At A Glance
Marketing in 2026 will hinge on connection: between AI and data accuracy, commerce media and category expansion, and curation and programmatic efficiency. These shifts mark marketing’s “6–7 moment,” when once-fragmented parts finally snap together. Experian’s 2026 Digital trends and predictions report outlines the forces shaping this more unified era.Remember when “6-7” was all over your feed and no one really knew why, but somehow everyone got it? In 2025, the internet proved that connection doesn’t always make sense — at least not at first. The “6-7” meme was random, ridiculous, and everywhere. It spread because it felt connected; an inside joke everyone could share.
Marketing in 2026 will have its own 6-7 moment. Experian’s 2026 Digital trends and predictions report explores how 2026 will be defined by connection: between activation and measurement, data and AI, platforms and outcomes. After years of fragmentation, the industry is finally unifying around shared foundations: data accuracy, identity resilience, and measurable performance.
Here are three connections to watch for in 2026.
1. AI is only as good as its data foundation
AI’s performance depends on the quality, recency, and integrity of its inputs. In 2026, marketers will recognize that the differentiator is not the algorithm itself but the data that informs it. As AI becomes embedded into workflows (from audience discovery to media optimization) accurate identity and privacy-safe data become essential.
Why it matters
Good data fuels responsible automation, predictive insight, and personalization that feels human. Without it, even the most advanced models will simply automate bad decisions faster.
What actions should marketers take to strengthen their data foundation?
To make AI adaptive, ethical, and aligned with real-world context, marketers need to strengthen the data foundation beneath it. In 2026, that means taking four core actions:
When these elements come together, AI becomes more than just automation: it becomes adaptive, ethical, and responsive to real-world context.
2. Commerce media expands beyond retail
Commerce media is no longer just a retail play. What began as retailers monetizing their data and media has evolved into a multi-sector movement uniting data, media, and transaction insights. Auto, travel, CPG, and even financial brands are launching their own media networks or partnering with existing ones to close the loop between exposure and conversion.
More than half (58%) of advertisers are interested in advertising on non-retail media networks.
eMarketer
Why it matters
In 2026, commerce media becomes a strategy for any brand with first-party data, measurable outcomes, and the need for closed-loop insight.
What should marketers do with this expansion?
3. Curation becomes the programmatic standard
Curation is reshaping programmatic advertising into something more focused, efficient, and accountable. In an era shaped by privacy regulation and signal loss, curation brings identity, quality, and control together, allowing marketers to target confidently across CTV, audio, and the open web.
More than 66% of open-exchange ad spend (over $100 billion annually) now runs through curated private marketplaces (PMPs).
eMarketer
Why it matters
Curation aligns with the industry’s need foraccurateidentity, transparent supply, and stable outcomes, especially as traditional signals fluctuate.
How can marketers use curation more effectively?
2026 will be the 6-7 era for marketing
The “6-7” meme didn’t need to make sense to go viral. But your marketing does.
2026 will be the year marketers move from fragmentation to connection. Download Experian’s 2026 Digital trends and predictions report to explore all five digital marketing trends shaping 2026.
Ready to get started? Connect with a member of our team
About the author

Fred Cheung
Director, Partnership Sales, Audigent, a part of Experian
Fred Cheung has spent over a decade in the programmatic advertising space, with roles at Mindshare, Jounce Media, Twitter, and The Trade Desk. His deep experience in trading and product management helps in his current function on the Experian Marketing Services’ Sales team where he focuses on data growth and adoption across the industries’ leading buy-side platforms.
FAQs
Experian uses this phrase to describe the inflection point where AI, identity, commerce media, and programmatic curation finally connect in practical, scalable ways. It reflects the shift from fragmentation toward unified activation and measurement. Experian covers five digital marketing trends to watch for in 2026 in our 2026 Digital marketing trends and predictions report.
Experian provides verified consumer data, identity resolution, and privacy-first frameworks that strengthen AI accuracy. AI tools require reliable inputs, and Experian’s data foundation helps marketers apply AI in predictive modeling, audience insight, and media optimization.
Identity allows brands and media networks to connect exposure to conversion across sites, screens, and environments. Experian supports this through resilient identity frameworks that maintain recognition even as signals shift.
Experian provides high-performing audience segments and outcome-based signals that improve curated PMP performance. These capabilities give buyers more control, more stability, and clearer pathways to measurable results.
Experian’s 2026 Digital trends and predictions report outlines the five forces shaping the year ahead, including AI’s dependence on data quality, commerce media expansion, and the rise of curation.
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Leading global marketing technology company, Tapad, a part of Experian, adopts The Trade Desk’s streamlined cookie ID into its identity resolution solutions to increase global cookie coverage across the internet April 03, 2019 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time LOS ANGELES & NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Global marketing technology company, Tapad, a part of Experian, has partnered with The Trade Desk to onboard The Trade Desk’s unified ID solution into its digital identity driven solutions. The Trade Desk’s unified ID solution is free for all parties spanning the digital advertising supply chain, including SSPs, DSPs, DMPs and data providers. With leading players onboarding the unified ID solution, such as Tapad, streamlined cookie syncs make ad viewing experiences better for consumers, increase match rates for all parties, and expand cookie coverage on a global-scale. Adoption of The Trade Desk’s global cookie footprint enables Tapad customers to benefit from greater precision and potentially higher performing digital marketing campaigns. “Digital identity resolution is key to improving digital marketing campaigns. Supporting The Trade Desk’s unified ID solution, in conjunction with our cross-device and identity resolution offerings, helps us and the entire open ecosystem,” said Chris Feo, SVP of Global Data Licensing and Strategic Partnerships at Tapad. “It simplifies cookie syncing, and increases match rates among our partners; enabling our customers to improve marketing campaign performance.” “Identity is critical in the ecosystem and as a long-standing leader in the space, Tapad has shown a strong commitment to building digital identity resolution solutions that help marketers launch more effective campaigns on a global scale,” said Ed Chater, VP of Data Partnerships, The Trade Desk. “We are thrilled for their participation and look forward to solving the digital identity narrative across the industry through this partnership. The continued widespread adoption of the unified ID solution validates our collective mission to improve the effectiveness of digital advertising.” About Tapad Tapad, Inc. is a global marketing technology company and leader in digital identity resolution solutions. The Tapad Graph™, and related solutions, provide a privacy-safe approach to connecting device identifiers to brand and marketer data, thereby allowing for enhanced measurement, attribution, reach and ROI of marketing campaigns. The Tapad Graph™ enables marketers around the world to maximize campaign effectiveness and drive business results. Tapad is recognized across the industry for its innovation, growth and workplace culture, and has earned numerous awards, including the TMCnet Tech Culture Award. Based in New York, Tapad also has offices in Chicago, London, Oslo, Singapore and Tokyo, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Telenor. About The Trade Desk, Inc. The Trade Desk™ is a technology company that empowers buyers of advertising. Through its self-service, cloud-based platform, ad buyers can create, manage, and optimize more expressive data-driven digital advertising campaigns across ad formats, including display, video, audio, native and, social, on a multitude of devices, such as computers, mobile devices, and connected TV. Integrations with major data, inventory, and publisher partners ensure maximum reach and decisioning capabilities, and enterprise APIs enable custom development on top of the platform. Headquartered in Ventura, CA, The Trade Desk has offices across North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. To learn more, visit thetradedesk.com or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Contact us today

by AdExchanger // Friday, March 15th, 2019 – 12:06 am “Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today's column is written by Preethy Vaidyanathan, chief product officer at Tapad, a part of Experian For years marketers asked, “How do we get more data?” Now that they've mastered data mining, marketers want to know what’s next. The time has come for organizations to make their abundance of digital data actionable, increase ROI and reach consumers with consistent, personalized experiences across all touchpoints. A seamless consumer experience can only be achieved by consolidating digital data. Organizations, however, are finding that consolidating data silos is more time-consuming and complicated than initially expected. The challenges One of the most pervasive obstacles companies face in when consolidating data is adopting inefficient and costly tactics that quickly become outdated. For instance, over the last couple of years, many companies turned to enterprise data warehouses to consolidate data silos, but some were too expensive or poorly suited for raw, unstructured and semi-structured data. This led companies to adopt data management initiatives, which bogged down many enterprises. Perception among senior level executives is another challenge. Many still question the need for digital transformation – achieving greater efficiencies through updating business and organizational processes with new technologies. Gartner found that more than half (54%) of senior executives say their digital business objective is transformational, while 46% say their objective is optimization. Digital transformation and data consolidation require time and effort. So, many large organizations work to overcome data silos as part of a multiyear digital transformation versus an immediate action item, delaying the benefits the company sees from taking on this project. All of these challenges make delaying progress in data consolidation easy, but companies should remember the impetus for doing so: creating a seamless customer experience that, in turn, drives business results. Brands with higher quality customer experience grow revenue faster than direct competitors with lower quality customer experience. The approach Many brands go into the digital transformation process assuming they have massive amounts of customer data, and that much of it is valuable or will be in the future. They might spend months aggregating that data in data stores or data lakes – at great expense. The trouble is that their data was scattered across multiple databases, which means it’s highly fragmented. As a result of this fragmentation, marketers can’t activate their data in ways that enhance the customer experience. To do so, companies must ensure their digital data is highly flexible so it can provide a holistic view of the consumer journey across every digital, in-store, in-venue and offline channel. I’d recommend that organizations taking on data centralization initiatives prioritize use cases that offer the company the greatest benefit. This is where organizations should establish a “crawl, walk, run” approach to data centralization to ensure key executives buy into the process. Starting with a subset of use cases, such as customer retention or upsell, or with a campaign, which is an even smaller starting point, allows executives to see the benefits of data consolidation projects relatively quickly. Once they validate these initial benefits, they can expand the range of use cases or campaigns, as well as the marketing ROI for their business. While data centralization is a long-term project that may take several years to complete, it doesn’t mean a business can’t get started now and see measurable results quickly. Break down data consolidation into stages so the organization can experience wins along the way. At the end of the day, data consolidation will help organizations deliver more effective marketing campaigns that drive business growth. Contact us today

Tapad's technology enhances Bidtellect clients frequency capping and audience extension capabilities cross device. NEW YORK, Feb. 28, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Tapad, part of Experian, is a global marketing technology company and leader in digital identity resolution solutions, today announced a new partnership with Bidtellect (now Simpli.fi), a leading native Demand-Side Platform (DSP). Bidtellect's paid content distribution platform will leverage The Tapad Graph™ as its first cross-device partner. The integration will offer Bidtellect's clients in the U.S. and Canada cross-device frequency capping and enhanced audience extension capabilities. The combination of Tapad's leading cross-device technology, with Bidtellect's unparalleled scale and optimization capabilities, will allow content marketers within brands and agencies to develop even more strategic, effective content marketing campaigns. The Tapad Graph™ will allow content marketers to gain greater reach and create more relevant, unified messaging with targeted delivery, when used in conjunction with Bidtellect's technology. Marketers can expect to benefit from amplified reach, and enhanced, privacy-safe engagement with desired audiences as a result of this partnership. "Partnering with Tapad, the leaders in cross-device data, provides Bidtellect with a complete solution that leverages both probabilistic and deterministic mapping strategies," said Mike Conway, Chief Technology Officer at Bidtellect. "The Tapad relationship expands our audience size by providing the opportunity to reach the same user across multiple devices and, when used in conjunction with our frequency capping functionality, ensures increased reach, reduced ad saturation, and elimination of wasted ad spend." As the partnership progresses, Tapad will also work with Bidtellect to provide advanced attribution for conversions and engagement metrics including connectivity and amplification. These advanced insights will help brands and agencies develop a more holistic approach to content marketing, so they can build audiences and influence bidding algorithms that directly impact their business. "We're thrilled to be working with Bidtellect as the company's first cross-device partner," said Chris Feo, SVP of Global Data Licensing and Strategic Partnerships at Tapad. "At Tapad, we are continuously advancing our identity resolution solutions to keep pace with the ever-changing needs of marketers. As a part of that commitment, we look to work with partners where our technology is able to enhance their offering to better serve marketers. We are looking forward to creating that superior experience with the Bidtellect team." Contact us today










