Media is changing and the sell-side is stepping boldly into the identity jungle—a dense and complex environment where privacy regulations, evolving signals, and advertiser expectations make every step an adventure. It’s not about survival; it’s about navigation. Experian’s identity solutions offer sell-side players like connected TV (CTV) publishers, supply-side platforms (SSPs), and open web publishers a roadmap to deliver rich consumer insights and build addressable audiences.
Here’s how different stakeholders are navigating the landscape—and why having the right sherpa makes all the difference.
CTV publishers: Turning anonymous viewers into addressable audiences
The surge in CTV viewing, fueled by the shift from linear TV to digital streaming, has made it a critical channel for marketers—but navigating the identity jungle isn’t the same for every platform.
For major players like Netflix, Hulu, and Max, where users log in to access content, the challenge isn’t identifying viewers but enriching their profiles. By layering behavioral and purchase data onto these profiles, platforms can go far beyond insights on media habits to create highly attractive audience segments for marketers to target.
For free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) platforms like Tubi, where logins aren’t required to watch content, the jungle is denser. These platforms have unknown viewers they can’t identify, which limits their ability to know who the customer is and reach them with relevant ads. By utilizing identity solutions, FAST platforms can turn unknown users into addressable audiences, resolving viewership at the household or individual level. This transformation allows for personalized, relevant ads that increase engagement, boost inventory value, and unlock new revenue opportunities.
How Experian can help
Imagine a CTV platform struggling with anonymous viewers on its FAST channels, where users tune in without logging in. Using Experian’s household-level data, the platform can convert these anonymous sessions into known, addressable audiences. This allows for personalized, precisely targeted ads that boost viewer engagement and significantly increase ad inventory value.
For platforms with logged-in users, Experian takes it further by enriching profiles with behavioral and purchase data. This deeper understanding enables even more precise ad targeting, stronger advertiser demand, driving higher CPMs, and ultimately greater revenue growth. With Experian, CTV publishers turn anonymity into opportunity and build meaningful connections across their audience.
SSPs: Delivering premium audiences across channels
SSPs are under pressure to differentiate themselves in a competitive marketplace. The days of simply aggregating inventory are gone; today, SSPs must prove their worth by delivering premium value to advertisers and publishers.
Addressability is a cornerstone of this strategy. By combining demographic and behavioral data with offline and digital identifiers, SSPs can build and deliver high-quality audiences across various channels.
At the same time, supply path optimization (SPO) is taking center stage. SPO acts as a machete in the underbrush, clearing out unnecessary intermediaries and reducing costs while creating direct, transparent pathways to premium, brand-safe inventory. When paired with identity data, SSPs can offer buyers precisely targeted audiences, more premium inventory and a streamlined supply path.
How Experian can help
Imagine an SSP striving to stand out in a crowded market by delivering premium value to advertisers and publishers. Experian’s Digital Graph and Marketing Attributes empowers SSPs to enhance addressability and audience insights by combining digital identifiers with demographic and behavioral data. This enriched understanding of an audience leads to greater reach for the buy side and higher revenue for publishers.
Additionally, these capabilities enable SSPs to form exclusive inventory partnerships, positioning them as go-to sources for high-value audiences. With Experian’s solutions, SSPs can differentiate themselves by delivering superior targeting, deeper audience understanding, and streamlined supply paths that drive measurable results for advertisers and publishers alike.
Open web publishers: Promoting addressability and audience understanding
For open web publishers, programmatic advertising has created opportunities—and challenges. Inventory commoditization makes it difficult to stand out and often leads to suppressed CPMs. To compete, publishers need data and identity solutions that enable them to differentiate their inventory and reveal the true value of their audience.
Similar to FAST publishers, the jungle for open web publishers often starts with anonymous visitors. Recognizing and identifying all their users allows publishers to present advertisers with rich audience insights that lead to more efficiently targeted ads. Publishers are now equipped to fight commoditization and maximize revenue potential.
How Experian can help
Imagine an open web publisher striving to deliver more value to advertisers in a crowded programmatic landscape. Experian’s identity solutions help publishers turn anonymous traffic into addressable audiences, enabling them to understand their visitors and provide richer audience insights. This allows advertisers to target ads more effectively, increasing engagement and driving higher ad revenue.
With the ability to recognize their visitors and offer actionable data, publishers can break free from commoditization. Experian empowers publishers to maximize their inventory’s value and help marketers drive results.
Turning identity challenges into a strategic advantage
The identity jungle can feel daunting, but for those willing to explore its opportunities, the rewards are immense. Sell-side players—CTV publishers, SSPs, and open web publishers—have the tools to not just navigate but thrive in this dense and dynamic ecosystem. By embracing data-driven strategies and identity solutions, they can uncover new paths to audience engagement, inventory value, and revenue growth.
Read our companion article to learn how the buy-side is approaching data and identity challenges.
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NEW YORK, June 1, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — Are Traasdahl, CEO and founder of Tapad, the leader in cross-device marketing technology and now a part of Experian, has been named Founder of the Year by the Nordic Startup Awards. The Nordic Startup Awards' Founder of the Year Award recognizes an individual that has shown exceptional achievements in fundraising, customer growth, financial savvy, and/or leadership throughout the past year. The Nordic Startup Awards evaluates hundreds of players in the startup ecosystem, ranging from investors and founders, to developers and journalists in Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, Norway and Finland. Taking place in two stages, each country selects its nominees for consideration for the regional awards which were held in Iceland on May 31, 2016. Traasdahl is recognized for his continuous investment in Tapad as a whole, as well as his dedication to growing and developing Tapad since founding the company in 2010. He has led Tapad from startup through a steady period of growth resulting in an acquisition by the Telenor Group for $360 million in February 2016. "I am truly honored to be named Founder of the Year by the Nordic Startup Awards, among so many other remarkable leaders in the space," said Traasdahl. "That said, this has always been a team effort. We started Tapad with the goal of giving employees unprecedented growth opportunities while developing breakthrough solutions for our clients. This is a win for everyone at Tapad who has committed themselves to these principles over the past four-and-a-half years." Tapad is reinforcing its commitment to fostering entrepreneurship with the launch of their new Propeller Program. Through Propeller, Tapad will host five early-stage companies at Tapad's New York headquarters for a year to set them up for global expansion. In its inaugural year, the first participants will come from Traasdahl's native Norway. For more information on the Nordic Startup Awards, please visit: http://www.nordicstartupawards.com. Contact us today
NEW YORK, May 4, 2016 /PRNewswire/ – Tapad, the leader in cross-device marketing technology and now a part of Experian, has been honored with two iMedia ASPY Awards. Announced on May 3rd at the iMedia Summit in Lost Pines, TX, Tapad's 2016 ASPY Awards include "Best Customer Service" and "Best Mobile Partner." In 2015, Tapad's proprietary technology, Tapad Device Graph™, was named "Best New Media Innovation" and Tapad employee Chris Martin was awarded the "Rising Star Award." The iMedia ASPY Awards – determined exclusively by agency votes – recognize the industry's top marketing technology, media companies and publishers for outstanding service to agencies. The award for "Best Customer Service" recognizes Tapad's client services team and their dedication to helping agencies fully understand their consumers' behavior and achieve the best cross-screen campaign ROI through Tapad's Campaign Pulse and TV Pulse analytics reporting. The "Best Mobile Partner" win recognizes the abilities of the Tapad Device Graph™ to deliver unified cross-screen solutions for the company's partners. "We are privileged to have a talented and dynamic group of people on our client services team, and we are honored to be recognized by iMedia Connection and our agency partners," said Tapad Founder and CEO, Are Traasdahl. "We have always strived to provide the best solutions and the best customer support, so it's extremely gratifying to be rewarded for our efforts. If our clients and partners are happy, we are happy." For more information on the iMedia ASPY Awards please visit: http://aspyawards.com. Read the full press release here. Contact us today
Cross-screen marketing tech firm, Tapad, drove unified campaign; partnered with Statiq to measure cross-screen impact on in-store visits LONDON, March 8, 2016 /PRNewswire/ – Carat North completed the UK's most comprehensive digital campaign with Tapad, the leader in cross-device marketing technology and now a part of Experian. Coupled with location-based audience data from Statiq, this marks the first time a UK-company has measured the impact of unified, cross-screen campaign on in-store visits. Carat North served display and video ads to grocery shoppers for the leading retailer ASDA from August through October. During the campaign, Tapad utilized Statiq's audience data to measure which users visited a store after being exposed* to the campaign's ad on multiple devices. The digital campaign demonstrated a lift of 59% for in-store visits when users were exposed to ads on three devices over people who were shown an ad only on onescreen. Those who engaged with the ad were also 411% more likely to visit an ASDA store. Of those who were exposed to an ad, 248% were more likely to visit a store. Impressions served to mobile devices saw the highest success rate with an in-store visit lift of 67%. The campaign leveraged Tapad's proprietary technology, The Device Graph™, which Nielsen confirmed Tapad's cross device accuracy to be 91.2%, to serve ads sequentially on connected devices belonging to the same user. CARAT NORTH: "The ability to know which devices belong to our customer, coupled with the ability to deliver the right ad, and right message, wherever they are and on whatever device they're using, has been something this industry has long needed," said Steve Thornton, Digital Account Manager, Carat North. "We're impressed with the results that have come from the work with Tapad and Statiq for this media-first, and look forward to continuing to offer these solutions to clients like ASDA. Matching unified cross-device capabilities with real insights on campaign performance is an invaluable advantage in the marketing world." TAPAD: "This campaign is a perfect example of the capabilities of cross-device advertising," said Are Traasdahl, Founder and CEO, Tapad. "In addition to reaching users across devices, we're able to analyze campaign results and determine how different combinations of ad exposure, creative type or view frequency affected their decision to visit a location." STATIQ: "As a location data specialist, Tapad is our ideal partner – they are an industry leader and by working with them we are able to determine the impact unified messaging has on real world consumer behaviours," said Dean Cussell, Co-Founder of Statiq. "We believe this type of analysis will significantly aid brands in optimising future ad spend." About Carat North Carat North is a leading independent media planning & buying specialist in digital and non-traditional media solutions. Owned by global media group Dentsu Aegis Network, the Carat network is more than 6,700 people in 130 countries worldwide across 170 cities. Carat defined the sector when established as the world's first media independent in 1968 and is now Europe's largest media network, a position held for more than 15 years. For more information visit www.carat.co.uk About Tapad Tapad Inc. is a marketing technology firm renowned for its breakthrough, unified, cross-device solutions. With 91.2% data accuracy confirmed by Nielsen, the company offers the largest in-market opportunity for marketers and technologies to address the ever-evolving reality of media consumption on smartphones, tablets, home computers and smart TVs. Deployed by agency trading desks, publishers and numerous Fortune 500 brands, Tapad provides an accurate, unified approach to connecting with consumers across screens. In 2015, Tapad began aggressively licensing its identity management solution, the Tapad Device Graph™, and swiftly became the established gold-standard throughout the ad tech ecosystem. Tapad is based in New York and has offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit,Frankfurt, London, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, San Francisco and Toronto. TechCrunch called the powerhouse Tapad team "a hell of a list of entrepreneurs who created some of the most valuable online advertising companies of the last decade." Among Tapad's numerous awards: EY Entrepreneur of The Year (East Coast) 2014, among Forbes' Most Promising Companies two year's running, Deloitte's Technology Fast 500, Crain's Fast 50, Entrepreneur 360, Digiday Signal Award, iMedia ASPY Award, and a MarCom Gold Award. Read the full release here. *Tapad utilized Statiq's audience data to measure which users visited a store during, or within one month of, being exposed to the campaign's ad on multiple devices. Contact us today