
Our next segment in our Ask the Expert series dives into the importance of data enrichment and its benefits across connected TV (CTV) advertising. Ask the Expert features a series of conversations with product experts where we focus on topics that matter the most in AdTech. In our latest segment, Natalia Irmin, Director of Strategic Data & Media Partnerships at a4 Advertising, joins us to chat with Experian’s SVP of Sales & Partnerships, Chris Feo.
a4 is an advanced advertising and data company that offers audience-based, multiscreen advertising solutions for local and national advertising businesses.
In their conversation, Natalia and Chris review:
- The benefits of data enrichment
- First-party data enrichment across advertising
- Data enrichment in CTV advertising
- How Experian and a4 work together
What is data enrichment?
Data enrichment enhances first-party data sets using third-party data sources. This process involves merging first-party data from internal sources with data gathered from other internal sources or from external third-party sources.
Examples of data that can be part of the enrichment process include:
- Demographic information
- Contextual signals
- Behavioral patterns
- Interests
- Purchase-intent
The more you know about your customers, the better equipped you are to reach them where they are with the right message. By enriching your data, you can enhance your messaging, provide personalized offers, and establish a loyal customer base.
First-party data enrichment across advertising
Businesses are transitioning from cookie-based third-party targeting to first-party data enrichment solutions as a result of cookie deprecation. When data enrichment is paired with internal first-party data, you can generate a more holistic customer profile.
a4 has a rich set of first-party data, based on the subscriptions to their services. a4 uses first-party data enrichment across advertising in two ways:
- Measure performance using their viewership data
- Advise their customers on where they should focus their advertising efforts based on the customer’s viewing behavior
a4 supports the enrichment of their customers’ first-party data so they can get the most out of their insights.With Experian’s privacy-first approach, a4 can continue to rely on their first-party data while protecting personally identifiable information (PII).
Data enrichment in CTV advertising
CTV advertising refers to digital advertising that appears through a streaming service during a viewer’s video content, like a movie or TV show. CTV ad campaigns allow businesses to personalize their digital marketing messages while the viewer watches content on various platforms. CTV offers a highly measurable opportunity to increase brand awareness.
Benefits of data enrichment in CTV advertising
Data enrichment provides three key benefits that can enhance targeting, personalization, and campaign effectiveness in CTV advertising.
Understand your target audience
By using enriched data such as demographic information, viewing behavior, and interests, you can gain deeper insights into your target audience, refine your targeting strategies, and create highly personalized ad experiences. Data enrichment also enables better measurement and optimization of ad campaigns, maximizing ROI.
Integrate enriched data with other marketing channels
You can integrate enriched data into CTV with data from other marketing channels. This enables the creation of comprehensive and cohesive marketing strategies that provide consistent messaging and enhance cross-channel targeting.
Enhance the value of ad inventory
Data enrichment can also benefit content publishers and broadcasters by enhancing the value of ad inventory and providing more targeted and effective advertising opportunities.
Enabling your marketers to target specific audiences will result in improved campaign performance. Through data enrichment, you can increase return on your ad spend and boost the value of your publisher’s ad inventory. a4 and Experian can help your business attract additional demand with audience enrichment. a4 uses Experian’s vast offering of audiences and combines it with Experian’s Graph. This data can later be used to activate across a4’s parent company, Altice’s owned and operated properties, as well as beyond Altice’s own footprint via premium publisher partners.
How Experian and a4 work together
a4 and Experian have a long-standing partnership that enables a4 to enhance its data. Through our Consumer View and Consumer Sync products, a4 can add audience attributes to its subscriber and viewer data to precisely pinpoint the audience that its clients are targeting. Experian helps a4 in building a comprehensive customer profile, which helps expand the customer base for a4’s advertising clients.
We form partnerships, like we do with Experian, to enhance our data further, so that we can combine the power of the viewership and exposure data for those other attributes that clients might need.” – Natalia Irmin, Director, Data & Strategic Partnerships, a4 Advertising
Through Experian’s audience attributes and Graph, a4 can assist advertisers in targeting audiences beyond their usual reach, creating a better user experience. a4 can personalize experiences and promotions to prioritize customers with a higher likelihood of making a purchase. By tailoring messages and promotions to individual customer preferences, businesses can improve their advertising efforts and deliver them through their preferred channels.
Watch the full Q&A
Visit our Ask the Expert content hub to watch Natalia and Chris’s full conversation about data enrichment and its benefits across the advertising world. In the Q&A, Natalia and Chris also share their thoughts on the importance of first-party data enrichment, addressability, and measurability in CTV advertising.
About our experts

Natalia Irmin, Director, Strategic Data & Media Partnerships, a4 Advertising
Natalia Irmin is the Director of Strategic Data & Media Partnerships for a4 Advertising. With over 10 years of experience working with data in the Defense, Finance, and Advertising industries, Natalia currently leads the a4 Strategic Partnerships team in the development of advanced data and media products in support of the organization’s media planning, buying, and advanced analytics business. Natalia holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts from Tel Aviv University in Israel.

Chris Feo, SVP, Sales & Partnerships, Experian
As SVP of Sales & Partnerships, Chris has over a decade of experience across identity, data, and programmatic. Chris joined Experian during the Tapad acquisition in November 2020. He joined Tapad with less than 10 employees and has been part of the executive team through both the Telenor and Experian acquisitions. He’s an active advisor, board member, and investor within the AdTech ecosystem. Outside of work, he’s a die-hard golfer, frequent traveler, and husband to his wife, two dogs, and two goats!
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QSRs have emerged as superheroes during the pandemic, creating an entirely different consumer experience in record time by offering contactless delivery, curbside pick-up, and other innovations that have allowed them to stay open and operational when so many other businesses have shuttered. But as many states are still moving through their phased re-opening plans and more options become available to consumers, QSRs are challenged with keeping their momentum going. How can they continue to build on their success? The key is activation. Advertising on the right channels at the right time. The more QSRs can offer experiences that leverage the power of data to better speak to their customers and address their unique needs, the better chance they have of continuing to succeed in these unwieldy times. As we move into the fall and winter, and as more and more people look to QSR’s to help with their meal plans, consider the following: 1. Use data to create a more robust loyalty program. There’s no question consumers have plenty of QSRs to choose from and using a loyalty program is an excellent way to ensure they continue to view you as a preferred dining destination. But you might be surprised to learn how much of a difference it can make to your bottom line. PYMNTS reported that in 2019, Starbucks President and CEO Kevin Johnson shared how the company’s active mobile app rewards membership grew to 16.8 million users, which comprised 41% of sales in U.S. stores. The PYMNTS Restaurant Readiness Index also shows that 79.5% of QSR customers and 47.5% of QSR managers see loyalty programs as a feature that is important to a restaurant’s success. Now is a great time to review your loyalty program (or create a new one) and see if you can expand it to offer more perks, thereby enticing more customer interaction. A strong loyalty program should include a combination of your own customer data, enriched with third-party data for deeper customer insights, such as behavior, lifestyle and interests. 2. Make it easy for customers to order, purchase and pick-up with mobile ordering. Mobile ordering is no longer the wave of the future—it’s part of the new now. PYMNTS reported that Dunkin’ Brands CEO Dave Hoffmann noted on-the-go ordering experienced an average weekly sales increase of 25% year over year—and this growth was especially key in locations without a drive-through. For customers who want an easy option that allows them to order, pay and pick-up at curbside, mobile ordering is the ultimate in simplicity, and your data can help you determine who is most primed to take advantage of this option so you can push it directly to them. 3. Offer demographic and location-specific promos. The power of data can help you know a lot about your customers, from age and occupation to whether or not they have a family, how they spend their time, and how much of that time is spent at your competitor’s restaurant. This data can help you craft promotions that can speak directly to your consumer, ensure you’re advertising on the channels they prefer and frequent and get them in your door. When you know you cater to parents who are tired of a long day of homeschooling and work Zoom meetings, you can tailor and execute a promo campaign that speaks directly to their needs and deliver it to their preferred channel, encouraging them to skip cooking and order from you instead. Or maybe you have locations that are close to college campuses, allowing you to entice students with a two-for-one deal they just can’t pass up. And as offices start the slow process of opening back up, there’s an opportunity to welcome workers back to the neighborhood with a special curbside or delivery pick-up deal. 4. Ensure your customer knows your brand values. More and more, consumers are becoming conscious of who they spend their money with and why. As Longitude Design points out, this is something Ben & Jerry’s does exceptionally well, and their value message is spread across everything the brand does, from their scoop shops to their store-bought pints to their company-branded events. This is your opportunity to share what you value as a company and a brand, and how it aligns with your consumer’s lifestyle. Is your food sustainably sourced? Is your packaging environmentally friendly? Be transparent about your supply chain, share how you care for your employees, give some insight into the prep process behind your food, as these insights will help your consumer gain trust in you, which in turn creates loyalty. Social media is a great way to get the word out about your value-based operational initiatives. To learn more about how you can use data to build on and enhance the new customer QSR experience, visit our Restaurant Marketing Solutions page.

Healthcare marketers: Open enrollment starts November 1st. Are you ready? It’s that time of year again—time to promote your insurance plans to existing and potential members ahead of open enrollment. But do you know your members beyond the basics? Sure, you know their name, address, phone number and email address, but do you know what communication channels they prefer? Do you know their lifestyle, behaviors and interests? In order for member communications to be effective, they need to be data-driven—first and foremost. The problem is, the industry is fragmented—and so is its data. With individuals covered by both private and public insurance plans—many payers don’t have access to a complete and accurate view of members and their respective data. And as the industry continues to move toward digital transformation and embraces automation, organizations that aren’t leveraging data insights are in danger of missing out on the opportunity to create a more solid connection with members. Partnering with a third-party data provider like Experian to enrich your first-party data is the answer. With a reliable source of data, health plans can more easily identify members, deduplicate their profiles, and leverage accurate contact information and communicate on a personal, relevant, empathetic level. Here are 5 ways to attract new members and retain existing members: 1. Create more accurate personas for marketing needs: Whether we use your data or combine yours with ours, you can gain stronger member analysis for segmentation and modeling that can help you maintain current relationships or expand your outreach to acquire new members—and ensure the loyalty of both categories. 2. Ensure the accuracy of member data: With Experian’s identity and data solutions, you can rest assured that your member database is accurate and up to date to maximize contact rates and minimize errors. 3. Build strong communication channels with your members: Optimize your advertising efforts through preferred channels—and identify those communication channels—to effectively connect with your customers using our data identifying their lifestyle, interests, behaviors and more. 4. Understand more about your members’ needs and behaviors: We’ll help you keep your members healthy. What do your members do, need, prefer? How much can they afford for healthcare? How do they live? You could guess, or you can let unbiased data guide your decisions so you can better assist your members in their health care goals. 5. Create a better member experience: With data and insights, Experian can give you the information you need to enable a consistent member experience, allowing you to match your products in a way that complements your member’s needs and lifestyle. Experian cuts through the data overload by focusing on data that matters and drives actionable decisions. With Experian on your side, you’ll be able to leverage the largest consumer database. We’re here to help you to manage a wide range of marketing needs, including measuring your campaign impact and determining the best messages to use to connect with your audience. We can also assist with securely managing your data in a way that helps to ensure the accuracy of that data to give you the most up-to-date picture of your current member database. Ready to learn more about our healthcare marketing solutions for open enrollment? Complete our online form and an Experian Marketing Services representative will reach out to you soon.
