Note: This Ask the Expert was recorded prior to Experian’s acquisition of Audigent and discusses industry trends and how we’ve worked together in the past.
Adopting new strategies based on trust due to evolving privacy regulations and the gradual loss of traditional signals, like third-party cookies, is essential to successfully navigating the future of digital advertising. Advertisers and marketers are at a crossroads, facing the challenge of maintaining personalization and precision while respecting consumer expectations around privacy. To stay competitive, brands must adopt future-ready strategies that focus on trust, privacy-forward technologies, and scalable solutions.
In our latest Ask the Expert segment, recorded before Experian acquired Audigent, we explore how first-party data and advanced contextual audience targeting are two critical approaches for successfully navigating these changes. With insights from Greg Williams, President of Audigent, now part of Experian, and Crystal Jacques, VP of Sales at Experian, we discuss how these tools can empower your brand for long-term success.
First-party data as a cornerstone strategy
First-party data, a powerful tool for building meaningful connections with your audience, has emerged as a fundamental pillar of future-ready strategies. When collected and used effectively, it provides brands with a detailed understanding of consumer preferences and behaviors, enabling real-time campaign adjustments for maximum impact.
“Data has become part of every step of the digital advertising supply chain, and should be part of everybody’s buys… the more you can include data in your digital marketing, the better off and the more power you have.”
Greg Williams, President, Audigent
With the continual loss of signal, including third-party cookies, first-party data has proven to be key for brands to stay both competitive and privacy-compliant. Brands using first-party data are better positioned to overcome the challenges of signal loss. This data facilitates improved media targeting and personalized messaging, driving greater engagement and return on investment.
Contextually-Indexed Audiences build relevance
Experian’s Contextually-Indexed Audiences enable advertisers to target users based on their interests in real-time, without relying on cookies or mobile ad IDs. Machine learning analyzes and maps traffic from over two million websites, linking to Experian’s 2,400 audience segments. With added benefits like audience customization and flexible activation through Audigent’s private marketplaces (PMPs) or demand-side platforms, Experian is setting a new standard for scalable audience targeting.
For automotive advertisers, this could mean reaching consumers actively researching luxury electric vehicles on relevant sites. Unlike outdated methods, contextual targeting aligns the message with consumer intent, balancing high precision with consumer privacy.
Automotive success story
Audigent’s innovative solutions have delivered tangible results. Williams mentions how they helped an automotive brand achieve double the scale and triple their goal of driving test drives. This stands as a testament to the real-world effectiveness of contextual audience strategies and Experian’s role in executing them.
How to stay ahead of change
Here are five strategies to help your brand remain future-ready amid privacy challenges and signal loss:
- Prioritize first-party data: Build trust and improve targeting accuracy by relying on data that you own directly from your consumers.
- Test privacy-forward tools: Experiment with solutions like contextual targeting and Google’s Privacy Sandbox to future-proof your advertising.
- Strengthen identity framework: Create systems to securely manage and use data for cross-channel decision making.
- Use scalable tools: Partner with trusted providers to deploy solutions that adapt to changing industry standards.
- Stay proactive and flexible: Continuously evaluate trends and refine approaches to align with emerging consumer and regulatory expectations.
A deeper conversation
For additional insights, watch our full Q&A. Greg Williams and Crystal Jacques discuss the future of audience targeting, how first-party data reshapes marketing strategies, and how Experian and Audigent have collaborated in the past.
About our experts
Greg Williams, President, Audigent
Greg Williams is Audigent’s President, responsible for managing Audigent’s vast portfolio of ecosystem partners, enterprise sales, marketing, and client success. An innovator in programmatic ad buying, Williams co-founded MediaMath and was instrumental in building and scaling that company in the US and internationally. He led MediaMath’s international expansion in 2011 and grew that business from zero to a top revenue driver for the company in three years. During his 14 years at the company, Williams held global roles and built teams across every function of the organization — most notably leading business and market development, product development, and partnerships. Prior to co-founding MediaMath, Williams held senior positions at [X+1] (which was later acquired by RocketFuel), Nielsen, and Accenture.
Crystal Jacques, Head of Enterprise Sales, Experian
Head 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
In a previous blog entry, Ordering sushi and a lesson in embracing the contextual marketing mindset, I showcased a fictitious scenario that required complex data point integration to pull off. These kinds of programs can seem overwhelming given the three barriers that many organizations face when embarking on their contextual marketing journey: Marketing sophistication A brand’s own conventional mindset and the programs that support it Actionable data Lack of clean and accurate data that prohibits real-time “on the fly” interactions Technology Disparate systems that are unable to link information across repositories, channels and interactions; inability to automate interactions in real-time Regardless of the barriers, there are ways you can show customers you’re listening and provide contextual messages without “boiling the ocean.” Take, for example, the recent viral blue/black vs white/gold dress debate. As the conversation spread throughout Facebook and Twitter, brands like Dunkin’ Donuts and Tide tweeted these contextual messages: The tweets did not go unnoticed as thousands of followers retweeted, commented and favorited these messages. The contextual elements used in these messages — channel preference and breaking/relevant news — are easily accessible to any brand. While the brands had to act swiftly, executing these messages circumvented the three barriers listed above. On the flip side, addressing the barriers can allow a brand to build more sophisticated, targeted contextual messages, as shown in the below example. Here, Experian Marketing Services and technology partner Movable Ink helped Finish Line deliver this sale announcement that adjusts based on the date and time the customer opens the email. The message remains relevant via a countdown clock during the run of the sale, a “warning” when it’s about to end and an alternative message after the sale ends — all of which ensures that the message is relevant regardless of when it’s opened by its intended recipient. And combining more contextual data points, such as location and stock, Finish Line includes the countdown, a local map to the customer’s nearest location and up-to-the-minute inventory of available sizes. Contextual marketing enables modern enterprises to engage in customer-centric conversations that — like any meaningful relationship — deepen across time and future points of engagement. This is particularly true in an era when consumers are overwhelmed by untargeted and disruptive marketing messages. By contrast, contextual marketing is designed to seamlessly and usefully merge into the customer’s daily activity. Want to know more and how to get started? Download the eBook From campaigns to context: Making the move to contextual marketing.
With online video viewing at an all-time high and television networks and system providers increasingly making video content available to those who don’t pay for television, many are wondering if we’re on the cusp of a massive spike in cord-cutting numbers. In our recent Cross-Device Video Analysis, Experian Marketing Services found that that 7.3 percent of all U.S. homes are cord-cutters, meaning they have high-speed Internet but don’t pay for TV. And the pace is increasing. In the last year alone, one million more homes joined the cord-cutter ranks bringing the total to 8.6 million households. It should come as little surprise that cord-cutting is on the rise. As we reported in our video viewing habits post, 57 percent of all American adults and 75 percent of Millennials now watch some sort of digital video during a typical week with the smartphone being the most commonly used device for watching video either streamed or downloaded from the Internet. Consumers thinking about cutting the cord will find an industry increasingly working to remove barriers that typically stand between cord-cutters and programming from their favorite networks — in exchange for a small fee. For instance, CBS recently announced the launch of CBS All Access, a digital subscription service that provides live and on demand viewing of CBS programming. And Dish Network launched Sling TV, an over-the-top pay service that allows cord-cutters to stream live and recorded programming from networks like ESPN, Univision, CNN, HGTV and more. With HBO announcing an April launch of their digital-only streaming service, HBO Now, March may be the last month that many pay for cable or satellite. If the cord-cutting ranks are, in fact, about to swell, a common question is: by how much? Experian Marketing Services estimates that there are currently 13.8 million Americans — representing 5.6 million homes — who are prime to cut the cord. Many of those individuals already have one foot out the door, if you will, given that they are more likely than average to say that they watch less television today because of the Internet. They are also more likely to watch HBO and be fans of at least one major professional sport making them good targets for Sling TV and HBO Now. Given that many cord-cutters already pay for Netflix and/or Hulu Plus, the net savings to those on the fence may be smaller than they think once they add up the costs they’ll assume from piecing together, à la carte, the various subscriptions and downloads required to keep watching their favorite programs. Whether or not we’re on the cusp of a major spike in cord-cutting, the fact is that consumers are increasingly getting their video content from digital sources and marketers need to understand where, how, when and what consumers are watching to ensure that their video campaigns are optimized for today’s digital consumer. For more information about cord-cutters and cross-device video consumption, including consumer receptivity to digital video advertising, download the Cross-Device Video Analysis.
Advertising Age recently released their annual Marketing Fact Pack, featuring data from Experian Marketing Services that looks at habits of digital consumers. This post highlights some of these findings. In the 2015 AdAge Marketing Fact Pack, we featured stats on key marketing and consumer trends impacting the advertising industry. Highlights include the lifestyle of the digitally connected consumer, including the habits of smartphone and television users, household and personal use of smart devices and the choice between becoming a cord-cutter and staying connected. An estimated 7.3 percent of U.S. households (8.6 million homes) today are considered “cord-cutters,” meaning they have high speed Internet but no cable or satellite television service. That number is up from 4.5 percent of households (5.1 million homes) in 2010, a comparative increase of 60 percent. Despite the growing number of consumers who use digital devices to watch video (as opposed to viewing on a television), it has not been enough to overwhelmingly convince all households to cut the cord. Instead, it seems as if the ability to stream or download video directly to the television is what ultimately seals the deal. As streaming devices like Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and Google Chromecast become more common and as televisions themselves are increasingly connected to the Internet directly, we can only expect the number of cord-cutters to grow. To learn more about video viewing behaviors to improve your strategies for reaching digital consumers, register to join our upcoming webinar Online video: engaging consumers in a multi-screen world.