Traditional audience signals are fading, and the industry is facing a new reality: identity is no longer just about connectivity, it’s about outcomes. At Cannes Lions 2025, leaders from AdRoll, LG Ad Solutions, Magnite, MiQ, OpenAP, PubMatic, Stirista, Tatari shared how innovative identity approaches are cutting through the noise, improving performance, and delivering real ROI. Their insights reveal a clear path forward for those ready to turn identity into a performance driver.
Here’s how you can apply the same principles to drive performance.
1. Make identity a performance engine
Treating identity as a performance driver leads to measurable results by creating a clear connection between marketing efforts and outcomes. Identity resolution enables the effective retargeting of audiences, accurate performance attribution across connected TV (CTV), and personalized campaigns across multiple channels. By building household-level graphs and incorporating alternative identifiers, marketers can maintain accuracy as traditional signals change. Activating first-party data across both digital and offline channels ensures that every interaction, whether on-screen or in-store, can be tied back to specific actions, helping optimize campaigns, and improve ROI.
How Experian helps
Experian’s Consumer Sync solutions create a clean foundation and persistent identity spine by resolving and expanding your first-party data across digital and offline IDs (hashed emails, mobile ad IDs, CTV IDs). This enables activation across omnichannel campaigns, from CTV to social, and connects data to outcomes.
“Identity resolution is very important to our overall strategy today. Without that identity linkage, we couldn’t speak the same language as our clients. For example, a client might want to target people who engaged with their brand’s website four days ago via CRM data. Without identity resolution, that’s not possible. But with it, we’re changing the narrative – making TV a hospitable place for deploying first-party data and driving outcomes.”
LG Ad SolutionsMike Brooks
2. Build trust through responsible data practices
Consumer trust begins with responsible data practices that prioritize transparency and privacy. Deterministic match rates ensure accuracy by connecting data points with confidence, while clear methodologies provide visibility into how data is used. These practices improve overall campaign performance and protect consumer privacy by ensuring that every interaction is respectful.
How Experian helps
Experian’s privacy-first approach ensures that all data activation occurs with compliance and consent. By maintaining high match rates and adhering to transparent methodologies, Experian helps build trust and strengthen long-term connections with audiences.
“If people don’t take any precautions and they don’t actually care about data in the public, they probably don’t care about it in private. Experian cares about data privacy and compliance, and that made it a no-brainer for us to work with them. When we combined our focus on privacy with Experian’s expertise, we knew we had to do it right – and we did.”
StiristaHenry Olawoye
3. Expand reach while maintaining high match rates
Having more data points to identify individuals leads to higher match rates and broader reach. Enriching records with additional identifiers, like hashed emails, MAIDs, and CTV IDs, makes it easier to connect data across channels and create a unified view of each person. This approach ensures that campaigns can scale effectively while maintaining the accuracy needed to deliver personalized experiences.
How Experian helps
With a database of over 5,000 attributes spanning 15 verticals and categories, Experian provides a comprehensive view of consumers through a single provider. By sourcing data from over 200 sources (including public records, consumer surveys, and purchase records), Experian enables the creation of detailed audience profiles. This enriched data focuses on identity, creating a unified view of individuals that helps pinpoint the best opportunities to engage effectively across channels and deliver measurable outcomes tailored to specific audience needs.
“We’ve been able to extend our IDs by an average of 6.5 different identifiers, with a 70% match rate. That extension is huge – it underpins a lot of the connectivity in our platform and allows us to bring 300 data feeds together to make the most of them.”
MiQGeorgiana Haig
4. Create unified campaigns with interoperability
Fragmented data often leads to fragmented results. Interoperability ensures that data from different platforms and systems can work together, creating a unified view that makes measurement and attribution more actionable.
How Experian helps
Experian simplifies interoperability by ensuring consistent data usage from activation and measurement. By connecting data from various sources, Experian enables a cohesive strategy where insights can be shared across publishers, measurement providers, and ad servers, ensuring campaigns remain aligned and effective at every stage.
“The ecosystem benefits from optimized interoperability. We’re focused on allowing advertisers to work seamlessly across IDs and identity solutions – from activation to resolution – so the same data set is used consistently across publishers, measurement providers, currencies, programmatic ecosystems, and ad servers.”
OpenAPChris LoRusso
5. Use AI to amplify, not replace, strategy
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming how campaigns are optimized, but its success depends on clean, consented identity foundations. AI can analyze vast amounts of data to refine targeting, manage frequency, and uncover new efficiencies, but only when built on a strong identity framework.
How Experian helps
Experian uses AI and machine learning to deliver highly personalized marketing solutions. Advanced clustering algorithms in Experian’s Digital Graph analyze and create household and individual device connections, improving targeting and measurement accuracy, while machine learning models improve consumer insights by inferring household composition where data is limited. These innovations enable AI tools to quickly generate tailored audience solutions, analyze contextual signals in real time, and identify opportunities that improve results while maintaining a human centered approach to decision making.
“AI is a copilot to your marketing initiatives. For it to perform, it needs insights and information to learn from. That’s why having a strong foundational data asset rooted in deterministic data is so important.”
PubMaticHoward Luks
Five moves to turn identity into profit
Here are five steps to get started:
1. Audit your data health
Make sure your audience data is accurate, up-to-date, and complete so you’re starting from a strong foundation.
2. Layer in more context
Enrich your records with details, like lifestyle, interests, or buying behaviors, that help you speak your audience’s language.
3. Unify touchpoints across channels
Link your data so you can see the same person or household whether they’re engaging on CTV, mobile, desktop, in-store, or through other touchpoints.
4. Activate AI for stronger campaigns
Use AI tools to fine-tune targeting, control ad frequency, and find hidden opportunities once your foundation is solid.
5. Align data across systems
Ensure interoperability so data from different platforms and systems can work together, creating a unified view for actionable insights.
The common thread across these insights is connection: connecting data, teams, and outcomes. Marketers who act on these imperatives will be ready for whatever new channel, format, or privacy rule comes next.
Let’s start a conversation about how Experian can help you turn identity into ROI
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Centralized data access is emerging as a key strategy for advertisers. In our next Ask the Expert segment, we explore this topic further and discuss the importance of data ownership and the concept of audience as an asset. We're joined by industry leaders, Andy Fisher, Head of Merkury Advanced TV at Merkle, and Chris Feo, Experian’s SVP of Sales & Partnerships who spotlight Merkle's commitment to centralized data access and how advertisers can use our combined solutions to navigate industry shifts while ensuring consumer privacy. Watch our Q&A to learn more about these topics and gain insights on how to stay ahead of industry changes. The concept of audience as an asset In order to gain actionable marketing insights about your audience, you need to identify consumers who are actively engaged with your brand and compare them against non-engaged consumers, or consumers engaged with rival brands. Audience ownership Audience ownership is a fundamental marketing concept where marketers build, define, create, and own their audience. This approach allows you to use your audiences as an asset and deliver a customized journey to the most promising prospects across multiple channels. With this strategy, you enhance marketing effectiveness and ensure ownership over your audience, no matter the platform or channel used. Merkle enables marketers to own and deploy said asset (audience) so that marketers can have direct control over their audience. With audience strategy, you can tie all elements together – amplify your marketing reach, while maintaining control of your audience. Merkle connects customer experiences with business results. Data ownership Data ownership refers to the control organizations have over data they generate, including marketing, sales, product, and customer data. This data is often scattered across multiple platforms, making it difficult to evaluate their effectiveness. Alternatively, owning this data, which is typically housed in a data warehouse, allows the creation of historical overviews, forecasting of customer trends, and cross-channel comparisons. With advertisers and publishers both claiming ownership over their respective data and wanting to control its access, there has been a growing interest in data clean rooms. Data clean rooms The growing interest in data clean rooms is largely due to marketers increasing preference to maintain ownership over their audience data. They provide a secure environment for controlled collaboration between advertisers and publishers while preserving the privacy of valuable data. Data clean rooms allow all parties to define their usage terms – who can access it, how it is used, and when it is used. The rise in the use of data clean rooms strengthens data privacy and creates opportunities for deeper customer insights, which leads to enhanced customer targeting. Data clean rooms unlock new data sets, aiding brands, publishers, and data providers in adapting to rapidly changing privacy requirements. Why is centralized data access important? Centralized data access is crucial for the effective organization and optimization of your advertising campaigns. It involves consolidating your data in one place, allowing for the identification of inconsistencies. Merkle’s Merkury platform The concept of centralized data is a key component of Merkle’s Merkury platform, an enterprise identity platform that empowers brands to own and control first-party identity at an individual level. A common use case involves marketers combining their first-party data with Merkury's data assets and marketplace data assets to build prospecting audiences. These are later published to various endpoints for activation. The Merkury platform covers three classes of data: Proprietary data set – Permissioned data set covering the entire United States, compiled from about 40 different vendors Marketplace data – Includes contributions from various vendors like Experian First-party data from marketers – Allows marketers to bring in their own data Merkury's identity platform empowers brands to own and control first-party identity at an individual level, unifying known and unknown customer and prospect records, site and app visits, and consumer data to a single, person ID. This makes Merkury the only enterprise identity platform that combines the accuracy and sustainability of client first-party data, quality personally identifiable information (PII) data, third-party data, cookie-less media, and technology platform connections in the market. End-to-end management of data Data ownership and management enables you to enhance the quality of your data, facilitate the exchange of information, and ensure privacy compliance. The Merkury platform provides a comprehensive, end-to-end solution for managing first-party data, all rooted in identity. Unlike data management platforms (DMPs) that are primarily built on cookies, the Merkury platform is constructed on a person ID, allowing it to operate effectively in a cookie-free environment. A broader perspective with people-based views The Merkury platform is unique because it contains data from almost every individual in the United States, providing a broader perspective compared to customer data platforms (CDPs) which only contain consumer data. The platform provides a view of the world in a people-based manner, but also offers the flexibility to toggle between person and household views. This enables you to turn data into actionable insights and makes it possible to target specific individuals within a household or consider the household as a whole. How Experian and Merkle work together Experian and Merkle have established a strong partnership that magnifies the capabilities of Merkle's Merkury platform. With Experian’s robust integration capabilities and extensive connectivity opportunities, customers can use this technology for seamless direct integrations, resulting in more effective onboarding to various channels, like digital and TV. "Experian's role in Merkury's data marketplace is essential as they are considered the gold standard for data. It significantly contributes to our connectivity through direct integrations and partnerships. Experian's presence in various platforms and technologies ensures easy connections and high match rates. Our partnership is very important to us."andy fisher, head of merkury advanced tv Through this partnership, Merkle can deliver unique, personalized digital customer experiences across multiple platforms and devices, highlighting their commitment to data-driven performance marketing. Watch the full Q&A Visit our Ask the Expert content hub to watch Andy and Chris's full conversation about data ownership, innovative strategies to empower you to overcome identity challenges, and navigating industry shifts while protecting consumer privacy. Tune into the full recording to gain insights into the captivating topics of artificial intelligence (AI), understanding how retail networks can amplify the value of media, and the growing influence of connected TV (CTV). Dive into the Q&A to gain rich insights that could greatly influence your strategies. Contact us today About our experts Andy Fisher, Head of Merkury Advanced TV As the Head of Merkury Advanced TV, Andy's primary responsibility is driving person-based marketing and big data adoption in all areas of Television including Linear, Addressable, Connected, Programmatic, and X-channel planning and Measurement. Andy has held several positions at Merkle including Chief Analytics Officer and he ran the Merkle data business. Prior to joining Merkle, Andy was the EVP, Global Data & Analytics Director at Starcom MediaVest Group where he led the SMG global analytics practice. In this role, he built and managed a team of 150 analytics professionals across 17 countries servicing many of the world’s largest advertisers. Prior to that role, Andy was Vice President and National Lead, Analytics at Razorfish, where he led the digital analytics practice and managed a team of modeling, survey, media data, and business intelligence experts. He and his team were responsible for some of the first innovations in multi-touchpoint attribution and joining online/offline data for many of the Fortune 100. Andy has also held leadership positions at Personify and IRI. Andy holds a BA in mathematics from UC Berkeley and an MA in statistics from Stanford. Chris Feo, SVP, Sales & Partnerships, Experian As SVP of Sales & Partnerships, Chris has over a decade of experience across identity, data, and programmatic. Chris joined Experian during the Tapad acquisition in November 2020. He joined Tapad with less than 10 employees and has been part of the executive team through both the Telenor and Experian acquisitions. He’s an active advisor, board member, and investor within the AdTech ecosystem. Outside of work, he’s a die-hard golfer, frequent traveler, and husband to his wife, two dogs, and two goats! Latest posts
Bridging disparate data in a fragmented world In today's world, consumers engage with brands across multiple platforms, including social media, online marketplaces, in-store experiences, and customer service touchpoints. However, the main challenge for marketers and advertisers is the fragmentation of customer data across these different channels. Each platform generates its own set of data, which is stored in different databases and formats. Integrating these various data sources to create a unified view of the customer is a complex task involving technology and understanding customer behavior across different digital and physical channels. Businesses must link these data fragments to avoid creating a disconnected customer experience. For example, a person may browse products on a mobile app, ask questions through a customer service chat, and eventually purchase in an online marketplace. Traditional data analysis methods often need to recognize these activities as those of a single customer, which can result in missed opportunities to deliver personalized customer experiences across the customer journey. Identity resolution: The key to a unified customer experience Connecting online interactions across various platforms is a challenge for brands. Identity resolution enables enterprises to overcome this challenge by stitching together disparate signals and records to orchestrate experiences and analyze outcomes more effectively. By pairing Experian's identity capabilities with AWS Clean Rooms, enterprises can securely collaborate with their partners to derive deeper insights without exposing sensitive underlying data sets. This partnership between AWS and Experian enables effective matching between disparate data sets, bolstering privacy-enhanced media planning, insights, data enrichment, media activation, and measurement use cases. Depending on their distinct needs and existing identifiers, customers can use two specific offerings of Experian's identity resolution solutions paired with AWS Clean Rooms. Experian's identity resolution products ensure a frictionless brand experience across various channels, enhancing the customer journey from start to finish. Brands can employ our adaptable identity resolution solutions to forge connections between contextual, behavioral, lifestyle, and purchase-based data sources, assembling comprehensive customer profiles. Use dependable digital data to make informed decisions and elevate consumer engagement. Advanced deterministic and probabilistic features, combined with data science and cutting-edge technology, work hand in hand to mitigate risk and uphold data privacy. Such recognition enables a more comprehensive understanding of your clientele, fostering trust and amplifying campaign effectiveness by utilizing securely managed, standardized customer data. With this strategic approach, businesses can achieve their objectives regulatory-compliant. The consumer perspective: Why consistency matters Data fragmentation can lead to inconsistent experiences for consumers, which can be frustrating and erode brand trust. For instance, imagine receiving a promotional email for a product you already purchased through an app or being targeted for a product you decided against. Consumers are increasingly tech-savvy and demand a seamless, integrated experience regardless of how they interact with a brand. They want to feel valued and recognized at every touchpoint and don't care about the complexities of data analytics. As a result, brands face significant pressure to get identity resolution right. Data security and privacy: A Fort Knox for your data AWS Clean Rooms empowers their customers to establish a secure data clean room within minutes, facilitating collaboration with any other entity within AWS. This fosters the generation of unique insights regarding advertising campaigns, investment decisions, clinical research, and more. With AWS Clean Rooms, the need to store or maintain a separate copy of data outside the AWS environment for subsequent dispatch to another party for consumer insight analysis, marketing measurement, forecasting, or risk assessment becomes obsolete. AWS Clean Rooms provides an expansive set of privacy-enhancing controls for clean rooms. This includes query controls, query output restrictions, and query logging that allows customers to tailor restrictions on the queries executed by each clean room participant. Moreover, AWS Clean Rooms include advanced cryptographic computing tools that maintain data encryption—even during query processing—to adhere to stringent data-handling policies. This process employs a client-side encryption tool—an SDK or command line interface (CLI)—that utilizes a shared secret key with other participants in an AWS Clean Rooms collaboration. With a wealth of expertise in data privacy management, Experian enhances campaign effectiveness and fosters trust by managing standardized customer data securely. By using the identity graph, you can preserve a unique identity for each customer. This strategy enables you to comprehensively understand your clientele and reach your business objectives in a regulatory-compliant manner. The future of data-driven marketing starts here AWS customers can use AWS Clean Rooms to establish their own clean rooms in mere minutes, initiating the analysis of their collective data sets without sharing their underlying data with each other. Customers can use the AWS Management Console to choose their collaboration partners, select data sets, and configure participant restrictions. With AWS Clean Rooms, customers can effortlessly collaborate with hundreds of thousands of companies already using AWS without needing to move data out of AWS or upload it to a different platform. When running queries, AWS Clean Rooms accesses data in its original location and applies built-in, adaptable analysis rules to assist customers in maintaining control over their data. Coupled with Experian's trusted data privacy management and unique Experian ID, businesses can effectively manage customer data, secure partners' communication, and achieve regulatory-compliance objectives. This combination allows companies to use data-backed insights to supercharge their marketing initiatives, resulting in more meaningful customer interactions, improved match rates, and business success. Start collaborating About the authors Kalyani Koppisetti, Principal Partner Solution Architect, AWS Kalyani Koppisetti is a technology leader with over 25 years of experience in the Financial Services Industry. In her current role at AWS, Kalyani advises financial services partners on best-practice cloud architecture. Kalyani works closely with internal and external stakeholders to identify industry technical trends, develop strategies, and execute them to help Financial Services Industry partners build innovative solutions and services on AWS. Technical and Solution interests include Cloud Computing, Software-as-a-Service, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Storage Virtualization and Data Protection. Matt Miller, Business Development Principal, AWS In his role as Business Development Principal at AWS, Matt drives customer and partner adoption for the AWS Clean Rooms service specializing in advertising and marketing industry use cases. Matt believes in the primacy of privacy-enhanced data collaboration and interoperability underpinning data-driven marketing imperatives from customer experience to addressable advertising. Prior to AWS, Matt led strategy and go-to-market efforts for ad technologies, large agencies, and consumer data products purpose-built to inform smarter marketing and deliver better customer experiences. Tyler Middleton, Sr. Partner Marketing Manager, Experian Marketing Services Tyler Middleton is the Partner Marketing Lead at Experian. With almost 20 years of strategic marketing experience, Tyler’s focus is on creating marketing strategies that effectively promote the unique value propositions of each of our partners’ brands. Tyler helps our strategic partners communicate their mutual value proposition and find opportunities to stand out in the AdTech industry. Tyler is an alumnus of the Seattle University MBA program and enjoys finding new marketing pathways for our growing partner portfolio. 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The holiday season is just around the corner, and retailers and marketers are gearing up for the busiest shopping period of the year. It's crucial to understand how consumer behavior is evolving and what emerging trends to expect. Experian's 2023 Holiday spending trends and insights report analyzes recent trends, consumer spending habits, and anticipates what's to come in 2023 to help you deliver a top-notch shopping experience this holiday season. In this blog post, we'll cover three key insights from our report. 1. Consumers are shopping earlier It's no secret that December has always been the go-to month for consumers when it comes to holiday spending. However, holiday shopping now starts earlier, particularly with online sales. This can be attributed to a surge in promotions and deals, enticing shoppers to open their wallets ahead of time, giving a significant boost to holiday sales. Notably, Cyber Week sales have proven to be an influential factor, accounting for 8% of total consumer holiday spending. Experian tip Reach the right shoppers with your promotions with sell-side targeting. This powerful approach gives you control over where your ads are placed while ensuring maximum visibility through direct connections with publishers. Whether on mobile, web, or CTV, this seamless ad experience will engage your audience effectively. 2. Online sales are on the rise The popularity of online holiday sales is continuously growing, surpassing in-store shopping. There has been a consistent 1% year-over-year increase in online sales, while in-store sales have seen a 1% decrease. "It’s easier for consumers to comparison shop for large ticket items online that they might find at a mass retailer or office supply store. Consumers prefer to have larger, bulkier items shipped directly to their home for minimal cost. By shopping online, consumers can save time since they don’t need to wait in checkout lines." Anna Liparoto, Sr. Account Executive, Retail & CPG Although online sales currently make up only one-third of all holiday shopping, there is immense potential for further expansion. Mass retailers and office, electronics, and games industries particularly excel in online holiday sales. While in-store purchases remain the primary choice for holiday shoppers, consumer online and offline activities intersect before the final purchase. Experian tip Take advantage of the surge in online shopping by diversifying your marketing channels. An agnostic identity graph can bring together device and media data, capturing valuable user insights. By gaining a holistic view of your target audience, you'll be able to optimize your ad spend and allocate resources effectively, ultimately boosting your return on investment. "Omnichannel targeting during the upcoming holiday season will continue to prove to be the best way to reach scale and maximize ROI across all marketing channels."Joe Ligé, Head of Enterprise Demand Partnerships 3. 2023 holiday spending will be on par with 2022 During the holiday season in 2022, consumer spending showed an anticipated increase, although the growth rate was slightly lower compared to previous years. October saw a surge in average consumer spending, indicating a swift response to early discounts and promotions offered by retailers. As the holiday season progressed, holiday spending gradually slowed down and reached a level similar to that of the previous year. Overall, there was a modest 2% growth. Looking into the future, if economic conditions remain stable in the second half of 2023, we can expect holiday spending to align with the figures from last year. Experian tip To truly maximize impact, consider data enrichment. By diving deeper into your target audience's preferences and behaviors, you can better tailor your strategies and seamlessly integrate the enriched data across various channels. This allows you to unlock the true potential of your ad inventory, creating more meaningful connections with your audience. Download our new 2025 report Get ready for the holiday shopping season with Experian's 2025 Holiday spending trends and insights report, in collaboration with GroundTruth. Inside you'll find: When shoppers plan to buy Why stores still drive results Where marketers are placing their bets How AI is shaping discovery To access to all of our predictions for this year's holiday shopping season, download our 2025 Holiday spending trends and insights report today. Download now Contact us today Latest posts