
Cookies are leaving us, but that doesn’t have to mean performance has to. That’s why Experian is taking the steps needed to future-proof identity in our Graph, including adding Unified ID 2.0 (UID2) from The Trade Desk.
Experian currently supports UID2 in our Graph outputs for demand-side platforms (DSPs). UID2 support in our Graph outputs will be available to all approved partners by December 2023.
In this blog post, we talk about why cookieless IDs, like UID2, that are coming to market because of cookie deprecation, are important, and how incorporating cookieless IDs into an identity graph can help you prepare for a cookieless future.
What are cookieless IDs?
Like cookies, cookieless IDs provide you with a comprehensive view of a consumer’s digital activity. Unlike cookies, identity providers produce cookieless IDs, using user-consented data and deterministic and probabilistic data signals (like hashed emails or mobile ad IDs).
Cookieless IDs are a newer identifier that allows the advertising industry to maintain our understanding of consumers’ digital actions, helping to ensure we continue to generate smart, data-driven insights, targets, activation strategies, personalized experiences, and measurement and attribution.
Why should you incorporate cookieless IDs into an identity graph?
Adding cookieless IDs to an identity graph allows for licensees of the graph to:
- Resolve the universal ID to a consolidated consumer profile and know which other digital IDs tie to the cookieless ID
- Establish a unified view of the consumer with a privacy-compliant ID
- Produce data-driven and informed advertising strategies that still drive results, without the use of cookies
Experian’s Graph
Experian’s Graph is one of the most robust and signal agnostic identity graphs in the market. Experian’s Graph supports most digital IDs, including cookieless IDs, such as ID5, UID2, and Hadron ID. When you license Experian’s Graph, you increase your ability to better understand the different digital IDs that tie to a household or individual. Additionally, with our cookieless ID support, you can continue to understand your consumer and their digital IDs in the cookieless world.
Why is it crucial to include UID2 support in Experian’s Graph outputs?
The Trade Desk is the largest, independent demand-side platform. They’ve created a cookieless ID, UID2, that they hope can power the advertising world to come across the open web. UID2 is an alternative solution to third-party cookies that when utilized in an identity graph, can offer a clearer picture of your consumer, enabling frequency controls and better management, across both digital and connected TV (CTV).
Approved DSPs can add UID2s to their Experian Graph, giving them access to one of the more trusted and prominent cookieless IDs in the market today. Additionally, DSPs can use this identifier to decide whether to bid on certain inventory or not, on behalf of their advertiser partner. And, if we hedge our bets, it will only grow in prominence and use.
While only available to approved DSPs today for use in the Experian Graph, the forthcoming encrypted UID2 token will provide this capability to the entire ecosystem, which allows us all to speak the same language and operate as efficiently as possible.
“We are excited to support UID2, one of the premier IDs to support the future of addressability across the open internet, in the Experian Graph. We continue to see the adoption of UID2 across the demand-side ecosystem, increasing addressability across growing channels like CTV and beyond. I am personally excited to see how this momentum continues to increase over the remainder of 2023 and into 2024.”
chris feo, svp, sales & partnerships, experian
Future-proof your identity strategy with Experian Graph and UID2
We’ve seen the impact that cookies have had on digital advertising and marketing. With the impending third-party cookie deprecation, you will need to adopt alternative cookieless ID solutions such as Unified ID 2.0. Experian is well-positioned to help you navigate this change, offering UID2 support in our Graph outputs for all approved partners by December 2023.
Take the right steps now to future-proof your identity strategy and discover lasting success even without cookies. Alongside Experian’s Graph solution, you can achieve resilience in an ever-changing world of digital marketing and advertising. Now is the time to get ready for a cookieless future. Connect with an Experian team member to learn more about our Graph capabilities today.
Latest posts

Identified in The 2021 Digital Advertising Trends Report published by Postclick, marketers are striving to improve and enhance their segmentation and targeting strategies in their digital ad campaigns. Carlos Lopez, SVP of Brand Planning at Digitas Health predicted that in 2021, the challenge will be to overcome the death of third-party cookies and still deliver a personalized advertising experience. It’s fair to say that his prediction will still be impacting marketers past 2021 with the delay of cookie deprecation. These goals along with the constantly changing digital landscape paint a challenging picture for even the most advanced marketers. Marketers can be prepared for the next era of digital marketing by finding the right mix of partners that offer privacy-safe, cookie-free solutions. Smart marketers will employ these solutions and compare these results with data from cookies. The Tapad + Experian Take The Tapad Graph enables brands, agencies, and ad tech platforms to identify and target individuals and households across their digital touchpoints. With this data, they can personalize messages across devices, measure and optimize throughout the customer journey, and then report back on conversions at the individual and household levels. Tapad, now part of Experian, leverages a machine learning algorithm that determines these connections at scale by using probabilistic models with authenticated, privacy-safe, real-time data. There are a myriad of cookieless IDs emerging in the marketplace, and it’s not likely going to be a one size fits all situation. In order to be prepared for the next era of digital marketing, marketers should diversify ID partners and be proactive with testing while the cookie is still around to benchmark against. With Switchboard, a module within The Tapad Graph, we’ve been able to develop connections between traditional digital identifiers (IP Addresses, MAIDs, CTV IDs) and the new wave of cookieless IDs (UID2.0, Panorama ID, ID5 ID) that will be utilized in the future. Here’s an example of what The Tapad Graph and Switchboard looks like at the Household level with various traditional digital identifiers and cookieless IDs. Get started with The Tapad Graph For personalized consultation on the value and benefits of The Tapad Graph for your business, email Sales@tapad.com today!

Marketers are under more pressure than ever before to prove ROI and efficiency of marketing activities in relation to business performance. On top of that, there are new privacy regulations and uncertainty around what new technologies will have to be implemented in order to replace the granular level targeting and measurement the industry historically has used third-party cookies for. It’s clear marketers are going to need the right tech stack and partners to continue to prove their team’s efficacy. We recently partnered with Forrester Consulting to evaluate the current state of customer data-driven marketing and surveyed over 300 global marketing decision makers at the brand and agency levels. We found that marketing is facing increased demands today, insights from the study include: Consumers expect brands to deliver engaging experiences across highly fragmented journeys. Seventy-two percent of decision-makers reported that customers demand more relevant, personalized experiences at the time and place of their choosing. Marketing runs on data, but the rules governing customer data usage are changing quickly. More than 70% of study participants stated that consumer data is the lifeblood of their marketing strategies, fueling the personalized, omnichannel experiences customers demand. These demands paint a challenging picture. Just as marketers are poised (and tasked) with delivering greater value to their organizations and customers, the ground rules are changing and threatening their ability to deliver. Indeed, 62% of respondents said that the forces of data deprecation will have either a “Significant” (40%) or “Critical” (21%) impact on their marketing strategies over the next two years. Effective identity resolution can help brands prepare for data deprecation challenges Marketers face a daunting landscape, but they can leverage the data, technology, and processes that comprise identity resolution to address business objectives, combat ecosystem complexity, and future-proof customer engagement efforts. By utilizing identity resolution, marketers will be able to match and connect multiple identifiers across devices and touchpoints. This allows for a cohesive, omnichannel view that enables brands to continue to deliver personalized and contextually relevant messages throughout the customer journey and without the use of cookies. The identity graph is the underlying infrastructure that defines connections between the numerous, fluid, and disparate identifiers created during moments of consumer engagement, turning disparate signals into addressable and actionable steps. These connections enable brands to bolster their ability to gain deeper customer insights and power audience building, attribution, and connected measurement. Identity resolution encompasses a wide range of capabilities that support an equally diverse set of marketing use cases. These include the targeting, personalization, and measurement of both known and pseudonymous audiences in the offline and digital worlds, which enables marketers to improve customer data management, drive more effective personalization, and gain insights and efficiencies through measurement across touchpoints. By taking the time to vet the privacy procedures and data collection processes of identity solutions you can reduce your regulatory risk and maintain customer trust. In an open-ended survey response, a marketer shared, “We’ve found that users are willing to volunteer data when they understand what it’s being used for and are asked for clear consent.” Finding the right partners to help navigate the changes The scramble to find an alternative to third-party cookies has slowed down since Google announced they will be delaying their cookie removal until late 2023. However, this gives marketers a unique opportunity to take advantage of the additional time and feel more prepared and confident in their solutions. With the delay, marketers can now test ID solutions and compare apples to apples with data from the third-party cookie while it’s still active and addressable. Test and find a solution that works now, so there are no surprises once cookies have finally made their way out the door in 2023. At Tapad, a part of Experian, we’ve developed a solution that provides agnostic interoperability for the myriad of cookieless identifiers emerging in the market. As a new module in the Tapad Graph, Switchboard will connect traditional digital identifiers to cookieless IDs to support the entire ad ecosystem with privacy-safe future-proof identity resolution. Get started with The Tapad Graph For personalized consultation on the value and benefits of The Tapad Graph for your business, email Sales@tapad.com today!

Identity is being constrained, forcing the industry to rethink the way it has operated for 27 years. Industry, regulatory, technology and data trends are leading to a fundamental shift in the way that data is permissioned, accessed, and used for marketing purposes. How the industry defines digital identity moving forward, consumer trust and transparency need to be at the forefront. We, as an industry, have the opportunity to build a more effective advertising framework that puts consumers and data privacy at its core, a framework that won’t rely on a single prevailing identifier. That approach requires all of us to be upfront and transparent about our data practices and usage and make it easy for consumers to opt-out of the use of their information for advertising and marketing solicitations. We, at Experian, also believe that there are a lot of ways to improve the experience for consumers, who are becoming more aware and apprehensive of giving away their data. We believe we can ease the minds of consumers and work within these new constraints by offering better controls and practices around the ways data is shared and utilized. There will be new approaches that come to the market as well that include modeled, non-identifiable information, cohorts, contextual