Identity that pays off: How to turn quality data into measurable ROI

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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