At A Glance
AI learns what your data teaches in 2025, "good data" in AI means accurate, current, consented, and easy to connect, or your models lose relevance and your investments underperform. Experian is leading this next era of responsible data where trust, transparency, and innovation come together to make marketing more human, not less.What makes data “good” in the age of AI?
In AI-driven marketing, data quality now defines success. “Good data” in AI isn’t about volume; it’s about the balance of accuracy, freshness, consent, and interoperability. As algorithms guide decisions, they must learn from data that’s both accurate and ethical.
At Experian, we believe good data must meet four conditions:
1. Accurate
Verified and anchored in real human identity.
2. Fresh
Continuously updated to reflect today’s consumers.
3. Consented
Collected and governed transparently.
4. Interoperable
Easily integrated across platforms through a secure, signal-agnostic identity spine, enabling seamless data activation.
This is the data AI can trust and the data that keeps marketing relevant, predictive, and privacy-first.
Why does data accuracy matter more than ever?
AI models are only as intelligent as their inputs. Incomplete or inconsistent data leads to bad predictions and wasted spend. As the industry moves toward agentic advertising, where autonomous systems handle campaign buying and optimization, data accuracy becomes even more critical. If your ad server or audience data is flawed, these new AI agents will simply automate bad decisions faster.
Experian applies rigorous quality filters and conflict resolution rules to ensure our data is both deterministic and accurate. Deterministic signals alone don’t guarantee accuracy; they must be verified, deduplicated, and contextualized. Our identity resolution process anchors every attribute to real people, giving brands and platforms the confidence that every insight stems from truth, not noise.
Our data is ranked #1 in accuracy by Truthset, giving our clients confidence that every decision they make is backed by the industry’s most reliable insights.
Just because it is deterministic, doesn’t mean it’s highly accurate. You still need to refine and validate your data to make sure it tells a consistent story. You need to anchor your data around real people.
Why does AI need fresh data?
Outdated data can’t predict tomorrow’s behavior. AI thrives on recency.
At Experian, our audiences are refreshed continuously to mirror real-world signals, from purchase intent to media habits, so every campaign reflects what’s happening now, not six months ago.
And we don’t just advocate for fresh data, we rely on it ourselves. Our own AI-powered models, used across our audience and identity platforms, are continuously retrained on the most current, consented signals. This allows us to see firsthand how freshness drives better accuracy, faster optimization cycles, and more relevant outcomes.
But freshness alone isn’t enough. With predictive insights, our models go beyond describing the past. They forecast behaviors, fill gaps with inferred attributes, and recommend next-best audiences, helping you anticipate opportunity before it happens.
Fresh and predictive data means you’re reaching people in the moment that matters and shaping what comes next. With AI, that’s what defines performance.
How do consent and governance build trust in AI?
Responsible AI starts with responsible data. With 20 U.S. states now enforcing privacy laws, data compliance isn’t optional, it’s operational.
At Experian, privacy and compliance are built in. Every data signal, attribute, audience, and partner goes through our rigorous review process to meet federal, state, and local consumer privacy laws. With decades of experience in highly regulated industries, we’ve built processes that emphasize risk mitigation, transparency, and accountability.
Governance isn’t just about regulation, it’s also about innovation done right. We drive transparent and responsible innovation through safe, modular experimentation, from generative applications to agentic workflows. By balancing bold ideas with ethical guardrails and staying ahead of evolving legislation, we ensure our innovations protect consumers, brands, and the broader ecosystem while moving the industry forward responsibly.
Compliance and governance aren’t just boxes to check; they’re the foundation that gives AI its license to operate.
How does interoperability enable AI’s full potential?
AI delivers its best insights when data connects seamlessly across fragmented environments. Our signal-agnostic identity spine allows data to move securely between platforms (connected TV, retail media networks, and demand-side platforms) without losing context or compliance.
Interoperability isn’t just about moving data between systems; it’s about connecting insights across them. When signals connect across environments, AI gains a more complete view of the customer journey revealing true behavior patterns, intent signals, and cross-channel impact that would otherwise remain hidden.
This unified perspective allows AI to connect insights in real time, improving predictions, performance, and personalization while protecting privacy.
Where do AI and human oversight meet?
AI can make marketing more predictive, but people make it meaningful. At Experian, our technology brings identity, insight, and generative intelligence together so brands, agencies, and platforms can reach the right people with relevance, respect, and simplicity.
Our AI-powered models surface connections, recommend audiences, and uncover insights that would take humans months to find. But our experts shape the process, crafting the right inputs, ensuring data quality, reviewing model outputs, and refining recommendations based on industry knowledge and client goals. It’s this partnership between advanced AI and experienced people that turns predictions into actionable, trustworthy solutions.
What “good data” looks like in action
“Good data” becomes most powerful when it’s put to work. At Experian, our marketing data and identity solutions help brands and their partners connect accurate, consented, and interoperable data across the ecosystem, turning insight into measurable outcomes.
When Windstar Cruises and their agency partner MMGY set out to connect digital media spend to real-world bookings, they turned to Experian’s marketing data and identity solutions to close the attribution loop. By deploying pixels across digital placements and using Experian’s identity graph to connect ad exposure data with reservation records, we created a closed-loop attribution system that revealed the full traveler journey, from impression to confirmed booking.
The results were clear: 6,500+ bookings directly tied to digital campaigns, representing more than $20 million in revenue, with a 13:1 ROAS and $236 average cost per booking. Attributed audiences booked $500 higher on average, and MMGY’s Terminal audience segments powered by Experian data achieved a 28:1 ROAS.
This collaboration shows that responsible, high-quality data and AI-driven insights don’t just tell a better story; they deliver measurable business performance.
Why the future of AI depends on “good” data
The next phase of AI-driven marketing won’t be defined by who has the most data, but by who has the best. Leaders will:
Operate with clear data principles grounded in transparency and truth
Build consent and compliance into every workflow
Keep data accurate, current, and interoperable
Pair automation with human oversight
AI success starts with good data. And good data starts with Experian, where accuracy, privacy, and purpose come together to make marketing more human, not less.
Partner with Experian for AI you can trust
About the author
Budi Tanzi
VP, Product, Experian
Budi Tanzi is the Vice President of Product at Experian Marketing Services, overseeing all identity products. Prior to joining Experian, Budi worked at various stakeholders of the ad-tech ecosystem, such as Tapad, Sizmek, and StrikeAd. During his career, he held leadership roles in both Product Management and Solution Engineering. Budi has been living in New York for almost 11 years and enjoys being outdoors as well as sailing around NYC whenever possible.
“Good” data in AI FAQs
At Experian, we define “good data” as the balance of accuracy, consent, freshness, and interoperability. We apply rigorous governance, validation, and cleansing across every signal to ensure that AI systems learn from real-time behaviors, not assumptions. This approach turns data into a foundation for reliable, ethical, and high-performing intelligence.
Experian ensures AI-ready data accuracy through advanced cleansing, conflict resolution, and human anchoring. Experian ensures AI models rely on verified, high-quality inputs. Experian’s data is ranked #1 in accuracy by Truthset.
Yes, Experian can help brands stay compliant with privacy laws. Experian’s privacy-first governance framework integrates ongoing audits, legal oversight, and consent management to ensure compliance with all federal, state, and global privacy laws. Compliance isn’t an afterthought; it’s embedded in every step of our data lifecycle.
Experian makes AI more human by pairing innovation with human oversight to ensure AI helps marketers understand people, not just profiles. At Experian, we believe the future of marketing is intelligent, respectful, and human-centered. AI has long been part of how we help brands connect identity, behavior, and context to deliver personalization that balances privacy with performance. Our AI-powered solutions combine predictive insight, real-time intelligence, and responsible automation to make every interaction more relevant and ethical.
Marketers can activate Experian’s high-quality data directly in Experian’s Audience Engine, or on-the-shelf of our platform partners where Experian Audiences are ready to activate. Built on trusted identity data and enhanced with partner insights, it’s where accuracy meets accessibility, helping brands power campaigns with confidence across every channel.
Latest posts
Healthcare and Life Sciences teams map the patient journey to spot care gaps and guide interventions. However, clinical records cover only what happens inside clinics, not the forces driving patient decisions. Enriching these records with lifestyle, socioeconomic, and consumer-behavior insights reveals the “why” behind health outcomes. That’s where non-clinical insights step in – revealing the real-world forces that shape patient results. To address these blind spots, Experian and Komodo Health have teamed to integrate de-identified insights from millions of patient journeys with Experian’s socioeconomic and lifestyle data. This enriched view lets enterprises see each journey in full, identify care disparities, and craft smarter strategies – while rigorously protecting privacy. Driving tangible outcomes and better patient care This collaboration focuses on turning insights into action. With Experian and Komodo's integrated clinical, socioeconomic, and lifestyle data, Healthcare and Life Sciences teams can move from insight to accuracy, building adherence programs, finding hard-to-reach patients, and demonstrating treatment success. They can: Layer Komodo’s de-identified patient-level medical and pharmacy insights and analytics with Experian lifestyle and socioeconomic attributes Segment patient populations by condition, treatment history, and socioeconomic status Prioritize outreach – reducing waste and focusing resources where care is needed most For instance: Neighborhood-level gaps Identify opportunities to capture untreated patients and improve clinical trial inclusion. Income-related support Flag populations most likely to benefit from cost-saving programs, ensuring communications highlight co-pay assistance or financial relief options. Inside the data stack At the core of Komodo Health's AI-enabled healthcare analytics platform is its Healthcare Map®. This innovative tool integrates de-identified patient-level medical and pharmacy claims data from the patient journeys of over 330 million unique individuals – providing insights on diagnoses, treatments, outcomes, and care patterns across the United States. Experian enhances this data by adding socioeconomic and lifestyle characteristics that influence up to 80% of health outcomes. Together, this combined data effectively addresses essential questions such as: Which neighborhoods face the highest diabetes risk? Where is therapy abandonment spiking? When should co-pay assistance messages drop? How can we accelerate HCP outreach or clinical-trial recruitment? Experian's socioeconomic and lifestyle insights: Fueling data-driven care decisions In this context, Experian provides valuable insights into socioeconomic factors and lifestyle patterns, covering everything from household composition and income ranges to psychographics and other attributes that help build a broader understanding of an individual's circumstances. Where deep patient understanding, health engagement, and real-world evidence converge As healthcare marketing, patient engagement, and real-world data converge, the Experian and Komodo collaboration is empowering Healthcare and Life Sciences teams with fast, actionable insights. Fusing de-identified patient-level clinical data with socioeconomic and lifestyle attributes helps teams engage the right patients, and fuels research from product launches to community programs. It elevates experiences while proving impact with real-world evidence. Ready to utilize these insights? Latest posts
Brand and tech leaders share insights to guide marketers forward Cannes Lions 2025 brought its usual charm, rosé, and lively discussions, but what stood out was a shift in tone: brand and tech leaders aren’t talking in theories anymore – they’re rebuilding how advertising works. From identity to outcomes, the consensus was clear: marketers need bold, structural changes to thrive. At Experian, we spoke with leaders from Ampersand, Butler/Till, Comcast Advertising, Fox, OpenX, Optable, Snowflake, VideoAmp, and Yieldmo. Their message? Foundational change, not incremental tweaks, is the way forward. Here are five moves marketers and CMOs should be making right now. 1. Make identity the foundation, not an add-on Identity must be the core of your marketing strategy, not an afterthought. Building a strong identity framework from the outset ensures that your data and tech stack work seamlessly across channels. This means investing in first-party data assets and identity resolution tools that inform every campaign and tactic. Identity isn’t just a feature; it’s the base layer of everything successful marketers do today. "There’s no AI strategy without a data and identity strategy. Marketers who want to stretch every media dollar and personalize each touchpoint need a unified, deeper view of the consumer – insight they can carry straight into downstream ad platforms.”David Wells, Snowflake Next step: Treat identity resolution as a prerequisite to every campaign, not a task to address later. Align your data management platform (DMP), customer data platform (CDP), and collaboration partners around a unified identity spine (Experian’s or your own) to ensure data flows uninterrupted from planning to reporting. 2. Curate, don't automate. Programmatic is getting personal Programmatic advertising remains relevant, but its purpose is evolving from mere automation to intelligent, data-driven curation. This shift requires moving beyond static site lists to dynamic, page-level contextual engines that determine, in real-time, which impressions to display. Today, it’s about carefully selecting and curating inventory to ensure transparency, quality, and relevance for your audience. Marketers are increasingly turning to private marketplaces (PMPs) that offer curated, brand safe inventory and clear supply paths to deliver meaningful results. Expect continued growth in curated PMPs, AI-assisted forecasting, and supply-side innovations that combine premium connected TV (CTV) inventory with deterministic data. The goal is to reach the right viewer and understand exactly how and why they got there. “What we’re talking about right now is almost like curation 2.0, which is bringing more of the capabilities that historically sat with the demand-side platform (DSP) into the hands of the supply-side platform (SSP) – that is, supply-side targeting, or what we call data-driven curation."Matt Sattel, OpenX Next step: Audit your supply chain. If you can’t clearly explain every step from bid request to delivery, explore curated deals or direct SSP partnerships that align with your quality and transparency standards. 3. Connect teams like you connect data Fragmented results often stem from fragmented teams. Persistent silos (like TV buys on one floor, digital on another, and data science somewhere else) slow down budgets and create inconsistent messaging. Forward thinking organizations are restructuring teams around unified KPIs and shared data. When planners, buyers, and analysts work together (or at least share dashboards), campaigns move faster and creative stays consistent. “We restructured our teams to focus on all forms of video – linear, streaming, and online. This allowed us to embrace partners who cross over these verticals and technical approaches.”Gina Whelehan, Butler/Till Next step: Map your current workflow end-to-end. Where does a brief stall or data stop flowing? Restructure teams or create shared success metrics to eliminate bottlenecks. 4. Turn disconnected data into unified insights Marketers have spent years gathering massive amounts of data, but hoarding data isn’t a winning strategy. The future belongs to those who can collaborate with partners to connect and utilize data effectively, all while respecting privacy and security. Rather than chasing the next data source, leading marketers are finding ways to safely connect data already available in-house or via partners. This might involve data clean rooms, secure data sharing agreements, or joint analytics initiatives – but the common thread is working together on data, not operating in isolation. “We've been encouraging marketers to tie in first-party data and to really utilize that data and to work with trusted sources and deterministic sources in order to overcome a lot of the challenges around signal loss with cookies, in particular. The other way is also clean rooms. Clean rooms really enable the opportunity to collaborate in a private, safe way, and connecting to those more deterministic sources in order to deliver the results that advertisers are looking for.”Carmela Fournier, Comcast Advertising Next step: Identify gaps in your first-party data. Then, collaborate with a provider like Experian to safely match data sets and unlock insights without exposing sensitive info. 5. Focus on outcomes, not clicks Impressions, clicks, and other output metrics have been the currency of marketing for decades. But the consensus at Cannes is that those proxies aren’t enough – business outcomes are what matter now. Marketers must shift their focus to measuring real results, such as sales lift, new customer acquisition, lifetime value, or brand impact, rather than getting bogged down in intermediate metrics. This move to outcome-based measurement changes how campaigns are planned and judged: success is defined by the value created, not just the volume delivered. Unified, identity-based analytics are finally making it possible to see who saw an ad and what they did next, across TV, CTV, and digital. That intel drives smarter budget shifts and tighter creative feedback loops. “Outcome-based measurement is table stakes in today’s media ecosystem, and Ampersand has woven it into almost everything we do. Thanks to Experian’s strength in identity, audience insights, and outcome measurement, we can give advertisers the attribution they need at every stage of the funnel.”Justin Rosen, Ampersand Next step: Identify metrics that matter to your bottom line, then find a partner who can measure them accurately. If measurement stacks don’t talk to each other, they’re holding you back. Preparing for the challenges ahead The common thread across these five moves is connection – connecting data, teams, and outcomes. Marketers who act on these imperatives will be ready for whatever new screen, format, or privacy rule comes next. Experian can help you: Establish an identity spine Enable secure data collaboration in or out of clean room environments Curate premium CTV inventory with deterministic audiences Measure business outcomes across every channel Ready to make your next bold move? Let's start a conversation Latest posts
Marketers are searching for better ways to connect with their audiences across screens and prove results. Optimum Media is at the forefront of this development, helping brands plan, activate, and measure campaigns across linear TV, addressable TV, connected TV (CTV), digital, and social platforms. To support this approach, Optimum Media partners with Experian, combining their subscriber data with Experian’s trusted audience and identity solutions. Together, we help brands not only find the right consumers but also understand their behaviors and measure real outcomes. Here’s how Optimum Media and Experian are working together. Build a complete customer view with rich data from Experian Optimum Media starts with strong first-party data, including viewership and exposure information from millions of households. However, reaching a deeper understanding of these audiences requires more than what subscriber records alone can offer. Through Experian’s Marketing Attributes, Optimum Media gains access to thousands of demographic and behavioral attributes to its data sets. These attributes—such as income ranges, lifestyle interests, and retail purchasing behaviors—help advertisers build a more complete view of the consumer. "We work with trusted partners like Experian to deliver the additional audience insights—like demographics and lifestyle—that are critical for our clients' success."Natalia Irmin, Sr. Director, Strategic Partnerships, Optimum Media Combining Experian’s Marketing Attributes with Optimum Media’s subscriber footprint helps brands segment audiences more precisely, develop refined media plans, and tailor messaging based on the real behaviors and interests of consumers. Move beyond basic targeting with Audience Engine To support more personalized and scalable targeting, Optimum Media uses Audience Engine—Experian’s self-service platform for audience management and activation. Through Audience Engine, Optimum Media can: Access Experian’s syndicated audiences Not just what’s available directly on their platform. Build custom segments Using Experian’s demographic and behavioral insights. Tap into our data marketplace To explore additional segments from Experian and our Partner Audiences through trusted third-party providers. These tools give Optimum Media and its clients the ability to move beyond basic targeting. Whether a brand wants to reach families preparing for back-to-school shopping, in-market car buyers, or upscale consumers planning home renovations, Audience Engine makes it possible to identify and activate those audiences with greater accuracy—based on real data, not guesswork. Extend campaign reach with Experian’s Digital Graph While Optimum Media has a substantial owned footprint, they often work with advertisers who need to extend reach beyond traditional subscriber bases. To support this, they rely on Experian’s Digital Graph. Our Digital Graph connects mobile ad IDs (MAIDs), IP addresses, CTV IDs, and hashed emails into unified household and individual profiles. This enables Optimum Media to identify and reach audiences outside of their network with the same level of accuracy as inside it. For even deeper audience insights, Digital Graph can be bundled with Marketing Attributes. This combination helps advertisers go beyond basic targeting to include real-world behaviors like shopping habits, travel preferences, and lifestyle characteristics. The result: campaigns that do more than deliver impressions—they connect with the right households across any channel. Turn viewership into measurable business outcomes One of the biggest challenges in multiscreen advertising is connecting exposure to real business results. With Experian’s solutions, Optimum Media can: Plan based on audience behaviors across screens, not just age and gender demographics. Activate household-level audiences across linear, CTV, digital, and social. Measure campaign performance using unduplicated reach, frequency, and attribution across devices. By offering advertisers access to a more complete consumer profile and maintaining consistent measurement across channels, Optimum Media and Experian help clients make better decisions about where to spend and how to adjust strategies over time. Why the Optimum Media and Experian partnership delivers Deeper audience understanding: By combining first-party viewership with Experian’s demographic and behavioral data, advertisers gain a fuller picture of who they are reaching. Seamless cross-platform execution: Identity solutions like Digital Graph allow brands to reach audiences across multiple devices and channels without losing precision. "Optimum Media has been instrumental in helping Experian strengthen the precision, quality, and real-world applications of our data. Their ongoing feedback is invaluable in making sure our solutions continue to meet client needs and perform at the highest level."Chris Feo, Chief Business Officer, Experian With a single, trusted partner offering both identity and audience solutions, Optimum Media avoids the complexity many advertisers still face when piecing together different data sets and vendors. “Having Experian’s identity and audience solutions under one roof makes it easier for us to plan, reach, and measure across every channel. It’s a complete solution that simplifies advertising and improves performance.”Natalia Irmin, Sr. Director, Strategic Partnerships, Optimum Media Start building better campaigns with Experian Ready to improve your audience targeting and measurement strategies like Optimum Media? Connect with our team today to learn how Marketing Attributes, Audience Engine, Digital Graph, and our other solutions can help you build stronger, more measurable advertising campaigns. Connect with us About Optimum Media Optimum Media is a multiscreen advertising business that partners with small and medium businesses, as well as national, political, media and entertainment, and agency clients across the United States. They work with advertisers to develop custom multiscreen advertising solutions powered by proprietary technology and a massive aggregated database of audience data points and TV viewership data. Latest posts