At A Glance
The Device and Account Sharing (DASH) study, developed by the ARF, provides insights into how American households consume TV and digital media. By combining DASH data with Experian Marketing Data, advertisers can create audience segments based on real-world viewing habits, helping campaigns reach the right people with greater accuracy. This collaboration provides a clearer, evidence-based view of how people watch TV today.Viewers shift between streaming services, live TV, and on-demand content across multiple devices, making it harder to know exactly who sees your message. Instead of wondering if your ads are reaching the right viewers, it’s important to have a clearer understanding of viewing behaviors so you can focus your efforts on the audiences that matter most to your campaign.
Experian has collaborated with The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) to create new opportunities for marketers. By combining data from the ARF’s DASH (Device and Account Sharing) study with Experian Marketing Data, we’ve developed a new way for you to understand and reach modern TV viewers. Instead of estimating who might see your message, you gain a clearer view of viewing behavior and can align activation with the audiences that matter to your campaign.
What is the DASH study?
The DASH study, developed by the ARF together with the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) and seven industry sponsors, including Experian, provides a detailed picture of how American households consume TV and digital media. This research offers an unbiased and accurate view of media habits, measuring everything from device usage to streaming account sharing.
When this viewership data is combined with Experian Marketing Data, it allows for the creation of unique audience segments. These segments are built on real-world media and device usage, providing a more accurate representation of how people watch, share, and engage with TV content. This combination of identity and connectivity helps marketers understand exactly how people engage with media, technology, and their favorite brands.
“Television viewing behavior has undergone a massive transformation, making it challenging for advertisers to reach their target audience and optimizefrequency. These audiences give advertisers invaluable tools for managing their campaigns in an increasingly fragmented environment.”
ExperianDoug McLennan, Director of Product Management
How do DASH audiences help?
By using the DASH study, Experian developed TV audience segments that reflect how people truly interact with content. These audiences provide the insights you need to align your campaigns with actual media consumption habits, helping you reach viewers with more relevant messages.
This approach moves beyond basic demographics. It allows you to connect with people based on specific behaviors, such as co-viewing, screen preferences, or household streaming habits. The result is a more focused and efficient advertising strategy that delivers better outcomes.
“DASH has established itself as a reliable and unbiased calibration set, a “true North”, for media measurement. Our collaboration with Experian puts the power and precision of DASH in the hands of marketers and advertisers as well.”
ARFPaul Donato, Chief Research Officer
Which audience segments help you target viewers more effectively?
These audience segments make it possible to find specific types of viewers and align your marketing campaigns with their media usage. Whether you’re connecting with people who are receptive to ads, households that enjoy shows together, or individuals who are frequent streamers, you can approach campaigns with greater accuracy and confidence. We’re pleased to introduce these segments and continue our partnership with the ARF, creating new opportunities to help you build effective connections with your target audiences.
Explore some of our key audience segments:
- Ad Acceptors: Viewers who are more open to watching advertisements.
- Ad Avoiders: People who actively try to skip or block ads.
- Co-Watchers: Households where multiple people view content together.
- Solo Watchers: Individuals who typically watch TV by themselves.
- Paid TV High Spenders: Households that subscribe to multiple paid TV or streaming services.
- Large Screen Viewers: People who primarily watch content on large television screens.
- Small Screen Viewers: Individuals who prefer watching on smaller devices like tablets or phones.
How can I use these audiences?
Experian’s DASH audiences are available in your demand-side platform (DSP) of choice, ready for activation across all offline and online channels. This easy access means you can build more effective campaigns without changing your existing workflow.
Using these segments, you can manage your advertising with greater confidence. You gain the tools needed to navigate the fragmented media environment and ensure your campaigns are seen by the right people. This targeted approach helps you maximize the impact of your marketing efforts and achieve your goals. Strengthen your TV planning and activation with DASH audiences.
Are you ready to connect with your audience in a more meaningful way?
FAQs
The DASH study, developed by ARF, provides an unbiased view of how American households consume TV and digital media. It measures device usage, streaming habits, and account sharing to create a detailed picture of media consumption.
Experian combines its Marketing Data with insights from studies like DASH to create audience segments based on real-world behaviors. This allows advertisers to align their campaigns with how people actually consume content.
Audience segments include Ad Acceptors, Co-Watchers, Solo Watchers, Paid TV High Spenders, and Large or Small Screen Viewers, enabling precise targeting based on viewing habits.
By focusing on actual media consumption habits, advertisers can deliver more relevant messages, reduce wasted impressions, and improve the overall effectiveness of their campaigns.
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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. 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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. 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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