At A Glance
Experian and Index Exchange give media buyers a more connected and simplified way to put audience intelligence to work. Through Index Marketplaces, buyers can access ready-to-activate Experian Audiences or Curated Deals through existing buying workflows while gaining greater visibility into audience, inventory, and campaign performance.Key takeaways
- Index Marketplaces brings audience data closer to media supply by applying audience data on the sell side before the buyer’s DSP receives the bid opportunity.
- Media buyers can activate Experian data through ready-to-activate Experian Audiences or Experian Curated Deals.
- Buyers can combine Experian Audiences with contextual or attention signals based on their campaign goals.
- Experian Curated Deals package audience data and curated inventory into a single deal ID, simplifying setup and fee reconciliation.
- Impression-level reporting can help buyers examine audience selection, inventory, and campaign performance in greater detail and apply those learnings to future campaigns.
Media buyers often select an audience in one system, buy media in another, and reconcile the two after a campaign. Experian and Index Exchange have worked to close that gap. During a Cannes Lions conversation with Paul Zovighian, Vice President of Marketplaces at Index Exchange, we discussed how Index Marketplaces brings audience data closer to media supply and gives buyers more visibility into each activation.
Why fragmented activation creates extra work
US programmatic ad spending will top $200 billion in 2026, and automated buys now often transact through direct deals rather than the open exchange. Programmatic buying gives media buyers broad choice, but each new data source can add setup, maintenance, and reporting work. Buyers often select audience data in one system and buy media in another, making it hard to connect audience intent, inventory, and campaign performance. That creates extra work around a basic question: did the campaign reach the intended audience in the intended media environments, and how did it perform?
What buyers need
For buyers, a useful marketplace starts with three principles: flexibility, customization, and control. Buyers need the freedom to select and combine the options that match each campaign’s goal. Data providers need clear control over how their offerings appear. A fourth principle, interoperability, connects the first three by helping those offerings work across platforms and channels.
Index Marketplaces adheres to these principles by applying audience data on the sell side before the buyer’s demand-side platform (DSP) receives the bid opportunity. Buyers can then use the audience and supply signals through their existing buying workflow.
“Flexibility, customization, control. If you’ve got those three things together, you’re on a good path.”
Index ExchangePaul Zovighian, Vice President of Marketplaces
Designing Index Marketplaces with data providers
Experian has a hand in Index Marketplaces from the start. Index Exchange works with Experian on both ends of the platform: how providers configure and offer their data, and how partners discover, evaluate, and activate it.
Segment discovery and expanded segment attributes came out of that work. Together, they give buyers more information about each segment, so it’s easier to find the data that fits a campaign’s goal. Once a provider’s offering is in Index Marketplaces, media buyers and Marketplace partners can reach it through the programmatic workflows they already use.
“We designed the platform from day one with our partners like Experian. The platform can only succeed if we’re able to help other companies push the envelope on their solutions.”
Index ExchangePaul Zovighian, VP of Marketplaces
Two ways to activate Experian Audiences through Index Marketplaces
Media buyers can activate Experian data through Index Marketplaces in two ways, based on the level of customization they need.
How buyers can combine signals around a campaign goal
Media buyers can start with a campaign goal, then select the audience, contextual, or attention signals that support it. A buyer could pair an Experian Audience with a contextual or attention signal through Index Marketplaces, creating a more customized approach to identifying the impressions that matter for a campaign.
Index Marketplaces gives buyers a consistent activation workflow across supported channels, including web display and video, mobile app, native, and connected TV.
“It’s the sum of the ingredients that are going to really matter. It’s not one solution in a vacuum.”
Index ExchangePaul Zovighian, Vice President of Marketplaces
The reporting value: Impression-level visibility
Paul’s standard is blunt: it’s 2026, and aggregate reporting should be the floor, not the ceiling. Impression-level (or log-level) data records what happened on each impression, rather than summarizing at the campaign or channel level. Impression-level visibility can help media buyers examine audience selection, inventory, and campaign performance in greater detail.
The activation record can connect Experian audience data with Index supply, reducing reconciliation work across separate systems.
Marketers still decide whether a campaign met its goal. Impression-level reporting adds a feedback loop: assess, refine, adapt, and carry what you learned into the next campaign. Each activation becomes a stronger foundation for the next, for human teams and AI-driven optimization alike.
“Log-level detail should be an expectation. You don’t need to use it, but if you want it, you should be able to get it. It’s getting a receipt for every transaction.”
Index ExchangePaul Zovighian, Vice President of Marketplaces
What this means for your next campaign
If you’re evaluating where and how to activate audience data, start with four questions:
Experian Audiences, or Curated Deals options, can give media buyers a more connected path from audience selection to activation through Index Marketplaces. Ready to see what your audiences can do on the sell-side?
Connect with us
About our expert
Paul Zovighian, VP of Marketplaces, Index Exchange
Paul brings more than a decade of industry experience spanning analytics, optimization, and corporate development. Now VP, Marketplaces, he leads the commercial activation of Index’s sell-side decisioning platform, Index Marketplaces.
FAQs
Media buyers can activate Experian data through Index Marketplaces using ready-to-activate Experian Audiences, or Experian Curated Deals. Buyers can access these options through their existing buying workflow based on the level of customization they need.
Experian Curated Deals combine Experian Audiences with curated inventory in a single deal ID that buyers can access through Index Marketplaces. This approach packages data and inventory in one activation, simplifying setup and fee reconciliation.
Yes. Media buyers can pair an Experian Audience with contextual or attention signals through Index Marketplaces. Buyers can start with a campaign goal and select the audience, contextual, or attention signals that support it.
Log-level data records what happened on each impression rather than summarizing results at the campaign or channel level. This reporting can help media buyers examine audience selection, inventory, and campaign performance in greater detail.
Experian Audiences, or Curated Deals options give media buyers a more connected path from audience selection to activation through Index Marketplaces. The activation record can connect Experian audience data with Index supply, reducing reconciliation work across separate systems.
Latest posts
Dextro clients to achieve increased accuracy in cross-device consumer measurement and engagement NEW YORK, Feb. 6, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — Dextro Analytics, a pure play analytics company that harnesses the power of human learning and artificial reasoning to drive more informed and effective consumer marketing, is partnering with Tapad, the leading provider of unified, cross-screen marketing technology solutions and now a part of Experian. The deal is effective immediately and the scope of the partnership covers North America. Additional terms were not disclosed. Leveraging Tapad’s privacy-safe Device Graph™, Dextro Analytics will be able to significantly bolster its insight engine to decode complex customer journeys. Armed with more relevant, actionable insights, marketers can use Dextro’s cross-screen, closed-loop measurement systems to reach and engage the right customer at the right time through the right channel. “Being able to accurately map consumer preferences, behaviors and journeys in a privacy-safe and unified way across devices is still one of the biggest pain points for marketers,” said Ajith Govind, co-founder of Dextro Analytics. “At the same time, this partnership engages customers with the right message at the right time.” “Detecting latent patterns and signals, and tracing backward- and forward-looking behavioral characteristics, are keys to sustaining a competitive advantage in a crowded space,” said Manmit Shrimali, co-founder of Dextro Analytics. “With the proliferation of data and devices, connecting the dots is of paramount importance.” “Dextro is solving some of the biggest challenges in analytics today,” said Pierre Martensson, GM of Tapad’s data division. “Our partners consistently see notable improvements in both budget allocation and device optimizations after integrating with the Tapad Device Graph, and I have every confidence that Dextro will be among them.” For more information about Dextro Analytics’ revolutionary approach to using human learning and artificial intelligence algorithms to solve business and analytical problems, please visit http://dextroanalytics.com/. For more information about Tapad’s cross-platform advertising solutions, please visit https://www.experian.com/marketing/consumer-sync. Contact us today
NEW YORK & LOS ANGELES / BUSINESS WIRE / Jan. 30, 2017– Tapad, part of Experian, and Rubicon Project (NYSE: RUBI) announced today a new global partnership offering a unified, cross-device campaign delivery solution within an automated advertising marketplace. Tapad is the leading provider of unified, cross-screen marketing technology solutions and Rubicon Projectoperates one of the largest advertising marketplaces in the world. The Tapad Device Graph™, which enables buyers to expand their high-value display data signals to associated mobile devices, will be integrated across Rubicon Project’s leading advertising exchange and Orders platform, significantly improving consumer mobile reach. The new global partnership will empower Buyers within Rubicon Project’s exchange to find and engage audiences across their entire digital experience. Rubicon Project operates one of the world’s largest mobile exchanges connecting to approximately 1 billion unique mobile devices globally. “We’re excited to partner with Tapad to continue to provide our customers the very best data for managing their advertising businesses,” said Harry Patz, Chief Revenue Officer, Rubicon Project. “Cross-device delivery is crucial for buyers today with more than 81% of internet users currently relying on more than one device for digital access[1]. Through our partnership, buyers will be able to extend their desktop private marketplace campaigns to mobile, allowing them to find and engage their audience across devices, anywhere in the world. The net result will also benefit sellers; the increase in mobile reach will better position publishers and app developers to strategically capitalize on their inventory, ultimately increasing bid rates and mobile revenue across the board.” “Our partnership with Rubicon Project marks the first time advertisers and publishers alike are able to use cross-device solutions at significant scale outside of Google and Facebook,” said Pierre Martensson, GM of Tapad’s Data Division and APAC. “Our Device Graph will help Rubicon Project’s advertisers make more informed buying decisions and find the audiences who matter most.” Barry Adams, VP of Commercial Development at Bidswitch, said, “As digital advertising moves away from desktop and increasingly toward a mobile-first model, cross device data becomes critical to finding consumers. The rich data buyers will now be able to leverage at scale through the Tapad and Rubicon Project integration will enable us to provide a state-of-the-art cross-screen solution for the 150+ buying platforms that use our service, and the tens of thousands of advertisers they represent.” For more information about Rubicon Project’s inventory, please visit www.rubiconproject.com. For more information about Tapad’s cross-platform advertising solutions, please visit https://www.experian.com/marketing/consumer-sync. Contact us today
Tapad expands linear TV analytics solution, enabling optimal reach and frequency across TV and digital platforms NEW YORK, Jan. 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — Tapad, now a part of Experian, has partnered with WideOrbit, the leading provider of advertising management software for media companies, to develop the industry’s first programmatic TV-buying platform powered by a device graph. Tapad is the leading provider of unified, cross-screen marketing technology solutions and was first to market with a device graph, the Tapad Device Graph™. WideOrbit’s robust supply platform and industry-leading footprint offers access to premium TV inventory on top networks, reaching more than 99 million households across local affiliates. The partnership pairs Tapad’s demand-side technology with WideOrbit’s supply-side inventory. As a result, marketers can leverage cross-device audiences in their TV buys for the first time. Additionally, integrating the Tapad Device Graph™ with digital feedback loops and audiences both accelerates optimization and enables precise audience discovery for TV marketers. “The integration of WideOrbit’s quality TV supply takes orchestrated cross-screen media buys to the next level,” said Marshall Wong, Tapad’s SVP of TV market development. “Marketers can now optimize TV campaigns within days instead of weeks. This also untethers them from buying against generic demographics like age and gender. By allowing brands to employ their own CRM or third-party data, we can move them much closer to audiences who will take action.” “Integrating Tapad’s device graph with WideOrbit’s programmatic marketplace delivers enormous value to marketers looking to add TV to cross-device campaigns,” said Ian Ferreira, EVP of programmatic at WideOrbit. “Television still delivers the most efficient reach of any medium, and Tapad’s platform now allows marketers to purchase premium broadcast inventory that extends the power of cross-screen campaigns to TV with a single, unified solution.” “Our clients build lasting relationships with consumers through thoughtful and pioneering marketing,” said Jeff Giacchetti, VP of digital at Mediavest Spark. “The strategic partnership of demand-side technology and supply-side inventory makes it easier for brands to find efficient, incremental reach and are critical in this endeavor.” For more information about Tapad’s cross-platform advertising solutions, please visit https://www.experian.com/marketing/consumer-sync. Contact us today