCPA, and industry-specific data governance standards, with full audit trails and customizable access controls. Connect and activate Once your data is clean, enriched, and resolved, the next step is to activate it efficiently across the channels where your audiences spend time. This step is like putting everything back in place after a deep clean so everything is functional, easy to access, and ready to deliver results. As you get ready to put your spring marketing ideas into motion, it’s time to streamline your activation approach and make sure your customer data is working hard for you. First-Party Onboarding With Experian First-Party Onboarding, you can ship data where needed using flexible data solutions for your activation strategy. This step is like labeling and organizing your freshly cleaned marketing closet, so each audience segment is ready to deploy wherever you need it. We make it easy to: Understand your customers on a deeper level Seamlessly onboard your customer data for use across programmatic, social, and advanced TV platforms Combine your first-party data with Experian syndicated audiences for enriched targeting Deliver those audiences to any destination that accepts Experian Audiences — whether a DSP, social platform, or publisher Increase match rates, extend reach, and lower activation costs Transact in the ecosystem with the Experian ID To aid in the activation process, Experian ID is a unified identifier that acts as a privacy-safe bridge between fragmented emails, device IDs, and addresses, helping you activate audiences across all media channels. Experian ID keeps your data protected and connected whether you send it to DSPs, social platforms, or data clean rooms. This allows for secure activation and performance tracking across the ecosystem without exposing personally identifiable information (PII). Like sealing and storing your seasonal belongings in airtight containers, Experian ID keeps your data clean, safe, and always ready for use. Use fresh audience insights to inform segmentation After deep-cleaning your data, enriching profiles, and resolving identities, you’ll want to ensure your segmentation reflects that renewed foundation. Just like clearing expired ingredients from your pantry, spring is an ideal time to toss outdated audience definitions and replace them with insights that are fresh, relevant, and ready to perform. With Experian’s modern audience tools, you can create smarter segments, power omnichannel strategies, and continue reaching high-value consumers even in cookieless environments. Our marketing data management tools make it easy to: Build detailed, personalized profiles using over 5,000+ behavioral and lifestyle marketing attributes that go far beyond basic demographics. Choose from 2,400+ pre-built syndicated segments or collaborate with Experian to create custom audiences tailored to your KPIs and campaign goals. Append fresh attributes to your CRM to keep profiles accurate, performance-ready, and reflective of current consumer behaviors and life stages. Together, these tools help sharpen your segmentation strategy and ensure up-to-date audience insights power every campaign. Let’s break down how smart combinations and contextual precision can further elevate your segmentation. Combine our identity graphs and Marketing Attributes for sharper targeting Combining Experian’s identity graphs with Marketing Attributes gives you both the who and the why behind your audience and helps you act on that insight with precision. It’s like giving your closet a total spring refresh — not just purging what doesn’t fit but also organizing what’s left into ready-to-wear outfits. Digital Graph + Marketing Attributes: Link real-time digital behavior (like CTV, mobile, or web activity) with rich consumer insights to create segments that perform across channels, from mobile to CTV to social. Offline Graph + Marketing Attributes: Tie persistent offline identifiers like name and address to behavioral and lifestyle data, making it easier to plan full-funnel strategies from direct mail to digital display. This approach gives you the clarity and flexibility to build richer personas, reach more qualified audiences, and target with confidence across any environment. Activate smarter with Contextually-Indexed Audiences Spring cleaning your strategy also means letting go of legacy tools, especially those relying on cookies or outdated tracking methods. With Experian’s Contextually-Indexed Audiences, you can reach consumers based on the content they’re engaging with, not their identifiers. We map millions of websites to real audience segments so you can target high-intent consumers in a privacy-safe, way. For example, an automotive brand looking to reach high-intent luxury EV shoppers can activate Experian’s “in-market for a luxury electric car” segment. With contextually-indexed targeting, that brand’s ads will appear on websites that over-index for visitors in that audience — such as premium car review sites or sustainability-focused blogs — without relying on user identifiers. This allows the brand to scale performance safely and efficiently in cookieless environments while achieving strong engagement metrics. Activate across channels with confidence After refreshing your data, segmentation, and partner strategies, the final step in your spring cleaning is putting all that prep work into action — efficiently and at scale. Think of this as your final sweep: optimizing where and how you activate your audience to ensure every touchpoint is aligned, accurate, and impactful. With your updated segments and sharpened identity framework in place, you can reach consumers across display, mobile, connected TV (CTV), and emerging digital channels. Experian provides the tools to activate seamlessly — backed by privacy-safe, high-quality data and flexible integration options. Third-Party Onboarding: Expand reach with external data sets Experian’s Third-Party Onboarding capabilities make it easy for brands to augment their first-party data strategies on their preferred activation platforms with easy access to high-quality, activation-ready third-party audiences. For you, this means you no longer have to manage the onboarding process yourself or worry about compatibility. Instead, you can: Enhance your first-party targeting with third-party data that’s already privacy-safe and activation-ready. Reach more qualified consumers by layering in external behavioral, lifestyle, or intent signals. Maximize scale across your preferred platforms using Experian’s established integrations and ecosystem support. With Experian as your trusted partner, your audience strategy becomes more flexible, more scalable, and more effective, giving you the power to engage the right consumers beyond your own CRM. Start preparing now for summer campaigns You’ve cleared out the clutter, restocked your toolkit, and optimized your data strategy, and now, you’re ready to get ahead of the summer rush. While summer is go-time for high-impact marketing campaigns, now is the time to clean, organize, and prepare. Another reason to start now? Tariffs, inflationary pressures, and changing consumer confidence are already impacting product demand, budget planning, and go-to-market strategies for the rest of the year. Brands need to be ready and agile in the face of economic turbulence. So, think of this as your final recap checklist before the season (and the economy) changes: a set of intentional steps that ensure all your prep work translates into real performance when it counts. Start now to: Cleanse and enrich your data: Make sure outdated records don’t weigh down your summer outreach. Refresh profiles with Experian’s latest attributes to stay aligned with consumer behavior. Solidify your identity resolution strategy: Transition to persistent, privacy-safe identifiers like Experian’s unified ID to maintain addressability across devices and channels. Collaborate with key partners: Run pilot campaigns with trusted collaborators to augment your data and maximize scale ahead of peak season. Refresh audience segments: Update personas and segments based on the latest data insights. Trial omnichannel strategies: Use spring to test messaging across display, CTV, social, and mobile so your summer creative hits with precision. Confirm measurement readiness: Double-check attribution and analytics tools so you can optimize in real time and prove ROI. Tailor creative to the season: From backyard barbecues to road trips, ensure your messaging taps into the themes and activities consumers care about most this summer. Spring is the warm-up. Summer is the performance. Start today to improve your marketing data management and overall strategy, and you’ll be ready to hit the ground running. Let’s plan your seasonal strategy together Whether you’re looking for more spring marketing ideas or want to launch a high-impact summer campaign, Experian is ready to help. From strategy to segmentation and data clean rooms to real-time activation, we partner with you to build a marketing engine that performs now and keeps growing through the seasons. Connect with us today, and let’s turn your seasonal refresh into long-term momentum Latest posts