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Mic’d up at RampUp 2025: AdTech’s hottest takes

Published: March 4, 2025 by Erin Wolf, Sr. Sales Director, Strategic Partnerships

RampUp 2025 reactions: What's top of mind for AdTech leaders

RampUp 2025 brought together some of the smartest minds in AdTech to talk about the future of our industry. I had the opportunity to ask attendees key questions about AI, data collaboration, and the challenges they wish they could solve instantly. Here’s what they had to say.

AI is everywhere in ads—How is it changing things?

AI’s influence on advertising is undeniable, and industry leaders at RampUp 2025 emphasized how it is transforming the way data is used across marketing workflows. The increasing presence of Generative AI like ChatGPT is making it easier to stitch together data from various sources and act on insights, helping marketers execute campaigns with more efficiency.

AI is no longer just about automation; it is now deeply embedded in audience building, personalization, and measurement, enabling marketers to optimize every step of the customer journey.

What’s the one AdTech headache you’d fix forever?

AdTech leaders agreed that some industry challenges have lingered for too long. Many expressed frustrations with the ongoing conversation about unifying cross-screen targeting and measurement. While the technology exists, aligning business priorities remains a roadblock. Others highlighted issues like the complexity of billing and reporting, which still needs to be faster and more reliable. There was also a strong push to educate brand marketers on the continued impact of offline media, such as billboards, and how data-driven strategies can enhance the effectiveness of out-of-home advertising.

Beyond these operational challenges, another recurring theme was the increasing importance of identity as the backbone of effective advertising. While brands are focused on collecting first-party data, the true challenge lies in activating that data at scale. Without a strong identity resolution strategy, first-party data alone is not enough to create meaningful audience connections across multiple platforms and devices.

What’s one AdTech tool or strategy you can’t live without?

When it comes to must-have tools and strategies, data collaboration and clean rooms emerged as essential. These solutions help companies, agencies, and publishers work together seamlessly while maintaining security and efficiency.

Another key strategy discussed was traffic shaping, which allows advertisers to push activation closer to publishers, reducing data leakage and improving overall performance. Both of these approaches are critical for advertisers aiming to scale.

However, as brands continue to seek more flexibility and efficiency, the conversation at RampUp expanded beyond individual tools toward a broader industry transformation. Interoperability has become a top priority, with brands, platforms, and data providers focused on ensuring seamless connectivity across clean rooms, customer data platforms (CDPs), and activation partners. The days of being locked into a single walled garden are over—the future is about data portability.

“RampUp made it clear that the industry is shifting toward curated, interoperable, and always-on identity solutions—and Experian is perfectly positioned to lead this next phase of growth.”

Suzanna Stevens, Sr. Enterprise Partnerships Manager

This shift is also driving changes in how brands manage identity. Rather than relying on one-off data onboarding, companies are increasingly adopting subscription-based identity solutions that provide an always-on, continuously refreshed identity graph. This model ensures that brands have up-to-date customer profiles while reducing inefficiencies associated with batch processing.

What privacy regulations should marketers be watching?

Privacy remains one of the most pressing concerns in AdTech, and industry experts highlighted the need for a better approach to regulation. Consent management was identified as a major priority since it is fluid and directly impacts how marketers engage with consumers. There was also a strong sentiment that the current state-by-state approach to privacy regulation in the U.S. is unsustainable. Instead, the industry would benefit from a national framework that simplifies compliance and ensures more consistent data governance across all states.

Final thoughts from RampUp 2025

RampUp 2025 showcased the rapid shifts happening in AdTech, from AI-driven efficiencies to the growing importance of data collaboration and privacy-first strategies. As the industry works to solve long-standing challenges, such as unification and regulatory fragmentation, innovation continues to drive new opportunities.

Experian remains committed to helping advertisers and marketers navigate these changes by enabling smarter, more connected, and privacy-conscious advertising solutions. We’re excited to see how these themes evolve throughout the year and look forward to collaborating with our partners to shape the future of digital advertising.

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From data to delivery: PurpleLab® audiences are now live in Experian’s data marketplace and Audigent curated deals

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What’s curation in AdTech?

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

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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."Mike 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."Henry 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. 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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."Howard 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 Latest posts

Aug 27,2025 by Experian Marketing Services

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