At A Glance
AI can make marketing more human when it understands people in context. Experian’s technology interprets real-time contextual signals—from temporal to situational intent—to align every message with the moment. By connecting identity and context, marketers can create timely, relevant, and responsible engagement that builds trust and drives meaningful outcomes.Personalization without context misses the moment
Marketers have spent years perfecting personalization — but personalization alone often misses the mark. We’ve all seen it. You shop for a weekend getaway, then get served travel ads weeks later when you’re already home. The data was right. The timing wasn’t.
Personalization based only on identity and behavior knows who you are but not when or why you’re ready to act.
At Experian, we believe AI should make marketing feel more human. That means understanding people in context, recognizing their environment, mindset, and the moment, to create relevance that feels timely, not intrusive.
The context gap: Why identity and behavior aren’t enough
Identity and behavioral data can reveal the kind of consumer someone is and the kind of products they may want to buy. But they don’t explain what’s happening right now.
The missing layer is context: the dynamic, real-time signal that shows why this moment matters. Context bridges the gap between knowing something about a consumer and understanding their intent.
In an era of fragmented signals and stricter privacy rules, context is one of the most reliable ways to stay relevant without over-reliance on personal identifiers. It helps marketers adapt to shifting needs while keeping privacy intact.
How Experian interprets context in real-time
By context, we mean all the subtle, in-the-moment signals, like time of day, location, or what someone’s watching, that shape what people care about in real-time. At Experian, our technology interprets these in real-time:
Temporal signals
Time-based patterns such as daypart (morning vs. evening), recency (how fresh a signal is), seasonality (holidays, life events), and micro-moments (split-second intent-driven actions).
Environmental signals
The media or content environment; what type of program, article, or channel someone is engaging with when they see your ad.
Situational intent
Signals like browsing behavior or purchase patterns that hint at a person’s stage in the buying journey, from early research to final decision.
By layering these signals over verified identity and behavioral data, Experian’s AI-powered technology helps marketers predict not just who will act, but when they’re ready to act.
Experian’s approach: Turning context into relevance
Consumer behavior changes by the minute, and marketers need to adapt just as quickly. Our technology interprets live bidstream data, device activity, content, and timing to optimize in the moment, ensuring your campaigns deliver meaningful relevance, not just broader reach.
Our process combines:
Input
Clean, accurate identity and audience data anchored in our privacy-first framework.
Enrichment
Our models fuse household, device, and publisher context to reveal moment-based intent.
Activation
We’re investing in agentic workflows that help marketers plan and execute performance campaigns at scale, activated via our real-time technology that dynamically adjusts deals and surfaces contextually aligned opportunities.
Governance
Every signal and recommendation follows Experian’s principles of transparency, consent, and ethical oversight.
We call this AI-powered simplicity tools that help marketers work more efficiently, with intelligence that feels intuitive and human-centered.
How context changes the game for marketers
AI without real-time context can only react based on what it already knows. AI-powered by in-the-moment contextual data points enables marketers to anticipate, not just react.
A travel brand can shift creative from “dreaming” to “booking” mode when AI detects signals of active planning.
A retailer can align promotions with trending content or regional weather shifts in real time.
A CPG brand can trigger different product messages based on the context of recipes or household occasions.
Adjustments based on contextual signals compound into meaningful gains — higher engagement, better efficiency, and a consumer experience that feels natural rather than intrusive.
Context makes AI more human
Context introduces empathy into automation. It’s what keeps AI from overstepping, ensuring the message fits the moment. When marketers respect timing, environment, and intent, ads feel like service, not surveillance. Context transforms relevance into respect.
At Experian, our vision is to make every signal serve people, not profiles. Because the more our technology (including our AI tools and capabilities) understands context, the more human marketing becomes.
At Experian, responsible intelligence is built in
Every contextual model we deploy adheres to our standards for transparent and responsible innovation. We validate inputs, monitor model drift, and ensure no context-based variable introduces bias or privacy risk. This is what responsible automation looks like in practice: intelligent, explainable, and ethical.
From who to when: Context is the future of AI-driven marketing
Identity tells us who someone is. Context tells us when it matters.
The next wave of AI-driven marketing will unite privacy-first identity with contextual intelligence to deliver real-time relevance, responsibly. At Experian, we’re building that future now. Our AI-driven capabilities bring identity, insight, and generative intelligence together so brands, agencies, and platforms can reach the right people, at the right moment, with relevance and respect.
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About the author
Matthew Griffiths
SVP of Technology, Audigent, a part of Experian
Matthew Griffiths is a seasoned technology entrepreneur and a driving force in advertising technology, data technology, and AI. As the Co-Founder and former CTO (now SVP of Technology) at Audigent, a part of Experian, he plays a pivotal role in shaping the company’s cutting-edge solutions for data activation, curation, and identity management.
With years of executive experience across the U.S., Africa, and the U.K., Matthew has a proven track record of leadership in steering the adoption and use of cutting-edge technologies to drive business outcomes. His expertise spans from collaborating with top global corporations and governments to spearheading award-winning technology projects that deliver life-changing impacts in some of the world’s most underserved communities.
Matthew’s dynamic approach to solving complex business and technology challenges makes him a visionary leader in the AdTech space, consistently driving innovation and performance through technology.
FAQs
Context makes AI-driven marketing more effective because it helps marketers understand people in context, recognizing their environment, mindset, and the moment, to create relevance that feels timely, not intrusive. Context helps marketers understand not just who a person is, but when and why they’re ready to act. Experian’s AI-powered technology layers contextual signals over verified identity data to deliver relevance that feels intuitive, not invasive. This approach connects recognition with understanding, making every campaign more effective and more human.
Identity and behavioral data can reveal the kind of consumer someone is and the kind of products they may want to buy. But they don’t explain what’s happening right now. That’s the context gap—the missing link between knowing something about a consumer and understanding their intent. Context closes this gap by analyzing environmental, temporal, and situational signals that reveal intent—without using invasive identifiers.
Yes, at Experian, our technology interprets contextual signals, including temporal, environmental, and situational, in real-time. By layering these signals over Experian’s verified identity and behavioral data graph, marketers can predict when consumers are most receptive, turning data into real-time opportunity.
At Experian, every contextual model we deploy adheres to our standards for transparent and responsible innovation. We validate inputs, monitor model drift, and ensure no context-based variable introduces bias or privacy risk.
– Privacy-first clarity: We unify household, individual, device, demographic, behavioral, publisher first-party signals, and contextual data points to build a reliable view of consumers, even when certain signals are missing. This clarity helps marketers personalize, target, activate, and measure with confidence.
– Predictive insight: Our models go beyond describing the past. They forecast behaviors, fill gaps with inferred attributes, create lookalikes, and recommend next-best audiences so clients can anticipate opportunity.
– AI-powered simplicity: We’re investing in generative AI and exploring emerging agentic workflows to reimagine how marketers work. Our vision is to move beyond basic audience recommendations toward intelligent audience discovery and automated setup, helping teams uncover opportunities they may not have considered, while spending less time on manual work and more time on strategy and outcomes.
– Real-time intelligence: Consumer journeys never stand still. Our AI-powered technology interprets live bidstream data, device activity, content, and timing to optimize in the moment, ensuring campaigns deliver meaningful relevance, not just broader reach.
– Transparent and responsible innovation: We drive safe, modular experimentation, from generative applications to agentic workflows, always balancing bold ideas with ethical guardrails. We stay at the forefront of evolving legislation and regulation, ensuring our innovations protect consumers, brands, and the broader ecosystem while moving the industry forward responsibly.
Latest posts
Holiday shopping in 2025 feels a lot like a complicated relationship. Shoppers want deals, but they also want trust. They start shopping early, but they’re still browsing well into December. They love the convenience of online shopping, but they still show up in-store before making the final call. Our 2025 Holiday spending trends and insights report, created this year in collaboration with GroundTruth, explores these contradictions. Our findings show that this year’s holiday season isn’t about one big shift; it’s about managing the push and pull between what consumers say, what they do, and how marketers respond. Here are three complicated truths you need to know. Experian's 2025 Holiday spending trends and insights report Optimize your 2025 holiday shopping campaigns with our latest report with GroundTruth. Download now 1. The new rules of holiday timing Almost half (45%) of consumers plan to start shopping before November, but 62% admit they’ll still be buying in December. And post-holiday shopping (think gift card redemptions and deal-hunting) remains a real factor. Why it’s complicated The holiday calendar isn’t what it used to be. There’s no single “big moment” anymore. Instead, shoppers are spreading purchases across months, peaking around the “Turkey 12” (the 12 days surrounding Thanksgiving) and again in the final December rush. What to do about it Stretch your campaigns across the full season, not just Cyber Week. Refresh offers to stay relevant as shopper motivations change from deal-seeking to last-minute urgency. Watch for post-holiday momentum and extend your promotions into January. How belVita nailed the timingIn celebration of National Coffee Day, belVita partnered with GroundTruth on a one-month campaign to boost product awareness and drive foot traffic to Target stores. By utilizing digital out-of-home (DOOH) and mobile ads powered by location, behavioral, and purchase-based targeting, the campaign achieved a 3.44% visitation rate, nearly $476k in products added to carts, and a low cost-per-visit of just $0.22. 2. Online leads, but in-store still seals the deal Nearly 40% of shoppers say they’ll split their purchases between online and in-store and 80% of consumers still prefer the in-store experience. Only a small fraction plan to shop exclusively in one channel. That means while digital often starts the journey, the final decision often happens in a physical store. Why it’s complicated Shoppers love the convenience of browsing online, but they still want the reassurance of seeing, touching, or testing products before buying. In-store isn’t just about the transaction, it’s the validation step. What to do about it Build omnichannel strategies that connect digital discovery with in-store follow-through. Use location and identity data to tie digital impressions to real-world actions, like foot traffic and purchases. Focus on consistency: shoppers expect the same value, tone, and trust whether they’re on a website, in an app, or standing in a store aisle. How Duke Cannon used on-premise targeting to drive sales liftDuke Cannon, a premium men's grooming brand, partnered with GroundTruth to launch a successful multichannel campaign utilizing location-based and behavioral audience targeting across CTV and mobile screens to drive in-store visits and sales. By targeting consumers with mobile ads while they were physically in-store, the company capitalized on high purchase intent, aiding in the 12% sales lift. This strategic approach resulted in over 43.9k provable in-store visits and a significant increase in sales. 3. Marketers double down, consumers hold back This holiday season, expectations are split. 66% of marketers expect holiday spend to rise, but only 22% of consumers agree. While brands are leaning into bigger investments across CTV, retail media, and social, shoppers are staying cautious, weighing value and waiting for the right deal. Why it’s complicated That disconnect introduces risk. If marketers don’t align spend with real consumer behavior, budgets can get wasted in the rush to cover every channel. Shoppers haven’t stopped spending, but they're spending differently. They’re trading down to discount and big-box retailers while cutting back in discretionary categories like apparel and restaurants. What to do about it Prioritize efficiency by focusing on the right audiences, not just more impressions. Make consistency your advantage: reach people once and connect across platforms instead of chasing fragmented signals. Balance aggressive media investment with messaging that acknowledges consumer caution — shoppers want value and trust, not hype. Measuring TV and streaming impact with iSpotiSpot’s Audience Builder, powered by Experian’s Marketing Attributes, helps brands reach high-value audiences. During the holiday season, a luxury retailer could target $100K+ households with affluent lifestyle interests. With iSpot’s Unified Measurement platform, they can track performance across linear TV and streaming and shift spend in real time to maximize results. The bottom line on 2025 holiday shopping trends This year’s holiday shopping season is, well…complicated. Shoppers are cautious but still engaged. They’re early planners and last-minute browsers. They want the ease of digital, but the confidence of in-person. For marketers, the opportunity lies in embracing that complexity, not trying to simplify it away. The brands that balance relevance, trust, and convenience across the full season and across every channel will be the ones that win. Download our full 2025 Holiday spending trends and insights report to explore all five shifts shaping this season and see how you can turn complexity into opportunity. Download About the author Fred Cheung Director, Partnership Sales, Audigent, a part of Experian Fred Cheung has spent over a decade in the programmatic advertising space, with roles at Mindshare, Jounce Media, Twitter, and The Trade Desk. His deep experience in trading and product management helps in his current function on the Experian Marketing Services’ Sales team where he focuses on data growth and adoption across the industries’ leading buy-side platforms. 2025 holiday shopping trends FAQs Why is holiday shopping in 2025 described as “complicated”? Because consumer behavior is full of contradictions. People will shop earlier but also later, browse online but purchase in-store, and want deals while demanding trust. Marketers need to navigate these push-and-pull dynamics. When do most shoppers plan to start their holiday shopping? Nearly half (45%) say they’ll start before November, but 62% admit they’ll still be buying in December, with momentum even continuing into January through gift card redemptions and deal-hunting. What role do physical stores still play in holiday shopping? Although many consumers begin online, the majority still make their final decisions in-store. In-person shopping acts as a validation step where customers can see, touch, or try products before buying. How should marketers adapt their strategies to shifting holiday timing? Instead of focusing only on Black Friday or Cyber Week, marketers should stretch campaigns across the full season, refresh offers frequently, and continue promotions into January. Are marketers and consumers aligned on holiday spending expectations? Not entirely. 66% of marketers expect spending to rise, but only 22% of consumers agree. Shoppers are cautious, prioritizing value and often trading down to discount or big-box retailers. What’s the best way to connect online discovery with in-store sales? An omnichannel approach using identity and location data can bridge digital impressions with real-world actions like store visits and purchases, ensuring consistency across touchpoints. What can brands learn from the case studies in the report? Brands like belVita and Duke Cannon successfully tied digital campaigns to in-store results by utilizing precise audience targeting, location data, and well-timed promotions. Where can I get the full insights report? You can download Experian’s 2025 Holiday spending trends and insights report to explore all five shifts shaping this season. Latest posts
We spend our days surrounded by screens: at work, at home, and everywhere in between. But audio is the one channel that moves with us, from morning routines to evening commutes, from workouts to household chores. More than two-thirds of U.S. consumers will listen to digital audio every month this year, making it one of the fastest-growing ways to connect with audiences. Experian and Audacy are working together to solve the challenges of fragmented listening, cross-platform targeting, and campaign measurement, helping brands reach people in the moments other channels can’t. Why audio sticks with us Audio fits into life’s in-between moments, from the commute to the workout to the chores, when other media can’t. Unlike video, it doesn’t demand full attention; it joins the flow of daily routines. This makes audio uniquely personal, creating connections that other formats can’t replicate. Audacy’s expertise in understanding listener behavior ensures that audio campaigns feel like a natural part of daily life. Experian's data helps advertisers identify the right audiences, while Audacy ensures the message is delivered at the right time. Together, we help brands create campaigns that resonate deeply with listeners. By meeting audiences in their moments of focus, audio becomes a powerful tool for building meaningful and lasting connections. "Audio is a companion in people’s daily rituals. Whether it’s doing dishes, folding laundry, or going for a run, you have audio going in your ears, and you’re really engaged with it. From an advertising perspective, that’s incredibly powerful because listeners are paying attention to the content.”Kevin Greenwald, SVP of Advertising and Audience Products Making sense of scattered listening habits Today’s listeners consume audio across a variety of devices and platforms. Devices like smart speakers and smart home hubs now account for over 27% of digital audio time spent daily among U.S. adults, highlighting the growing role of connected devices in audio consumption. When listeners bounce between apps, stations, and devices, it’s easy for advertisers to lose track of them. Audacy’s advanced platform capabilities, combined with Experian’s identity solutions, simplify this process by providing a unified view of audience behavior, ensuring campaigns remain cohesive. Audio is highly adaptable, letting advertisers tweak a message on the fly by shifting tone, length, or format to stay relevant in the moment. This flexibility ensures that campaigns remain cohesive and impactful, no matter where or how listeners engage. “Audio has a degree of flexibility that other channels don’t. You’re not tied to a programming clock, and ad lengths can vary. It’s also easy to create a great audio ad quickly, which makes it a channel ripe for experimentation and innovation.”Kevin Greenwald, SVP of Advertising and Audience Products Following listeners wherever they go Today’s listeners don’t stay in one place: they bounce from live radio in the morning to streaming music during the day, then wind down with a favorite podcast at night. For advertisers, that creates a challenge: how do you keep up with an audience that’s always moving? Without a unified view of the listener journey, campaigns can lose impact. With the right insights, though, every handoff becomes an opportunity to stay relevant and connected. Audacy’s platform, combined with Experian’s identity solutions, bridges these gaps. Together, we help you follow your audience wherever they go, creating consistent experiences that drive results. This approach improves targeting and ensures that messages remain impactful. "I hope that there’s a day coming where we can understand ad exposure in the car as well as more cars are connected and things like that. That would be really powerful."Kevin Greenwald, SVP of Advertising and Audience Products Your audience is listening, let's make sure they hear you Audio helps you connect with your audience in moments other channels miss. With Experian’s marketing data and Audacy’s expertise, you can simplify cross-platform targeting, improve campaign measurement, and create messages that truly resonate. Let’s work together to make your message heard. Let's talk audio strategy. Contact us today About our experts Kevin Greenwald SVP of Advertising and Audience Products, Audacy Kevin Greenwald is the SVP of Advertising & Audience Products, where he partners closely with Audacy's sales team to deliver leading ad product and measurement capabilities for their clients. Crystal Jacques VP of Enterprise Partnerships, Experian Crystal Jacques is the VP of Enterprise Partnerships, leading Experian's go-to-market team across all verticals. With over ten years of experience in the Identity space, Crystal brings a wealth of expertise to her role. She joined Experian in 2020 through the Tapad acquisition, following her successful stint as the head of Global Channel Partnerships for Adbrain, which The Trade Desk later acquired. Latest posts
Reach de-identified patient and provider segments at scale across every channel. Pharmaceutical brands and media platforms, including connected TV (CTV), can activate HIPAA-compliant audiences built on real-world clinical and claims data through a new collaboration between PurpleLab and Experian. Targeting de-identified audiences is essential for engaging the right patients at pivotal moments in their health journey, maximizing ROI while safeguarding privacy and improving outcomes. Overall, prescription drugmakers spent $2.97 billion on national TV advertising in the first half of 2025, a 12.2% year-over-year increase, underscoring the growing demand for scalable, privacy-compliant healthcare advertising in premium media environments. Now, whether you're a pharma advertiser launching a new therapy or a platform curating health-focused inventory, PurpleLab’s integration refreshes the media planning ecosystem, offering marketers easier access to the audiences needed to drive impact. Activate with accuracy and scale PurpleLab’s de-identified healthcare segments, categorized by condition, treatment, specialty, and prescription behavior, are now accessible through Experian's data marketplace, streamlining media planning. This integration enables PurpleLab’s privacy-safe audiences to travel from discovery to omnichannel delivery. Experian then handles onboarding, activation, and audience expansion, in accordance with HIPAA and with industry standards. Utilizing Experian’s identity graph, spanning household and individual-level insights, as well as marketing attributes, these healthcare audiences can be: Onboarded securely, matching hashed emails or tokens to digital identifiers Activated across major channels, including CTV, mobile, display, and social Expanded with confidence, reaching more of the target population, patients, or healthcare professionals, without relying on third-party cookies This infrastructure unlocks greater scale and completeness for niche pharma audiences that have historically been hard to reach in digital and streaming environments. For brands navigating fragmented media and tightening privacy regulations, this collaboration provides the clarity and consistency they’ve been seeking. “We know healthcare marketers are under pressure to get it right: to respect privacy, be accurate, and scale. That’s why we’re excited to bring PurpleLab audiences into the Experian data marketplace and make them available through Audigent’s curated deals. It gives pharmaceutical brands and platforms a clear way to plan and measure campaigns, with the assurance that they’re reaching patients and providers when it matters in the right way.”Kim Gilberti, General Manager Curation through Audigent: Premium supply meets premium data For advertisers seeking turnkey media solutions, PurpleLab audiences are now also available through Audigent’s curated deals. Audigent’s curated deals simplify media buying by packaging PurpleLab’s clinically grounded audiences with premium, brand-safe inventory, thus creating a unified package. Instead of stitching together data and supply separately, media buyers can now access pre-built or custom-curated media deals where PurpleLab audiences are already integrated, ideal for health and wellness programming, premium CTV, or contextual content aligned to therapeutic areas. This approach gives marketers both efficiency and accuracy, streamlining execution while maintaining compliance and relevance. “Bringing together PurpleLab’s clinically precise audiences with Experian’s powerful identity and activation capabilities, and pairing it with Audigent’s premium inventory, gives advertisers more than a turnkey solution. It’s the power to launch campaigns that truly resonate, with data and media working in harmony from day one to deliver both efficiency and impact."Scott Ronay, VP, Advertising Sales Real-world use cases: Accuracy with purpose CTV awareness for cardiovascular therapies A cardiovascular brand is launching a CTV campaign to reach healthcare providers involved in treatment decisions. Using PurpleLab’s provider-level segments from the Experian data marketplace, a brand can activate audiences across brand-safe, streaming environments. This strategy enables meaningful engagement with prescribers while maintaining scale and compliance across CTV and complementary digital channels. Cross-device activation for high-impact health campaigns A biotech firm promoting a new therapy needs to reach patients who are likely to have a relevant condition, based on modeled audience segments. Using PurpleLab’s real-world patient segments, the advertiser activates across mobile, display, and CTV, with Experian’s identity graph ensuring household-level consistency across devices. Privacy and scale are preserved, while the brand ensures it’s not wasting impressions on ineligible or misaligned audiences. Closed-loop measurement, built for healthcare Beyond targeting, the PurpleLab–Experian integration empowers advertisers to measure real-world outcomes, not just digital proxies. By utilizing tokenization, Experian enables ad exposure data to be securely matched back to de-identified health events within PurpleLab’s platform. This means marketers can assess outcomes such as: Prescription lift among exposed vs. unexposed audiences Healthcare professional engagement and treatment initiation Patient adherence or follow-through behavior This type of closed-loop reporting is critical in pharma, where traditional metrics like clicks or impressions do not reflect business impact. Now, with token-based match-back, brands can see whether their campaigns are driving real results, securely and compliantly. Ready to reach the right patients and providers securely and at scale? Explore PurpleLab audiences in the Experian data marketplace and Audigent curated deals to activate clinically grounded, privacy-compliant segments across CTV, display, mobile, and more. Contact us Latest posts