At A Glance
Omnichannel marketing only works when a consumer’s journey across TV, social, and in-store moments builds one connected story instead of scattered impressions. In this conversation, Experian and MiQ discuss how marketers can use connected identity and richer audience data, including MiQ Sigma, to plan and activate campaigns that reach the right people across channels and markets.Key takeways
- MiQ Sigma uses Experian’s Digital Graph inside MiQ’s Identity Spine to resolve audiences consistently across devices, channels, and data feeds.
- Sigma’s Planning Agent turns a single brief into an omnichannel plan, with Experian Marketing Attributes enriching the demographic and behavioral signals behind its recommendations.
- Experian WorldView delivers a geographic unit smaller and more consistent than a postal code across more than 130 countries, helping marketers hold local relevance at global scale.
- Before the next plan, marketers should check whether it’s connected (not just everywhere), data led, built on portable first-party data, and consistent in signal depth across markets.
One consumer might see an ad on TV Sunday night, scroll past a social post on Monday, and buy in-store by Friday. Each moment happens on a different platform with its own identifiers and data, and together they form one continuous journey. Planning for that journey starts with connecting the signals behind it.
Lara Koenig, Global VP of Strategy and Partnerships at global programmatic media partner MiQ, joined us to discuss how a connected identity foundation and richer consumer attributes help marketers plan omnichannel campaigns with insight instead of assumptions and reach the right people across markets.
What makes a plan omnichannel, not just everywhere
A connected omnichannel plan carries one story across platforms. Each message builds on what a consumer has already seen, so reach adds up to a consistent experience across TV, social, digital, and in-store moments.
Connecting those moments takes work. First-party data varies in depth from brand to brand, platforms use different identifiers, and for global campaigns, the signals that explain behavior in one country often look different in the next.
Planning with data before the dollars move
MiQ uses data and artificial intelligence (AI) to give marketers a fuller view of their audiences, combining age and gender with the attributes and behaviors that shape intent. One consumer might be a parent, a retail shopper, and a sports fan at once, and each signal adds to the plan. That fuller picture helps MiQ plan around the moments when intent is highest.
To make that practical, MiQ built MiQ Sigma, a platform that puts data in marketers’ hands so they can explore it and find the audiences they hadn’t thought to look for.
Where Experian fits inside MiQ Sigma
MiQ integrated Experian’s Digital Graph into its Identity Spine, which connects dozens of data feeds and ID solutions. That gives MiQ cross-device and cross-channel resolution it can apply consistently, whatever the signal.
Sigma’s Planning Agent turns a single brief into an omnichannel plan with audience, channel, and tactical recommendations. Experian Marketing Attributes enrich the demographic and behavioral signals that feed the Planning Agent, adding TV viewing and purchase behavior to data marketers already trust, so its recommendations reflect what audiences watch and buy.
“We’ve built a platform called MiQ Sigma. Experian is a core element of the identity spine behind that which helps us enrich a lot of other data partners we license to tell a really connected universe story across the world.”
MiQLara Koenig, Global VP of Strategy and Partnerships
Identity is the foundation
A marketer’s first-party data is their richest asset, and it varies widely: deep email-based insight for some brands, a name and address for others, and very little for consumer-packaged goods (CPG) brands whose sales usually happen at the retailer. Identity resolution makes that data addressable. It works like a translation layer, connecting a marketer’s customer data to the identifiers media platforms accept, such as hashed emails (HEMS), and mobile ad IDs (MAIDS).
Experian keeps the foundation consistent while the inputs vary. Our identity foundation is signal-agnostic and platform-agnostic, so MiQ can plug in local retailer, broadcaster, and device data and still resolve it to the same person and household view. MiQ saw this in practice when it brought Experian’s Digital Graph into its Identity Spine, expanding reach and scale across screens.
Why scale and local relevance pull against each other
Scale and relevance can pull against each other when the data behind a plan change from one market to the next. Retailers, broadcasters, and TV manufacturers differ by country, and in some regions, privacy rules shape how identifiers like IP addresses and hashed emails can be used, which makes location a practical unit for planning. Experian WorldView provides demographic and location data in consistent 250-meter grids, a unit smaller than most postal codes, across global markets. That shared framework helps marketers compare markets and sharpen local planning in categories such as quick-service restaurants, CPG, and retail.
Beyond reach: Making the hard question simple
Reach is the starting point. From there, marketers need to understand audiences in the context of their goals, activate through privacy-forward, governed identity, measure what happened, and keep improving..
“There’s a lot of complex stitching that happens just to answer that basic question: who do you want to target and why, and how do you reach them? There are 30 different platforms, 60 different seats behind that, identity resolution partners, TV viewership partners. We want to make that question really simple to answer.”
MiQLara Koenig, Global VP of Strategy and Partnerships
Four questions to ask before your next omnichannel plan
Before you build your next omnichannel plan, start with four questions:
Together, MiQ and Experian help marketers connect identity, insight, activation, and measurement across channels and markets.
Ready to plan with more connected data? Contact us
Click here to view Experian’s U.S. Consumer Data Privacy Notice.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
About our expert
Lara Koenig
Global VP of Strategy and Partnerships, MiQ
Lara Koenig is Vice President of Global Strategy & Partnerships at MiQ, where she leads product strategy and partnership development for the company’s omnichannel advertising capabilities. Over her decade-long tenure at MiQ, Lara has led high-scale teams across Programmatic Trading and Product Development, managing departments of more than 50 people and helping deliver innovative advertising solutions and best-in-class service for global marketers.
Lara brings deep expertise across programmatic trading, product development, identity, data collaboration and the broader ad tech ecosystem. In her current role, she works with global and enterprise clients and partners to help turn fragmented consumer signals into more connected, actionable media strategies across channels and markets. Her perspective centers on giving marketers a clearer understanding of audiences, the data behind consumer behavior and the partnerships needed to plan, activate and measure more effectively.
A recognized voice in the industry, Lara also contributes to cross-industry working groups and advocates for publisher development, education and stronger standards around buy-side supply path optimization. She regularly speaks on omnichannel strategy, retail media, AI-enabled planning, identity and the evolution of advertising partnerships.
FAQs
MiQ Sigma is MiQ’s AI-powered platform that gives marketers direct access to audience data, so they can find audiences they hadn’t considered instead of relying on a single demographic persona. Experian’s Digital Graph sits inside MiQ’s Identity Spine, which powers Sigma’s cross-device and cross-channel resolution, and Experian Marketing Attributes enrich the signals behind Sigma’s Planning Agent.
Experian’s identity foundation is signal-agnostic and platform-agnostic, so MiQ can plug in local retailer, broadcaster, and device data and still resolve it to the same person and household view. Experian’s Digital Graph expanded MiQ’s reach and scale across screens, and Experian WorldView adds consistent socio-demographic and location data across more than 130 countries for markets where postcodes aren’t precise or available enough for activation.
A connected plan carries one cohesive story and accounts for what a consumer has already seen, so each message builds on the last. A plan that simply runs across many channels often repeats the same message in different places and calls that reach, without the identity and data work needed to link those channels together.
First-party data varies widely in depth, from deep email-based insight to just a name and address, and on its own it often can’t be used across every platform a marketer buys on. Identity resolution works like a translation layer, connecting that data to the identifiers platforms accept, such as a hashed email, mobile ad ID, or phone number, so marketers can activate consistently across channels.
Global omnichannel plans don’t need identical data in every country, but the data needs to resolve to a consistent, comparable view across markets, since retailers, broadcasters, and privacy rules differ by country. Experian WorldView addresses this by providing a geographic unit smaller and more consistent than a postal code across more than 130 countries, giving marketers a way to keep local targeting accurate without losing global scale.
Latest posts
Tapad’s digital identity resolution offering enables Gimbal’s platform to provide expanded insights for campaign optimization to U.S. brand and agency clients NEW YORK, Feb. 11, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Tapad, part of Experian and a global leader in digital identity resolution, announced their partnership with Gimbal, a leader of location-powered marketing and advertising solutions. Gimbal now leverages Tapad’s global, privacy-safe digital cross-device solution, The Tapad Graph, to further enhance its footfall attribution solution, Arrival. Arrival delivers dwell-based attribution for in-store foot traffic and by leveraging the Tapad Graph, Gimbal provides customers with a more holistic, attributable understanding of consumers across multiple devices, like desktop, smartphone, and tablet. With this, Gimbal’s clients are enabled to make more informed media planning decisions for programmatic activations across the web, and mobile apps. “With the number of devices per individual rapidly increasing, understanding the customer decision journey is becoming more complex,” said Kyle Wendling, SVP of Product at Gimbal. “We’re excited to partner with Tapad to continue engaging consumers across multiple devices.” To learn more about Tapad and our digital identity resolution products, visit our identity solutions page. About TapadTapad, Inc. is a global leader in digital identity resolution. The Tapad Graph, and its related solutions, provide a transparent, privacy-safe approach connecting brands to consumers through their devices globally. Tapad is recognized across the industry for its product innovation, workplace culture, and talent, and has earned numerous awards including One World Identity’s 2019 Top 100 Influencers in Identity Award. Headquartered in New York, Tapad also has offices in Chicago, Denver, London, Oslo, Singapore, and Tokyo. About GimbalGimbal translates location data into intent, measurement, and insights to help organizations transform their businesses, maximize marketing relevance, and humanize messaging for consumers. Gimbal is headquartered in Los Angeles and provides advertising and marketing technologies to the world’s leading brands and retailers interested in understanding the physical world. To learn more, visit https://gimbal.com. Contact us today
Tapad, part of Experian, integrates with AcuityAds’ current offering will complement cross-channel capabilities for brands and agencies in the U.S. and Canada NEW YORK, Jan. 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Tapad, a global leader in digital identity resolution, has partnered with AcuityAds, a technology leader that provides targeted digital media solutions for advertisers to connect intelligently with audiences. The partnership will enhance AcuityAds’ existing cross-device solution, especially with respect to its cross-channel Connected TV offering. Tapad’s global, privacy-safe digital cross-device solution, The Tapad Graph, will compliment AcuityAds’ own cross-device data set for enhanced marketing capabilities across their Demand Side Platform (DSP). For AcuityAds, this provides customers with unduplicated reach across desktop, tablet, mobile and CTV devices – while augmenting their video offering. Tom Woods, Vice President of Products at AcuityAds commented, “With increasing marketing complexities, consumer device usage and new data regulations, our decision regarding the partnership was an important one. The Tapad Graph’s privacy-safe identifiers for consumer notice and choice, as well as the ability to opt-out at any point, were critical factors in our decision who to partner with.” To learn more about Tapad and our digital identity resolution capabilities, visit our identity page. About Tapad Tapad, Inc. is a global leader in digital identity resolution. The Tapad Graph and its related solutions provide a transparent, privacy-safe approach connecting brands to consumers through their devices globally. Tapad is recognized across the industry for its product innovation, workplace culture, and talent, and has earned numerous awards including One World Identity’s 2019 Top 100 Influencers in Identity Award. Headquartered in New York, Tapad also has offices in Chicago, London, Oslo, Singapore, and Tokyo. About AcuityAds AcuityAds is a leading technology company that provides marketers a powerful and holistic solution for digital advertising across all ad formats and screens to amplify reach and Share of Attention® throughout the customer journey. Via its unique, data-driven insights, real-time analytics and industry-leading activation platform based on proprietary Artificial Intelligence technology, AcuityAds leverages an integrated ecosystem of partners for data, inventory, brand safety and fraud prevention, offering unparalleled, trusted solutions that the most demanding marketers require to be successful in the digital era. AcuityAds is headquartered in Toronto with offices throughout the U.S., Europe and Latin America. For more information, visit AcuityAds.com. Disclaimer in regards to Forward-looking Statements Certain statements included herein constitute “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by management at this time, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies. Investors are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Except as required by law, AcuityAds does not intend, and undertakes no obligation, to update any forward-looking statements to reflect, in particular, new information or future events. Contact us today
Tapad, a part of Experian and the future of cookies Earlier this week, Google announced plans to create “.. a path towards making third-party cookies obsolete”; which will result in the phasing out of support for third-party cookies in its Chrome browser within two years. While there has been much discussion and debate on the future of the third-party cookie, an announcement from Google has been anticipated for some time. As many have said this week, the use of cookies and other identifiers has and will continue to evolve. What will never change is the value exchange between publishers and consumers that is enabled by relevant advertising. Notably, the need for independent companies to develop solutions that enable this value exchange has never been greater to ensure that publishers, consumers, and advertisers derive the most value from their relationship. We are well-positioned for the future From the start, Tapad, a part of Experian has led with a consumer-first, privacy-centric approach to technology as the use and proliferation of devices and global privacy regulations continue to evolve. Over the past two years, Tapad, a part of Experian has gone through a technical overhaul. Calling on almost ten years of expertise in identity resolution, we have created a modern platform that is flexible in terms of identity input as well as output. Anticipated change in the identity landscape was the driver behind our architecture decisions and what enables us to be responsive to a dynamic market. Consumer behavior and device use continue to change, bringing additional digital IDs into the equation – namely across the mobile and CTV environments. Our technology, however, is not tied to any specific type of identifier, but rather is focused on associating disparate identifiers at the individual and household level. Where do we go from here? Google’s announcement has been characterized as a conversation starter, but we see it more as a call to action. With a timeline set, there is a need to converge on one or more solutions that can scale across the web. In a post cookie world, publishers and advertisers will continue to require ways to create fair marketplaces across platforms and devices. Further, the platforms that currently power the programmatic advertising ecosystem will need to be able to invest and differentiate to bring value to their customers. Scaled privacy-safe identity solutions will be needed not only for classic targeting, attribution, measurement, and frequency capping use cases but also to carry consumer preferences and consent. Tapad, a part of Experian will continue to play a leading role here. However, we are not going to do this alone. As solutions around Google’s Chrome browser evolve, we will continue to take a leadership position and will work with Google, key industry groups, partners and customers to meet current and future needs for an independent identity solution at scale. In the meantime, we will continue to support an independent ecosystem where consumers come first and privacy standards are a priority. It’s business as usual…for now. There will not be any changes to our graph products or services as a result of Google’s announcement in the near term. Any changes related to the Chrome third-party cookie will evolve and will no doubt be subject to significant industry participation and feed-back, indeed at the invitation of Google. We will proactively communicate any changes and product updates during this time period. We look forward to the opportunities resulting from these changes and ushering in a new era of identity resolution in digital advertising. Contact us today