Audio platforms that overcome consumer identity challenges are winning new advertisers and driving higher ROAS. In this article, you’ll hear from leading audio platforms that are solving these challenges—and seeing results.
Digital audio is evolving fast. What was once a niche channel of host-read sponsorships and direct buys is now a must-have in the modern media mix. Streaming platforms, podcasts, and digital radio are drawing more ad dollars thanks to audio’s ability to capture attention and connect with listeners.
But with growth comes new pressure. Advertisers expect accuracy, scale, and to see results. At the same time, listeners want more relevant content and more personalized ad experiences. That’s where identity becomes essential.
With Experian’s identity and audience solutions, audio platforms can:
- Bolster addressable audience targeting and personalization capabilities.
- Gain a comprehensive view of listeners’ digital identity to reach audiences across channels.
- Better understand consumer preferences, enabling advertisers to reach audiences with greater accuracy.
- Enhance the listening experience with more relevant content.
Let’s break down the key challenges in audio—and how Experian can help solve them.
Challenge 1: Anonymous listening limits addressability
Most listening happens in environments where people aren’t logged in—via apps, smart speakers, and mobile devices. Without logged-in data, platforms struggle to know who’s listening and advertisers are unable to reach those anonymous listeners who don’t have an addressable ID.
To overcome the identity gap in unauthenticated listening environments, leading audio platforms are turning to partners that connect fragmented signals—like device type, location, and behavioral patterns—to broader household and individual profiles. By using hashed emails and other alternative identifiers, platforms can begin to make anonymous sessions more addressable. This increase in addressability ensures the platform’s entire userbase can be reached, which leads to an increase in revenue.
Experian’s solution
Experian’s identity spine, comprised of our Digital and Offline Graphs, helps you recognize listeners even when they’re outside your ecosystem. Platforms like Audacy are already leading the way. By integrating Experian’s Digital Graph, they’re gaining a more complete view of listeners’ digital identifiers—enhancing the experience across their app and website. With a better audience understanding, Audacy can deliver personalized content while helping advertisers reach specific groups with greater accuracy.
Challenge 2: IP-based targeting falls short
Audio has traditionally relied on IP addresses, but that’s no longer enough. A single IP could represent an entire household—or a public setting like a coffee shop. It’s not precise.
Forward-thinking platforms are moving beyond IP-based targeting by integrating identity resolution technologies that combine household-level data with device-level intelligence. These solutions help distinguish between shared devices and individual listeners, allowing advertisers to serve more relevant messages without over-reliance on a single signal like an IP address. This layered approach improves precision—especially in dynamic listening environments like vehicles or communal spaces.
Experian’s solution
Our identity spine links home IPs to households, then connects them to specific devices and individuals. This helps platforms move beyond basic IPs and target real people based on accurate signals—even in shared listening environments like smart speakers and cars.
We also help platforms and advertisers integrate alternative IDs—like Unified I.D. 2.0 (UID2)—into their programmatic audio campaigns. That means more reach, without compromising consumer trust.
Challenge 3: Audio buying is fragmented
From podcasts to streaming to radio, audio lacks consistency in how inventory is packaged and bought. It’s hard for advertisers to run scaled campaigns across channels—and harder still to measure performance.
Plus, advertisers don’t think in silos—they think in strategies. If audio can’t connect to their display, connected TV (CTV), and social buys, it loses ground. What they need is a way to define audiences once and activate everywhere.
To reduce friction in audio ad buying, platforms are investing in infrastructure that unifies audience insights across formats. By building a centralized view of the listener—regardless of whether they’re tuning in via podcast, stream, or radio—publishers can offer advertisers consistent targeting parameters, clearer reporting, and better campaign orchestration. Identity graphs and audiences are playing a growing role in streamlining this complexity and unlocking scale.
Experian’s solution
Experian helps simplify audio buying. Experian audiences are built on top of our identity graph and are expanded to a deep set of digital identifiers, ensuring accuracy, scale and maximum addressability across channels. Platforms can blend their first-party data with advertiser data and our audiences—then deploy those audiences onsite or activate programmatically across open web and CTV.
DAX is doing just that. DAX’s partnership with Experian combines Experian’s 2,400+ audiences for targeting and activation with DAX’s innovative audio advertising approach. We’re helping advertisers connect with passionate and engaged listeners nationwide.
“Through our partnership with Experian Marketing Services, advertisers can unlock deeper audience insights and execute more impactful digital audio campaigns. By combining our shared market presence, knowledge, and forward-thinking approach, we’re strengthening our digital audio network offering and delivering value to all our advertising partners.”
Brian Conlan, President of DAX United States
In addition to integrating Experian’s Digital Graph, Audacy is also integrating Experian’s syndicated audiences to unlock accurate insights like demographics, shopping behavior, and interests – providing listeners with a more personalized advertising experience and advertisers with a higher return on investment.
“Historically, audio advertising lacked precise targeting capabilities, making it challenging for advertisers to reach specific audiences. By integrating our digital identity graph and syndicated audiences with Audacy’s platform, we’re transforming how advertisers connect with listeners. This collaboration enables more effective audience targeting and delivers personalized, impactful audio experiences across all channels.”
Chris Feo, Chief Business Officer, Experian
Privacy is non-negotiable
Everything we do is privacy-forward by design. Backed by Experian’s Global Data Principles and decades as a regulated institution, we rigorously vet every data source to ensure compliance with all federal and state laws.
Build an audio strategy that performs with Experian
Your advertisers want more from their audio investments. With Experian, you can give it to them. We help you:
Audio has always been a powerful way to connect. Now, it’s ready to perform.
Let’s connect
Latest posts
Strong Revenue Performance and Thriving Culture Contribute to Industry Recognition NEW YORK, Sept. 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — Tapad, the leader in cross-device marketing technology and now a part of Experian, was named a top company on Inc. Magazine’s list of the 5000 fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. In addition, Tapad won the TMCnet 2016 Tech Culture Award. The exclusive Inc. 5000 ranking highlights the fastest-growing privately-held* companies in America. These distinguished companies have achieved success in strategy, service and innovation. TMCnet recognizes talented tech professionals who are committed to building a culture that prioritizes employee growth, collaboration and engagement. Tapad continues to broaden their presence into new markets, having launched in APAC earlier this year, as well as continuing their European expansion. Tapad’s proprietary technology, The Device Graph™ is leveraged by more marketers and brands to understand digital engagement across devices. The company’s rapidly expanding client base includes numerous Fortune 500 company brands as well as all four major advertising holding companies in the U.S. “We have an exceptional team of innovative people who are all working very hard to achieve the kind of results these publications are recognizing,” said Tapad CEO and Founder, Are Traasdahl. “Given that, we have an even greater responsibility to our talent to create an environment that fosters innovation and nurtures open communication. Ultimately, this is how we will continue to reach our very ambitious goals of becoming the world’s leading unified marketing technology provider.” Tapad’s award-winning work culture is defined by its gold-standard benefits which include a six-month parental leave policy, unlimited vacation time, company-sponsored meals and office space designed to facilitate collaboration and open communication. Tapad’s highly talented team has also received multiple customer service awards in 2016. These awards include the iMedia ASPY awards for Best Customer Service and Best Mobile Partner as well as recognition from The Communicator Awards of Excellence in Interactive Media. *Prior to Tapad’s acquisition by Telenor in February 2016. Contact us today
The Tapad Device GraphTM Had Twice the Precision and Three Times the Scale as Next Competitor New York, September 14, 2016 – Just-released findings of a Hotels.com® study revealed that Tapad’s (part of Experian) cross-screen marketing technology achieved the highest levels of precision and scale among competitors. According to the leading online accommodation booking website, after a rigorous, three-and-a-half month vendor analysis, Tapad achieved twice the precision of the next highest-scoring cross-screen offering and three times greater scale. The two other companies evaluated were not named. Said Helene Cameron-Heslop, Senior Manager of Analytics of the Hotels.com brand, “Our team implemented an extremely rigorous vetting of open, cross-screen technology vendors. At the outset, we assumed we would have to compromise on either scale or accuracy – particularly given the importance to our brand of operating in a privacy-safe setting. We were surprised to find a complete package, but Tapad’s Device Graph won out on scale, accuracy and privacy; making our choice of partners very clear.” In another metric critical to the Hotels.com brand, The Tapad Device GraphTM was eight times more “unique” than the next closest offering, meaning Tapad’s graph was found to have a much greater number of connections not seen in any of the other graphs. In addition to precision, uniqueness and scale, the Tapad Device GraphTM was found to have: ● 100% higher recall● 47% more incremental matches● 53% higher North American market coverage● 101% higher F-Score* “A valuable cross-device solution should enable partners to get everything they’re looking for from a single vendor,” said Tapad Founder and CEO, Are Traasdahl. “We are deeply impressed with how thorough Hotels.com was in their vetting, and we confidently tackle the complex challenges of the martech industry thanks to our superior technology. Everyone loves a bake-off, and Tapad is no exception – delivering best-in-class results in areas that really count.” *F-score is a statistical measurement that takes precision and recall together. The calculation is 2*(precision*recall)/precision + recall). It gives you one number instead of two numbers to look at and judge performance. Contact us today
Five Norwegian startups selected to establish U.S. presence NEW YORK, Aug. 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — Tapad, the leader in cross-device marketing technology and now a part of Experian, has announced its new entrepreneurial mentorship initiative, the Propeller Program. Five early-stage startups from Norway have been chosen by Are Traasdahl, native of Norway and Tapad’s CEO and founder. The selected companies will share Tapad’s New York City workspace, receive C-level guidance and help establish a U.S. presence. The following companies have been selected to participate in the inaugural Propeller Program – a 12-month program beginning September 19, 2016: Bubbly – Developers of a platform that enables in-store customer feedback with dashboards and tools that facilitate real-time store response BylineMe – A marketplace for freelancers, publishers and brands to connect for content creation and distribution services Eventum – A property-sharing group that digitally assists in securing venues for meetings and corporate events Xeneta – A database that organizes the best contracted freight rates in real time and on demand “We are supporting startups that we feel represent the future of service offerings,” said Traasdahl. “It is with incredible pride that we invite these entrepreneurial teams from Norway to join us in New York Citythis year. Mentorship opportunities for early-stage companies are so important, particularly for those based outside the U.S. I look forward to giving the Propeller Program participants access to the expertise of my seasoned team and to our wide network of resources. Hopefully, it will be a game-changing year for many of them.” Contact us today