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Outdated data can’t predict tomorrow’s behavior.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
As summer fades, marketers are gearing up for another campaign cycle. It’s a process that repeats itself annually, but we can’t just copy-and-paste our plans. With each passing year, the media landscape changes drastically, as do the behaviors of the audiences we are trying to reach. As ever, marketers have to be strategic—and nimble—to reach the right customers at the right time, with messaging central to seasonal events and personal preferences. Marketers can ensure their messaging reaches the right customers with audience optimization. Reach target audiences this season It can be a hassle to create custom audience segments and bespoke creative messaging every time the seasons change, but now, more than ever, we must ensure brand campaigns are as timely, relevant and personalized as possible. In a world of multitasking and multiscreening, there’s an expectation among consumers that all communications they receive are relevant to them—especially from brands. This is why it’s critical to understand your audiences and how to engage them through the most effective channels. To help marketers win the battle for consumer attention—and sales—4C developed the Scope platform. This self-serve software arms brands with powerful tools for managing audiences and optimizing campaigns across channels including TV and digital. So, whether it’s building an efficient media plan, buying targeted ads, or measuring business outcomes, audience optimization is truly in scope. Deliver audience-based marketing messages across the TV and video space Recently, 4C teamed up with Experian to expand our audience marketplace across linear TV, OTT and social media. Brands using the Scope by 4C™ platform can leverage Experian data across a variety of planning and buying use cases, including audience-based linear TV planning and programmatic scatter buying; OTT campaigns across FreeWheel, Telaria, and SpotX; and social advertising on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Scope’s TV Planner allows marketers to combine historical cost and ad occurrence data with Experian audiences to create customized TV plans in minutes. The outputs go beyond GRPs to maximize in-target impressions for a secondary audience as well as indexing high against the primary demo. With audience-based TV planning brands can truly maximize their upfront buys and use the fantastic reach of linear television for seasonal performance marketing, not just brand awareness. OTT harnesses the big-screen, living-room impact of TV with the targeting precision and flexibility of digital. By using Experian segments to create OTT audiences in Scope, brands can really focus on creative strategy, using the immersive power of video to drive specific business outcomes. From a social perspective, we can combine the pinpoint targeting marketers have come to rely on from platforms like Facebook with advanced segmentation enabled by Experian. The output is high-performing audiences that can be reached at scale with dynamic creative to achieve unparalleled ROI. Focus marketing strategies on audience optimization this season Leveraging customized audiences across channels is the modern approach to marketing and has completely shifted the way marketers target consumers. With the relationship between 4C and Experian, there is now a better way for marketers to identify the most valuable potential customers, uncover the most appropriate messaging, and execute campaigns across the most engaging channels – during peak seasonal campaigns and every single day. Contact us today
With Tapad, part of Experian, technology, AdsWizz AudioMatic is the first Audio buying platform to offer cross-device identity resolution across the U.S. and EMEA NEW YORK and LONDON, July 17, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Tapad, part of Experian and a global leader in digital identity resolution, today announced a new joint capability with AdsWizz , the leading technology provider for digital audio advertising solutions. The partnership combines Tapad's digital cross-device technology with AdsWizz's AudioMatic buying platform, enabling the ability to connect audio ad experiences across screens. AudioMatic, AdsWizz's audio-centric buying platform, supports programmatic audio buying and entirely new audio ad experiences for listeners. The integration of The Tapad Graph onto its platform enables new opportunities for marketers to reach, engage and measure each interaction with their desired consumers on digital radio and podcasts channels, and across devices. This partnership makes AdsWizz the first audio buying platform to offer this enhanced cross-device identity capability in the US and EMEA markets. "Marketers need privacy-safe digital identity resolution to reach their consumers," says Tom Rolph, VP of EMEA at Tapad. "With audio becoming an increasingly powerful medium for engagement, it's important that our technology extends to this channel, which is why we are excited to announce our integration with AdsWizz's AudioMatic platform." Digital audio is experiencing high growth, with 84% of advertisers and agencies saying it will play a bigger role in their media plans in the future. Today, 60% of digital audio is consumed via a mobile device.* The Tapad Graph is the largest digital identity resolution graph with differentiated global scale. The partnership enables audio advertisers to leverage The Tapad Graph for enhanced attribution, analytics, and targeting. Alexis van der Wyer, CEO at AdsWizz, added, "Digital audio is increasingly becoming ubiquitous in our media consumption and in our daily digital interactions, and because of that, audio advertising offers tremendous opportunity to personally interact with consumers in every moment of their daily lives. By integrating with Tapad, we enable our advertising partners to increase the effectiveness and the relevance of their marketing messages across audio channels." To learn more about Tapad and our digital identity resolution products, visit our identity solutions page. *Digital Audio Exchange, "The Rise of Digital Audio Advertising," https://thisisdax.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/DAX-Whitepaper.pdf About Tapad Tapad, Inc. is a global leader in digital identity resolution. The Tapad Graph, and its related solutions, provide a transparent, privacy-safe approach connecting brands to consumers through their devices globally. Our one-of-a-kind Graph Select offering enables marketers the flexibility and freedom of choice to correlate devices to varied objectives, driving campaign effectiveness and business results. Tapad is recognized across the industry for its product innovation, workplace culture and talent, and has earned numerous awards including One World Identity's 2019 Top 100 Influencers in Identity Award. Headquartered in New York, Tapad also has offices in Chicago, London, Oslo, Singapore and Tokyo. About AdsWizz: AdsWizz has created the end-to-end technology platform that is powering the digital audio advertising ecosystem. AdsWizz powers well-known music platforms, podcasts and broadcasting groups worldwide with a comprehensive digital audio software suite of solutions that connect audio publishers to the advertising community. From dynamic ad insertion to advanced programmatic platforms to innovative new audio formats, AdsWizz efficiently connects buyers and sellers in digital audio. AdsWizz is headquartered in San Mateo, California, with an IT Development hub in Bucharest, Romania, and presence in 39 markets around the world. About AudioMatic: AdsWizz Demand Side, audio-centric DSP and audio buying platform, AudioMatic, enables programmatic audio buying and entirely new audio ad experiences that are proven to be more engaging and more effective, and have delivered measurable results for agencies and their brands all over the world. All the biggest ad agencies have used our programmatic trading platform, including Omnicom, GroupM, Havas, Publicis, Mobext, and more. Contact us today
Sixty-Nine Percent Organic Sales Growth Spurred by Expanded Business and Continued Investment in The Tapad Graph™ NEW YORK, May 7, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Tapad, a part of Experian, a global leader in digital identity resolution, today announced a record start to the year, following its highest earning year in the company's history. Since January, Tapad has experienced a 69 percent organic increase in global revenue; with strategic investments in talent, continued high retention rates, and an expanded range of clients across global markets. Globally, Tapad increased its client base across multiple categories and verticals, catering to agencies, brands, telecoms, and data providers. The Tapad Graph™'s varied use cases and differentiated global scale have been instrumental to the company's overall success to-date. With an ongoing investment in product, and expected feature releases slated for 2019, the company anticipates these accomplishments to continue. "Since the inception of our business, Tapad has heavily focused on enabling marketers to boost the performance of their campaigns with the help of our advanced digital identity resolution technologies," said Sigvart Voss Eriksen, CEO at Tapad. "While we continue to grow, creating privacy-safe solutions that solve marketers evolving needs remains integral to our evolution. As pioneers in cross-device, we're constantly innovating and pushing ourselves to be at the forefront of industry change. Our leadership in the space is recognized across the industry, as is evident by our current success." In addition to partner expansions, Tapad also invested in new talent. In February, Tapad announced Ajit Thupil as the company's first Senior Vice President of Identity, deepening the company's commitment to creating ground-breaking digital identity resolution products for brands, agencies and platforms. Tapad's investment in talent has been recognized by One World Identity's 2019 Top 100 Influencers in Identity Award and by ClickZ's 2019 Marketing Technology Awards. "At Tapad, our focus is on continuously advancing our digital identity resolution products to cater to the needs of marketers across industries," said Chris Feo, SVP of Global Data Licensing and Strategic Partnerships at Tapad. "As a part of that commitment, we are consistently growing our partner base, product features, and widening our reach on a global scale. We're excited to sustain our growth throughout 2019." To learn more about Tapad and our digital identity resolution products, visit Experian.com Open job opportunities across the globe can be found on Tapad's career page here: https://www.experian.com/careers/ About Tapad Tapad, Inc. is a global leader in digital identity resolution. The Tapad Graph™, and related solutions, provide a privacy-safe approach to connecting device identifiers to brand and marketer data, thereby allowing marketers around the world to maximize campaign effectiveness. 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 Group. Contact us today