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
It’s been over a year since Google announced they’d be deprecating the third-party cookie and in that time there’s been a major focus on two types of cookieless identity solutions. Identity vendors and marketers are strategizing which of these two future solutions best fits their needs so they can achieve privacy-safe scale once third-party cookies are no longer available for use on Chrome. Let’s break down these solutions and the considerations marketers need to take into account when deciding what partners to move forward with in the future of identity resolution. Authenticated Traffic Solutions Authenticated traffic solutions (ATS) are a type of digital identification that asks the end-user to identify themselves via personal information, most commonly email address. Often, you’ll see self-authentication at the point of entry to a website that asks you to create an account or login immediately to access the content you are seeking. E-commerce sites use authentication to keep track of consumer purchases and inform advertising decisions for that customer; and publishers use it to tailor featured content, or, more importantly for this discussion, leverage it within the ad ecosystem for targeting. While authentication can provide very valuable user data for audience segmenting and targeting, it can be limited in scale for a single publisher to leverage and monetize on their own. That’s why some identity vendors have worked to integrate themselves within as many publisher authentication modules as possible, so that they can create an aggregate of scale for the ad ecosystem to tap into. But, even this isn’t going to deliver the reach marketers truly thirst for. Alternatively, Facebook has the scale for authenticated traffic, but they keep their data inside a walled garden, so the utility of those authenticated users is only valuable within the Facebook ecosystem. So how can authenticated traffic solutions increase scale to broaden the scope of identifiers they can collect and leverage? Hint: a few of the biggest players have already figured it out. It’s the single sign-on. Google is probably the largest purveyor of a single-sign on solution that can directly impact advertising capabilities. Can you think of a site you visit that doesn’t offer a sign-in with your existing Google account? It’s a short list. Google has integrated themselves into so many applications and publishers that “Login with Gmail” is just second nature (you pictured the Gmail logo when you read that, didn’t you?). Now, if you’re about to purchase something you found off an Instagram ad, or perhaps a retailer you buy from regularly, you’ve probably noticed options to proceed with your checkout via “Amazon pay” or “Apple pay”. These are also single-sign ons. You’re authenticating yourself through Amazon or Apple to that retailer in exchange for A- the safety and security that Amazon or Apple provide for your financial information and B- skipping the annoying process of manually entering personal information over and over again at point of sale. It’s starting to sound like there’s a lot of authenticated data out there isn’t it? Well, that’s true, but again, Amazon and Apple are walled gardens. Amazon is working diligently to build out their own ecosystem to leverage their content and retail channel data for a holistic offering. And Apple keeps user data very close to the chest, constantly limiting its utility for themselves and advertisers. So what is identity resolution doing about it? The Trade Desk announced their solution; Unified ID 2.0, which promises to leverage email authenticated identity for a truly scaled solution for publishers via Javascript through Prebid. By handing over UID2.0 to an independent unbiased organization like Prebid, The Trade Desk is creating instant scale and trust in their solution. Unauthenticated Traffic Solutions Unlike ATS, unauthenticated traffic solutions do not rely on a log-in to identify a user, but they also don’t rely on third-party cookies. Instead, unauthenticated solutions (UATS) leverage their existing streams of real-time data through Javascript on publisher sites or an SDK (software development kit used by apps). The type of information UATS solutions can collect via Javascript or SDK vary, but it can include IP address, user agent and device level info. But being able to read this information at the point of entry to a website does not make a quality identifier. The best unauthenticated solutions will have the ability to set or ingest this information into a unique ID through an infrastructure with incredibly fast speed that can process trillions of anonymous data signals across multiple channels and devices. And even more so, be able to interpret those signals into a profile using machine learning– all at the moment a user enters a domain. It sounds complicated because it is, but it also has a lot of potential. The identity space cannot rest solely on authenticated traffic solutions, because, as you can see, it could limit ownership and operability to just a few power players/walled gardens. This doesn’t help the larger ecosystem monetize and personalize ad inventory. The right unauthenticated solution, however, can unify cross-device individuals and households at scale, because they’re integrated on the broadest number of publishers/SDKs across platforms, have the best algorithms to build confident connections between identifiers, and are universally transactable across the most common sell and demand side platforms. Think of it as the perfect partner- speaking a common language that everyone in the ecosystem understands and acts on. Today more than twenty cookieless identifiers are available in market for the ad ecosystem, and Google hasn’t even announced a date of deprecation. It’s important to be on the lookout for differentiators like scale and precision. Most importantly, choosing a truly cross-device partner will be key, especially as more digital devices and IDs grow in adoption, like CTV has this past year. Taking advantage of both What we will come to find, once the third-party cookie is obsolete, is that choosing just one of these solution types, or partners, will be a disadvantage. The more the industry comes together to collaborate on solutions, the more apparent it is that both of them have value, and thus employing both solutions will give marketers the best opportunities. Tapad, now part of Experian, recently announced the launch of Switchboard; a module within our identity solution; The Tapad Graph, to create this agnostic interoperability for identifiers of all types, and choice and control for the ad tech vendors and marketers who want them. By instantly creating the ability to partner with multiple solutions, Tapad + Experian is ensuring that all use cases for the third-party cookie live on in our cookieless future. Get in touch
Tapad launches global privacy-safe solution to provide continuity in the absence of third-party cookies Switchboard, a module within The Tapad Graph, will connect emerging cookieless identifiers to traditional IDs, creating a more holistic view of the consumer and driving value exchange within the advertising ecosystem Tapad, part of Experian, a global leader in cross-device digital identity resolution, and a part of Experian, announced today the launch of Switchboard, a first-of-its-kind solution to help navigate the evolving cookieless landscape. Switchboard, a module within The Tapad Graph, will operate as a global, privacy-safe solution to provide continuity in the absence of third-party cookies by connecting new cookieless identifiers to traditional digital IDs for a comprehensive view of consumers and their digital touchpoints. Switchboard will enable interoperability across the growing number of these digital identifiers and the value exchange between publishers, content creators and consumers. Leading digital identity solutions partnering with Tapad, part of Experian at the launch of Switchboard include Unified ID 2.0, ID5, Lotame Panorama ID, BritePool, Retargetly IDx and Audigent Halo ID. Tapad, part of Experian plans to expand support to additional identity solutions on an ongoing basis. In addition to these identity solutions, early partners across the ecosystem include The Trade Desk, Amobee, Martin, ShareThis, Eyeota and Catalina. “This diverse group of launch partners and testing customers will prove that Switchboard is an important tenet for the future of identity resolution. We’re excited to be proactive in our approach to give marketers time to adapt new solutions and test their function in tandem with the third-party cookie, while continuing to give our customers flexibility and control,” said Mark Connon, General Manager of Tapad, part of Experian. “Facilitating access and usage of 1st party identifiers is crucial to help marketers prepare for the cookieless future. Thanks to Switchboard, ID5's cookieless IDs will be available to a wider audience of brands and agencies and enable them to run effective, data-driven campaigns beyond the third-party cookie,” said Mathieu Roche Co-founder & CEO of ID5. Switchboard provides value across the marketing and advertising ecosystem as the need for the ability to support multiple cookieless ID’s across ad tech increases throughout 2021. With a decade of expertise creating digital identity resolution products, Tapad, part of Experian is poised to solve this challenge through innovation and quality, privacy-safe data-driven solutions. “Interoperability is paramount for brand marketers, agencies, publishers and platforms if we want to support an open and free Internet and break free of the stranglehold of walled gardens,” said Pierre Diennet, Global Partnerships at Lotame. ”Lotame Panorama ID’s participation in Switchboard reflects our steadfast commitment to collaborating across and within the industry and providing value to all of its players.” “As advertisers continue to contemplate the future of identity, Amobee is proud to partner with Tapad, part of Experian on this next-generation solution to provide a comprehensive view of consumers,” says Bryan Everett, Senior Vice President of Global Business Development at Amobee. “With the imminent loss of cookies, advertisers must think creatively in order to respectfully engage consumers in a privacy-compliant way and Switchboard can play an important role in addressing their respective identity needs.” Tapad, part of Experian is welcoming identity solutions and Tapad Graph customer participation in Switchboard throughout 2021. Stayed tuned for more updates and information on Switchboard in the coming months. Get in touch
Adapt with Tapad, a part of Experian Leading browsers have made public announcements and technical deployments to reduce the digital advertising accessibility of third-party cookies for data collection, storage, and sharing due to growing privacy concerns. As a result, there has been growing momentum to find an alternative via cookieless IDs, with the intent to create a replacement that helps ensure continuity across the ecosystem. At Tapad we’ve chosen to approach the market with a solution that provides agnostic interoperability for these cookieless identifiers, so that marketers can continue to work with the identity providers of their choice while maintaining the most holistic view of consumers across digital touchpoints. Introducing switchboard Switchboard is a module within The Tapad Graph that leverages our core capabilities across machine learning and identity management to provide a connection between traditional digital identifiers and the new wave of cookieless IDs that will be utilized in the future. Customers of Tapad can take advantage of its broad ecosystem of identifiers to drive targeting and frequency capping strategies and enable detailed measurement and attribution post-deprecation of the third-party cookie. Our goal is to accelerate the adoption, scale, and utility of cookieless IDs with the release of the Switchboard module within The Tapad Graph, while maintaining an agnostic approach to the market. Switchboard for identity solutions In the evolving landscape agencies and marketers will need to invest, test, and analyze the best combination of cookieless ID partners to meet their objectives. The Switchboard module will increase the utility and value of the cookieless ID space in conjunction with other addressable IDs, by providing a layer of connectivity that will be natively missing with the deprecation of third-party cookies. Identity solutions at launch: Switchboard for graph customers For existing Tapad customers who leverage the Switchboard module in The Tapad Graph, it will provide a seamless way to facilitate interoperability while resolving identity back to a Household or Individual. By providing this translation layer, Tapad will take on the responsibility of encryption and decryption protocols where applicable, which will deliver added functionality to our customers. Tapad + Experian partners at launch: Use cases Resolve existing first-party data with new cookieless solutions through The Tapad Graph to minimize data loss Frequency cap at the Individual and Household level via Cookieless and traditional ID Reach consumers at scale across all touchpoints and IDs Build a more inclusive and holistic view of the consumer journey Run accurate and scalable measurement before and after the formal deprecation of third-party cookies in Chrome Map online data into offline activities Hear why industry leaders are adapting with Tapad + Experian As advertisers continue to contemplate the future of identity, Amobee is proud to partner with Tapad, a part of Experian, on this next-generation solution to provide a comprehensive view of consumers. With the imminent loss of cookies, advertisers must think creatively in order to respectfully engage consumers in a privacy-compliant way and Switchboard can play an important role in addressing their respective identity needs. — Bryan Everett | Senior Vice President of Global Business Development | Amobee Connecting offline and online shopper activity in a privacy-compliant way is fundamental to marketing effectiveness and determining return on ad-spend. That’s why we’re excited to be a launch partner for Tapad + Experian's Switchboard offering; it provides a unified solution for supporting the variety of proprietary and anonymous user ID standards required by advertising demand-side platforms today. — Brian Dunphy | SVP Digital Business and Strategic Partnerships | Catalina As the industry evolves, Tapad + Experian's Switchboard presents a privacy-safe solution that allows for the continued activation of data and an alternative to advertising within walled garden environments. We look forward to collaborating with Tapad and the industry as we collectively transition to support cookieless identity. — Don Lee |SVP of Global Platform Partnerships | Eyeota We are excited to participate in this proactive solution to the sunset of third-party cookies. Switchboard’s agnostic interoperability, with BritePool and other ID providers, will create high-value for marketers as they transition to the era of cookieless web advertising. — David J. Moore | CEO | BritePool Interoperability is paramount for brand marketers, agencies, publishers and platforms if we want to support an open and free Internet and break free of the stranglehold of walled gardens. Lotame Panorama ID’s participation in Switchboard reflects our steadfast commitment to collaborating across and within the industry and providing value to all of its players. — Pierre Diennet | Global Partnerships | Lotame At this pivotal moment in the industry, we are excited to be partnering with Tapad, a part of Experian on their cookieless initiative and making Retargetly IDx available into the Switchboard solution, providing global brands, platforms and publishers with a compliant, cookieless ID solution for the Latin American market; enabling them to target, reach and measure users at scale through the region. — Daniel Czaplinski | CEO and Co-Founder | Retargetly With Audigent’s Halo ID, we’re architecting a cookieless future where clients and partners have confidence in the actionability and interoperability of exclusive 1st party audiences, originated from some of the world’s leading publishers and creators. We see collaboration as being critical to a collective understanding of identity and Tapad, a part of Experian as a trusted partner with solutions such as Switchboard to support continuity for marketers’ addressability. — Drew Stein | CEO and Founder | Audigent Facilitating access and usage of 1st party identifiers is crucial to help marketers prepare for the cookieless future. Thanks to Switchboard, ID5’s cookie-less IDs will be available to a wider audience of brands and agencies and enable them to run effective, data-driven campaigns beyond the third-party cookie. — Mathieu Roche | CEO and Co-Founder | ID5 Addressing the current identity challenge requires transparency and collaboration. We are pleased to align ShareThis data with Tapad + Experian’s growing ecosystem. ShareThis data helps marketers evolve beyond the cookie to complete the picture. Tapad + Experian’s Switchboard offering will support ShareThis’s deep connections to clients and technology platforms, preserving and growing the accessibility of our data. — Michael Gorman | SVP Product and Business Development | ShareThis Get in touch