We’re excited to introduce the next segment in our Q&A series, Ask the Expert! Ask the Expert features a series of conversations with product experts where we dive into the areas you care most about like identity resolution, targeting, attribution, and more. Our next segment features a conversation about sell-side targeting.
Mike Chowla, SVP of Product at OpenX joins us to chat with Experian’s SVP of Sales & Partnerships, Chris Feo. OpenX is the world’s leading sell-side platform for audience, data, and identity targeting. In their conversation, Mike and Chris review:
- The shift to targeting on the sell-side
- How first- and third-party data are being used on the sell-side
- How OpenX is thinking about alternative IDs
What is sell-side targeting?
Sell-side targeting optimizes the way buyers and supply-side platforms (SSPs) work together. This approach moves the responsibility of inventory and audience targeting from the demand-side platform (DSP) into the SSP, providing advertisers with increased reach and better performance.
With sell-side targeting, locating your target audience becomes easier as you have a more direct connection with publishers. This increases your ability to scale against a target audience. Specifically, the SSP directly matches the buyer’s audience or data segment to the publisher inventory and audience and automatically sends the impression to the buyer’s DSP of choice via a deal ID, providing advertisers with improved reach and performance metrics as well as control over their inventory. With more direct access, your budget can likely go further, and you can decrease your effective cost per mille (eCPM) and get more working media.
“Supply-side targeting is the next phase of how supply path optimization (SPO) and buyers will need to work more closely with SSPs.” – Mike Chowla, SVP, Product, OpenX
Buying on the sell-side vs. open exchange
When buying on the open exchange, you have access to a vast number of impressions. With sell-side targeting, you can apply your campaign targeting directly on the supply-side and activate those impressions through a deal ID. Sell-side targeting works across various formats including web display, mobile, in-app, and connected TV (CTV) for a seamless advertising experience.
OpenX offers the unique capability to match users using their device graph within their SSP. This means you can target users from traditional data sources such as cookies or mobile ad IDs (MAIDs) and reach them in CTV or app environments. This gives you even more reach and precision in your advertising efforts.
The role of first- and third-party data on the sell-side
Buyers are showing a keen interest in bringing their own first-party data into the process of sell-side targeting. Meanwhile, certain agencies have been actively involved in working with identity and data. OpenX is currently collaborating with several agency ID solutions such as Choreograph, Merkel, and Horizon.
Buyers are also purchasing third-party data and data segments from various providers through OpenX’s platform for sell-side targeting purposes. By utilizing this data on the supply side, buyers are able to increase the match rate against their first- and third-party data segments in all environments. This ultimately maximizes scale against these audiences and drives a more efficient CPM due to eliminating waste.
Measurement and attribution on the sell-side
In the current state of SSP advertising, there is more of an emphasis on targeting capabilities than measurement and attribution. That said, SSPs can provide granular log level reports that can be utilized for multi-touch attribution (MTA) or mixed media models (MMM). These granular insights not only inform measurement and attribution models, but they also provide valuable optimization insights such as clearing price.
Additionally, advertisers have all of the same reporting options that they’re used to getting through their DSP because their buys are activated via deal ID in the DSP of their choice.
What to consider when transitioning to sell-side targeting
There are two primary items you should consider when transitioning to sell-side targeting:
- Supply
- Reach
Reach
Collaborating with partners who have the right capabilities can greatly improve reach and audience extension across different devices. For instance, if you bring your first-party audience or a third-party audience and are identifying that consumer via a cookie or MAID, being able to extend that targeting segment to other devices and platforms can be highly beneficial.
Supply
It’s crucial to collaborate with partners who have the right access to supply and direct connections with publishers. While targeting is essential, it’s equally important to have high-quality supply to drive performance.
Reaching consumers in a cookieless future
Whether you’re targeting on the demand or sell-side, it always starts with the consumer and who you’re trying to reach.
Significant changes in the consumer privacy landscape are impacting advertisers’ ability to access various signals emitted by consumers through their devices and browsers. Recent developments from Apple and Google have further amplified this situation.
Alternative IDs as a solution to signal loss
In response, we’re seeing the emergence of alternative IDs like UID2, Ramp ID, and ID5. OpenX supports these types of IDs and considers them crucial for audience buying in a privacy-centric cookie-less future.
We are still in the early stages of this evolution. While some of the IDs have good coverage, cookies will continue to be the primary targeting method as long as they remain available.
Nevertheless, we see alternative IDs as one of several solutions that will become increasingly important as third-party cookies disappear. Contextual buying will also emerge, and a set of solutions will come together to enable advertisers to keep finding their audience in a cookie-less world.
Overcoming signal loss with identity resolution
Looking ahead, as we continue to lose signals due to the evolving consumer privacy landscape, we will witness two things:
- Continued fragmentation
- A wide variety of identifiers
Content will continue to be available on various devices. We’re currently experiencing the emergence of connected TV, but who knows what other devices will surface over the next five to ten years. As cookies disappear, which have been the primary identifier, and alternative IDs are introduced, the wide variety of identifiers will create further fragmentation. This highlights the need for identity in the future.
Identity resolution at Experian matches fragmented identifiers to a single profile to create a unified, cross-channel view of your consumers. Our identity resolution solutions can help future-proof your marketing strategies.
How Experian and OpenX work together
Experian is a key player in OpenX’s OpenAudience solution and helps to power many of their data segments as well as their identity graph. While OpenX collaborates with a variety of providers and operates a fully interoperable platform, Experian remains valuable to the core technology within OpenX’s SSP.
“Experian powers a lot of the data segments and identity graph that OpenX has in our OpenAudience capabilities as part of our SSP.” – Mike Chowla, SVP, Product, OpenX
Watch the full Q&A
Visit our Ask the Expert content hub to watch Mike and Chris’s full conversation on sell-side targeting. In the Q&A, Mike and Chris also share their thoughts on the impact artificial intelligence (AI) will have on the AdTech industry and their go-to sources for staying up to date on all things AdTech.
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About our experts
Mike Chowla, SVP, Product, OpenX
Mike Chowla is the SVP of Product at OpenX where he leads product development and innovation, from customer discovery and user research to the development, delivery, and support of a market-leading product suite. Chowla holds a BS in Engineering from the University of Southern California, and an MBA from The University of Pennsylvania.
Chris Feo, Chief Business Officer, 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
The advertising ecosystem has seen significant transformation over the past few years, with increased privacy regulation, changes in available signals, and the rise of channels like connected TV and retail media. These changes are impacting the way that consumers interact with brands and how brands understand and continue to deliver relevant messages to consumers with precision. Experian has been helping marketers navigate these changes, and as a result, our marketing data and identity solutions underpin much of today’s advertising industry. We’re committed to empowering marketers and agencies to understand and reach their target audiences, across all channels. Today, we are excited to announce our acquisition of Audigent—a leading data and activation platform in the advertising industry. With Audigent’s combination of first-party publisher data, inventory and deep supply-side distribution relationships, publishers, big and small, can empower marketers to better understand their customers, expand the reach of their target audiences and activate those audiences across the most impactful inventory. I am excited to bring together Audigent’s supply-side network as a natural extension to our existing demand-side capabilities. Audigent’s ability to combine inventory with targeted audiences using first-party, third-party and contextual signals provides the best of all worlds, allowing marketers to deliver campaigns centered on consumer choices, preferences, and behaviors. The addition of Audigent further strengthens our strategy to be the premier independent provider of marketing data and identity, ultimately creating more relevant experiences for consumers. To learn more about Experian and Audigent, visit https://www.experian.com/marketing/ and https://audigent.com/. Contact us
Retail media has been on everyone’s radar for a while. Commerce media has also established itself as a significant player in the AdTech industry over the past few years. While retail media focuses on engaging customers within a retailer’s ecosystem, commerce media goes beyond these boundaries to capture the entire shopping journey, spanning multiple touchpoints, channels, and platforms.But what is commerce media, and why should we care? Commerce media is here to stay Estimated to hit $33.86 billion this year and more than double by 2028, the hunt is on to capture as much of retail media’s projected ad spend as possible. However, given the numerous verticals expanding their retail media strategy to include any touchpoint within the commerce channel, it might be time to lower the retail media flag and hoist the LUMA dubbed "commerce media flag." So why are Travel, Financial Services, and other verticals focusing on the commerce media ship? Authenticated and digital users (usually app-driven) Consented data that provides unique insight into the household’s or consumer’s intent/purchase behavior Emerging focus on advertising as an important revenue stream for the future With all this “data” at their disposal — why is it not smooth sailing for commerce media to build an ad-supported business? What’s missing for them to acquire the lucrative billions efficiently and effectively? Why retail media networks are important Retail media networks (RMNs) are now a major tool for brands to connect with shoppers. These networks gather valuable data from customers who browse and shop on e-commerce sites and apps. What makes RMNs so powerful is that they allow brands to advertise directly to people who are already interested in buying, leading to more successful sales. For marketers, RMNs offer a clear way to reach potential customers and ensure their advertising dollars are well spent. But as competition grows and consumer habits change, these networks must keep improving. To stay ahead, brands will have to find new ways to use RMNs effectively, linking them with other parts of the commerce media world to unlock even greater results. Differences between building a loyalty program and developing ad products Loyalty programs are the backbone of commerce media networks; however, creating a loyalty program is much different than building an advertising product. It requires commerce companies to bring on additional people, technology, and partners to execute flawlessly. There are four areas to consider: 1. Organizing your data at scale To successfully build an ad-supported business at scale, data must be organized to initiate action (targeting and/or measurement). However, this requires changes in company culture. Both the business and technology infrastructure must be updated. Additionally, commerce media companies must update their mindset around creating and selling products. 2. People We have seen this story before, with large opportunities comes the requirement for new talent. Where are we seeing commerce media companies recruit from? AdTech and MarTech. Whether it’s engineers or data scientists, business development and partnership leads, or even your direct sales team, the poaching has begun. To build a successful business around advertising, experts are needed who can navigate the waters. 3. Partner vs. build The Requests for Information (RFIs) and Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for any combination of agency, demand-side platform, supply-side platform, customer data platform, identity graph, clean room, and beyond are piling up. One trend is clear: commerce media companies are looking for collaborative partners to provide a true strategic partnership to take on the complexities of the transition away from retail media. 4. Identity will remain the keystone to success All commerce media companies have some identity data that reveals a slice of their customers’ viewpoint. Yet, unlocking the broad view of these audiences is crucial to success. These companies need to use the “full pie” to see well-rounded profiles, gain the reach required to access them across many channels, and turn opportunities into revenue. Advertisers can finally close the loop with commerce media networks Commerce media companies with real-time transaction data enable advertisers to see true ROI on their ad spend when products move off the shelves. Measuring real product lift/sale touch points across multiple channels will put performance and measurement front and center. Programmatic was the promise of performance advertising. Well, commerce media may finally fulfill that vow, creating enough value for companies to make it a real competitor to social channels. While retail media will always exist, the transition to commerce media has become increasingly popular and is here to stay. The journey might not be a straight shot to perfect results, but the data, partnerships, and resources are out there and ready to hop aboard to help guide commerce media companies to success. The future of commerce media Commerce media shows no signs of slowing down. More industries are seeing the benefit of making every customer touchpoint an opportunity to drive sales. Whether through social media shopping or in-app purchases, commerce media pushes businesses to create smoother, more connected shopping experiences for consumers. In the future, brands won’t just compete on prices or products — they’ll stand out by offering simple, seamless shopping experiences across all devices. With better data and tools to track consumer behavior, brands will be able to personalize their ads and measure their success in real time. Commerce media allows brands to see a direct link between their ads and sales. Those who can adapt and keep up with these changes will come out on top. Create a connected customer view with Experian At Experian, we empower RMNs to unlock the full potential of their first-party data through comprehensive identity and audience solutions. Our data-driven capabilities enable RMNs to build a deeper understanding of their customers, optimize audience targeting across channels, and create enriched, actionable segments that drive measurable outcomes. By seamlessly connecting our offline and digital data, we help RMNs organize identities into households, device IDs, and more. Each household is enriched with valuable marketing insights, allowing you to gain better customer understanding, create targeted advertising, and reach the right customers across different devices. Additionally, you’ll be able to measure the effectiveness of your advertising efforts. With our support, RMNs can maximize revenue opportunities, extend reach, and confidently demonstrate the value of the network to advertisers. Contact us today to find out how Experian can help you succeed in commerce media. Contact us Latest posts
Originally appeared on MarTech Series Marketing’s understanding of identity has evolved rapidly over the past decade, much like the shifting media landscape itself. From the early days of basic direct mail targeting to today's complex omnichannel environment, identity has become both more powerful and more fragmented. Each era has brought new tools, challenges, and opportunities, shaping how brands interact with their customers. We’ve moved from traditional media like mail, newspapers, and linear/network TV, to cable TV, the internet, mobile devices, and apps. Now, multiple streaming platforms dominate, creating a far more complex media landscape. As a result, understanding the customer journey and reaching consumers across these various touchpoints has become increasingly difficult. Managing frequency and ensuring effective communication across channels is now more challenging than ever. This development has led to a fragmented view of the consumer, making it harder for marketers to ensure that they are reaching the right audience at the right time while also avoiding oversaturation. Marketers must now navigate a fragmented customer journey across multiple channels, each with its own identity signals, to stitch together a cohesive view of the customer. Let’s break down this evolution, era by era, to understand how identity has progressed—and where it’s headed. 2010-2015: The rise of digital identity – Cookies and MAIDs Between 2010 and 2015, the digital era fundamentally changed how marketers approached identity. Mobile usage surged during this time, and programmatic advertising emerged as the dominant method for reaching consumers across the internet. The introduction of cookies and mobile advertising IDs (MAIDs) became the foundation for tracking users across the web and mobile apps. With these identifiers, marketers gained new capabilities to deliver targeted, personalized messages and drive efficiency through programmatic advertising. This era gave birth to powerful tools for targeting. Marketers could now follow users’ digital footprints, regardless of whether they were browsing on desktop or mobile. This leap in precision allowed brands to optimize spend and performance at scale, but it came with its limitations. Identity was still tied to specific browsers or devices, leaving gaps when users switched platforms. The fragmentation across different devices and the reliance on cookies and MAIDs meant that a seamless, unified view of the customer was still out of reach. 2015-2020: The age of walled gardens From 2015 to 2020, the identity landscape grew more complex with the rise of walled gardens. Platforms like Facebook, Google, and Amazon created closed ecosystems of first-party data, offering rich, self-declared insights about consumers. These platforms built massive advertising businesses on the strength of their user data, giving marketers unprecedented targeting precision within their environments. However, the rise of walled gardens also marked the start of new challenges. While these platforms provided detailed identity solutions within their walls, they didn’t communicate with one another. Marketers could target users with pinpoint accuracy inside Facebook or Google, but they couldn’t connect those identities across different ecosystems. This siloed approach to identity left marketers with an incomplete picture of the customer journey, and brands struggled to piece together a cohesive understanding of their audience across platforms. The promise of detailed targeting was tempered by the fragmentation of the landscape. Marketers were dealing with disparate identity solutions, making it difficult to track users as they moved between these closed environments and the open web. 2020-2025: The multi-ID landscape – CTV, retail media, signal loss, and privacy By 2020, the identity landscape had splintered further, with the rise of connected TV (CTV) and retail media adding even more complexity to the mix. Consumers now engaged with brands across an increasing number of channels—CTV, mobile, desktop, and even in-store—and each of these channels had its own identifiers and systems for tracking. Simultaneously, privacy regulations are tightening the rules around data collection and usage. This, coupled with the planned deprecation of third-party cookies and MAIDs has thrown marketers into a state of flux. The tools they had relied on for years were disappearing, and new solutions had yet to fully emerge. The multi-ID landscape was born, where brands had to navigate multiple identity systems across different platforms, devices, and environments. Retail media networks became another significant player in the identity game. As large retailers like Amazon and Walmart built their own advertising ecosystems, they added yet another layer of first-party data to the mix. While these platforms offer robust insights into consumer behavior, they also operate within their own walled gardens, further fragmenting the identity landscape. With cookies and MAIDs being phased out, the industry began to experiment with alternatives like first-party data, contextual targeting, and new universal identity solutions. The challenge and opportunity for marketers lies in unifying these fragmented identity signals to create a consistent and actionable view of the customer. 2025: The omnichannel imperative Looking ahead to 2025 and beyond, the identity landscape will continue to evolve, but the focus remains the same: activating and measuring across an increasingly fragmented and complex media environment. Consumers now expect seamless, personalized experiences across every channel—from CTV to digital to mobile—and marketers need to keep up. The future of identity lies in interoperability, scale, and availability. Marketers need solutions that can connect the dots across different platforms and devices, allowing them to follow their customers through every stage of the journey. Identity must be actionable in real-time, allowing for personalization and relevance across every touchpoint, so that media can be measurable and attributable. Brands that succeed in 2025 and beyond will be those that invest in scalable, omnichannel identity solutions. They’ll need to embrace privacy-friendly approaches like first-party data, while also ensuring their systems can adapt to an ever-changing landscape. Adapting to the future of identity The evolution of identity has been marked by increasing complexity, but also by growing opportunity. As marketers adapt to a world without third-party cookies and MAIDs, the need for unified identity solutions has never been more urgent. Brands that can navigate the multi-ID landscape will unlock new levels of efficiency and personalization, while those that fail to adapt risk falling behind. The path forward is clear: invest in identity solutions that bridge the gaps between devices, platforms, and channels, providing a full view of the customer. The future of marketing belongs to those who can manage identity in a fragmented world—and those who can’t will struggle to stay relevant. 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