The AdTech industry is undergoing rapid changes as it adjusts to the impacts of data deprecation and ever-changing privacy regulations. At the same time, there are fears of a potential economic downturn. How should you handle marketing in a recession? What should your marketing mix look like? In this blog post, we’ll cover how to navigate this uncertainty and three essential ingredients for your marketing mix.
First, we’ll look at the complexity and uncertainty facing marketers.
Turbulence with Twitter
After Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover in October 2022, half of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers left the platform and started to seek out alternatives.
The retail media boom
In the next four years, Forrester Research projects that U.S. retail media ad sales will double to reach 85 billion by 2026.1
Most of this growth is catalyzed by CPG and consumer electronic brands that have a scarcity of zero- and first-party data; they need more media closer to the point of purchase, especially as CFOs are scrutinizing budgets.
Consumption continues to fragment
It’s becoming harder than ever to reach the right person, at the right time, predict their intent, and get a 360-degree view of your customer.2
Data deprecation is top of mind
According to Forrester Research, updating their data strategy to address data deprecation is the number one priority for marketers. Addressing data deprecation is also a priority for consumers, who increasingly feel that audience targeting is more intrusive than beneficial.3
Data deprecation affects identity solutions
Third-party data and mobile ad IDs (MAIDs) are the connective tissue for identity solutions. As we see those signals go away, there are fewer linkages to resolve identity and it’s leading to a rise in fragmented, duplicated, and shallow identity.
Recession fears
In addition to everything happening in AdTech, there are also fears of a possible recession. According to Forrester, 40% of Gen Z and 41% of Millennials believe fears of an upcoming recession are greatly exaggerated. On the other hand, only 24% of Gen X and 12% of Baby Boomers agree.4
Navigate uncertainty and marketing in a recession
With the current macroeconomic conditions, data deprecation, and fragmented consumption in mind, what should your strategy look like for marketing in a recession? Forrester recommends three strategies:
- People-led planning
- Test creative
- Optimize for marginal costs
People-led planning
Planning doesn’t have to be fragmented. Map offline and online media exposures to consumer decision journeys. Strategies like lifetime value (LTV) driven audience segmentation to correlate awareness at top of the funnel layered with demand generation exposures harvested later in the funnel. To do this, it’s crucial to work with providers that give you visibility into the audience buyer’s journey to awareness, intent, consideration, and purchase, all the way through to loyalty.5
Test creative
Make your creative work harder for you. Apply the same rigor with your creative that you applied to segmentation. Utilize multivariate testing to identify creative that is winning or losing. When you understand how each variable performs, you can scale the variables with creative optimization to have a material impact on performance.
Optimize for marginal costs
Optimize for marginal costs of acquisition, not just the average. Adjust for incrementality – what is the cost to acquire one more customer, rather than the average cost of acquisition.
Find the right marketing mix in a recession
With these changes in mind, how can you find the right marketing mix in a recession? We can show you the way.
You can create the right marketing mix with three key ingredients:
- Audiences
- Identity
- Activation
Let’s explore each ingredient to start you down the path toward marketing campaign success.
Audiences: Know your customer
The first ingredient to add to your marketing mix in a recession is your audience. Knowing your customer is key to targeting the right audiences successfully. Data-driven targeting can help you find your best audiences based on demographics, modeled lifestyles, and behaviors to improve marketing campaign performance.
Not sure where to start when it comes to developing your target audience strategy? We can help. We track digital usage of our data used by advertisers and identified the top four digital audiences that advertisers purchased over the last four years.
Four digital audiences to consider
Marketing strategies are only as strong as the data foundation they’re built on. The top four digital audiences that advertisers are purchasing from Experian include:
- Demographics
- Behavioral
- Modeled Lifestyles
- Custom Audiences
Demographics
Examples include age, gender, relationship status, living situation, life experience, and employment.
Behavioral
This audience allows marketers to identify households that are more likely to engage in certain activities or belong to certain groups.
Modeled Lifestyles
Experian’s Mosaic® USA segmentation. This is a household-based consumer lifestyle segmentation system that classifies all U.S. households and neighborhoods into 71 unique types and 19 overarching groups, providing a 360-degree view of consumers’ choices, preferences, and habits.
Custom Audiences
This is an audience blended from multiple sources or derived from first-party look-alike modeling.
Changes in digital audience strategies
Over the last four years, Modeled Lifestyles and Custom Audience purchases represented the smallest share of digital activation, while Behavioral and Demographic segments were more popular with advertisers.
When the U.S. rolled out the COVID-19 vaccine, consumers became more active. People were shopping in stores, returning to the gym, and taking trips that they had postponed during the height of the pandemic. Marketers turned to higher compositions of Demographic and Modeled Lifestyles to reach these audiences between April and December of 2021.
Sustained growth in Demographic audience activation could suggest a move back to tried and true audience strategies as signals continue to decline and amid evolving regulation. With economic uncertainty, marketers return to what they know. Traditional targeting methods like Demographics and Modeled Lifestyles are the baseline of many marketing strategies and we predict that we will continue to see marketers activating against these data sets.
Download our 2023 digital audience trends and predictions report to discover our full insights on how digital activation has changed and where we’re headed.
Identity: Understand the customer journey
Identity resolution is the next ingredient that you should add to your marketing mix in a recession. It should be a foundational element of every marketer’s strategy.
What is identity resolution? In the simplest terms, identity resolution is the process of matching different devices, IDs, and touchpoints back to a single person. Identity resolution expands marketers’ addressability and reach of their target audience and helps inform and measure accurate customer journeys.
Identity resolution challenges
Identity resolution faces two main challenges:
- Making the data actionable. Humans are complex. We have behaviors that change based on our current social groups and life events, we use dozens of internet-connected devices in a single day, and we exhibit distinct behaviors that happen online and in the physical world. This means marketers have mounds of data being collected from different channels based on that dynamic behavior of people, making it feel impossible to organize the data in a way that makes it feel actionable, know how it ties back to real humans, and ensure they’re doing it in a responsible and compliant way.
- Signal loss. Marketers continue to lose important signals that they’ve previously been able to rely on to inform their next move. Signals are being lost as our industry places more privacy regulations and restrictions on what can be tracked and as consumers themselves change behaviors to protect their privacy.
As consumer behaviors continue to change and signals disappear, identity resolution gets exponentially harder.
Expand addressability and reach with identity resolution
Data deprecation adversely affects identity solutions, but identity resolution should be a key ingredient in your marketing mix. Identity resolution ensures that consumers experience more relevant products, offers, and messaging – allowing you to reap the ROI benefits of hitting consumers at the perfect point in their journey.
Finding an identity resolution partner
When selecting an identity resolution partner, you should understand the data and processes that are implemented behind the scenes. It’s important to know:
- What makes up their consumer database?
- How fresh is their data?
- What identifiers can they match?
- How do they protect consumer privacy?
At Experian, we’re rooted in deterministic offline data which creates a stable foundation. We then layer in digital and behavioral touchpoints. We have decades of experience managing consumer data safely. We have insights on 250 million individuals, three billion devices, and one trillion device signals. Our databases evolve as quickly as the human behavior powering them does.
Our approach to identity resolution is open and agnostic. This means we can collect and ingest nearly all available offline and online identifiers. We can do this in all types of environments, including connected TV (CTV), mobile, and cookieless. We have two types of identity resolution:
- Offline
- Digital
This ensures we control how known and anonymous data points are connected for consumer privacy purposes.
Identity resolution in action
Our depth of data gives our clients access to see the whole human and gain the context around singular data points.
Let’s walk through an example of our identity resolution capabilities.
Challenge
Our TV media platform client needed to measure the effectiveness of an ad campaign they were running on behalf of a leading consumer electronics brand. The TV platform wanted to be able to accurately report on which consumers made a purchase after seeing the brand’s TV commercial on their platforms.
Solution
Using our digital identity resolution services, our client could capture online purchases made on the brand’s website and link them back to a consumer profile. In addition to online transactions, our client used our offline resolution services to resolve email addresses of consumers that purchased offline, using warranty registration details.
With online and offline purchase data now resolved back to an individual ID, we also performed identity resolution on viewers in their TV subscriber files that had also been exposed to the TV commercial. This allowed us to identify subscribers that had both seen the ad and purchased a product.
We provided our client with a packaged report that they could white-label and pass along to the brand.
Results
By providing this attribution reporting to the brand, the TV platform could validate the ROI spent on their platform. The brand was extremely satisfied with the results, and they transitioned the one-off TV commercial into an ongoing campaign and purchased quarterly measurement. This led to solid recurring revenue for the TV platform.
Activation: Experiment and measure the impact
The third and final ingredient to finding the right marketing mix in a recession is activation. Experimentation is the best way to determine which channels work best for your business and provide the most ROI.
Demand-side platforms (DSP), video platforms, and sell-side targeting are three important activation channels that you should consider experimenting with.
Demand-side platforms
We continue to see increased demand for environments where alternative identifiers are being transacted (like DSPs and video). Social channels are decreasing; this can be attributed to changes in privacy, security, and concerns around brand safety.
Amazon’s DSP is catching up with Google and Meta to become a top ad platform.
Video platforms
Digital video and other video channels like over-the-top (OTT) and CTV will continue to grow. Digital video will capture the most ad spend in 2023 (22.4% in 2023 vs 19.3% in 2022). Because of this, advertisers are placing bigger bets on the combination of addressable and CTV.
Sell-side targeting
Data sharing relationships will become strongest on the sell-side as we move toward consented first-party data. Ad dollars are shifting to channels that use the sell-side approach, like retail media and CTV.
Sell-side targeting enables brands to access large amounts of inventory across publishers and retailers. By getting closer to the ad inventory, advertisers can future-proof their strategies by having more access to better data signals. Direct relationships like these will be necessary as privacy regulations increase and signal loss continues.
We can help you find the right marketing mix in a recession
Now is the time to be opportunistic. Gaining share of voice during a downturn is cost-effective. Proactive marketing builds pent-up demand.
Delivering the right message in the right place at the right time means truly knowing your prospects and customers as individuals. At Experian, we bring you the highest-resolution picture of people, so you and your customers can connect with confidence.
You can turn prospects into customers with the right audience. By understanding your customers better, you can find more like them. Together we can power better results.
Find the right marketing mix
Check out our webinar, “Find the right marketing mix with rising consumer expectations.” Guest speaker, Nikhil Lai, Senior Analyst from Forrester Research, joined Experian experts Erin Haselkorn and Eden Wilbur. Watch the recording to learn:
- New data on the complexity and uncertainty facing marketers
- Consumer trends for 2023
- Recommendations on finding the right channel mix and the right consumers
Sources
- 2022 Retail Media Ad Sales Forecast, US. Forrester Research, Inc. 2022.
- Forrester Analytics Consumer Technographics® Technology, Media, and Telecom Topic Insights 1 Survey. Forrester Research, Inc. 2020.
- CMO Pulse Survey. Forrester Research, Inc. July 2021.
- Forrester’s Consumer Energy And Retail Online Survey. Forrester Research, Inc.
- People-Led Planning Solves Customer Problems to Drive Growth. Forrester Research, Inc. August 2, 2021.
Latest posts
It's almost the start of a new year, so it's time to plan your 2025 marketing strategy. One-third of U.S. adults planned to make a New Year's resolution in 2024, with adults under 30 being the most likely to do so. From living healthier lifestyles to traveling more often, there is an opportunity to capture customers with well-targeted messaging. But how do you know which audiences are most interested in these goals? In this blog post, we’ll reveal audience segments designed for you to reach the most relevant shoppers for your New Year’s resolutions campaigns according to shoppers' goals and resolution categories. You can find the complete audience segment name in the appendix. Start the year strong with Experian's audience insights With the New Year almost upon us, it’s the perfect time for a fresh start. Utilize Experian’s syndicated audiences to ensure your marketing messages resonate with your ideal customers. 2,400+ syndicated audiences powered by marketing data ranked #1 in accuracy by Truthset offers advertisers the ability to reach people based on demographic, geographic, and behavioral attributes. Our audiences span 15 data categories including auto, retail purchases, lifestyles and interests, financial, and travel. Audiences are available on-the-shelf on 30+ major ad platforms, including TV, social, and programmatic, or distribute them to 200+ media platforms. Five New Year's resolution audience categories to embrace this new year There are many different types of New Year's Resolutions that people set come January 1st. Here are five common New Year's Resolutions: Healthy habits Get organized Explore new experiences Live life to the fullest New Year’s budgeteers Let's break down each resolution category and which audiences you can use to target consumers based on their New Year’s resolutions. Healthy habits A significant portion of consumers set their sights on adopting healthier lifestyles and maintaining newfound habits. Target audiences could include those who have recently purchased gym memberships and are shopping at health stores, demonstrating a commitment to their resolutions. Here are five audience segments that you can activate to target consumers focused on healthy habits in the new year: NEW! New Year's Health/Fitness/Gym Membership Shoppers NEW! Frequent Gym Goers Vitamins/Supplements Shoppers New Year's Food/Healthy Food Shoppers New Year's Vitamins/Diet Supplement Shoppers By strategically targeting these segments, your marketing efforts are more likely to resonate with those determined to make a year of lasting, healthy change. Get organized Many consumers pledge to declutter and get organized. One key target audience could consist of those who have recently purchased organizational tools or storage solutions. Additionally, consider reaching out to homeowners or individuals in the midst of a major life change, such as moving or expanding their families, as they often seek ways to simplify and organize their spaces. Here are seven audience segments that you can activate to target consumers focused on getting organized in the new year: NEW! Furniture and Home Decor: Deals Discounts Affordable High Spend Spenders Shoppers NEW! Post Holiday Shoppers Household Goods: Frequent Spenders Home Improvement/DIY: Frequent Spenders Furniture & Home Decor In Store: Frequent Spenders Garden & Landscaping Stores: Frequent Spenders Hardware & Home Improvement Stores: In Store Frequent Spenders To expand or reach new audiences, you can layer in purchase predictors to reach those who are likely to spend on home maintenance and improvement products or are expanding their families. Home Maintenance and Improvement Explore new experiences Many consumers want to embark on a journey of self-improvement by exploring new experiences, whether it's picking up a new hobby or visiting a place they've never been. One primary target audience could be vacation and leisure travelers, as they often seek new destinations and opportunities to make the most of their seasonal getaways. Additionally, sports enthusiasts are always looking to boost their outdoor adventures through fresh experiences and specialized equipment. Here are six audience segments that you can activate to target consumers focused on exploring new experiences in the new year: Play Golf Pickleball Enthusiast Wilderness Sports and Camping Enthusiasts Activities: Camping Summer Airline Travel Summer Travel: Vacation/Leisure Live life to the fullest A considerable number of individuals make resolutions aimed at embracing life to the fullest. One prime target audience includes those who have recently booked travel experiences or adventures, showcasing their commitment to exploring new horizons. Additionally, consider reaching out to individuals who are likely to visit sports stadiums and arenas. Here are seven audience segments that you can activate to target consumers focused on living life to the fullest in the new year: NEW! Budget Savvy Air Travelers Air Travel: Frequent Spenders Cruises: Frequent Spend NFL Stadium Visitors Ski Resort Visitors Vacation/Leisure Travelers: Weekend Getaways Culinary Experience To expand or reach new audiences, you can layer in purchase predictors to reach consumers who are likely to spend on travel and travel-related products. Travel New Year's budgeteers As the new year begins, many consumers are rethinking their finances and seeking smarter ways to spend and save. These audiences are focused on achieving their financial goals by utilizing budgeting tools, finding flexible payment options, and taking control of their debt. With financial wellness top of mind, they are ready to explore solutions that align with their resolution to be more financially savvy. Here are seven key audience segments that reflect the mindset of consumers eager to make 2024 a year of financial empowerment: In market for Buy Now Pay Later In market for Mortgage Refinance In market for Auto Loan Refinance Credit Card High Utilization Likely to Transfer Credit Card Balance Loyal Rewards Enthusiast, Low Credit Card Balance Secure, Savvy Credit User, High Home Equity Balance We can help you reach consumers in the new year Connect with consumers pursuing their New Year's resolutions to kick off 2025. Whether your audience seeks to embrace healthy habits, get organized, explore new experiences, budget their personal finances, or live life to the fullest, Experian Marketing Data provides a solid foundation for targeting, enrichment, and activation As we get ready for 2025, let the power of Experian’s data-driven insights guide your marketing strategies, helping consumers turn their resolutions into reality. Connect with our audience team You can activate our syndicated audiences on-the-shelf of most major platforms. For a full list of Experian’s syndicated audiences and activation destinations, download our syndicated audiences guide. Explore our other seasonal audiences that you can activate today. View now Appendix Here are the complete audience segment names (taxonomy path) for all audience segments discussed in this blog post. Healthy habits NEW! Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > New Year's Health/Fitness/Gym Membership Shoppers NEW! Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Health and Fitness > Frequent Gym Goers Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Health and Fitness > Vitamins/Supplements: Vitamins/Supplements Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > New Year's Food/Healthy Food Shoppers Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > New Year's Vitamins/Diet Supplement Shoppers Get organized NEW! Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Home Furnishings > Furniture and Home Decor: Deals Discounts Affordable High Spend Spenders Shoppers NEW! Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Holiday Shoppers: Post Holiday Shoppers Purchase Transactions > Household Goods > Frequent Spenders Purchase Transactions > Home Improvement/DIY > Frequent Spenders Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Home Improvement & DIY > Furniture & Home Decor In Store: Frequent Spenders Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Home Improvement & DIY > Garden & Landscaping Stores: Frequent Spenders Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Home Improvement & DIY > Hardware & Home Improvement Stores: In Store Frequent Spenders Purchase Predictors > Shoppers All Channels > Home Maintenance and Improvement Explore new experiences Lifestyle and Interests (Affinity) > Activities and Entertainment > Play Golf Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Sporting Goods, Apparel > Pickleball Enthusiast Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Outdoor Activities > Wilderness Sports and Camping Enthusiasts Travel Intent > Activities > Camping Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Summer Airline Travel Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Summer Travel: Vacation/Leisure Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Travel > Vacation/Leisure Travelers: Summer Trips Live life to the fullest NEW! Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Budget Savvy Air Travelers Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Travel > Air Travel: Frequent Spenders Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Travel > Cruises: Frequent Spend Mobile Location Models > NFL Stadium Visitors Mobile Location Models > Ski Resort Visitors Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Travel > Vacation/Leisure Travelers: Weekend Getaways Travel Intent > Activities > Culinary Experience Purchase Predictors > Shoppers All Channels > Travel New Year’s budgeteers Financial > In Market > Buy Now Pay Later Financial FLA Friendly > In Marketing Mortgage Refinance Financial FLA Friendly > In Market Auto Loan Refinance Financial FLA Friendly > Credit Card High Utilization Financial FLA Friendly > Likely to Transfer Credit Card Balance Financial Personalities > Credit Card Financial Personality > Loyal Rewards Enthusiast, Low Credit Card Balance Financial Personalities > Home Equity Financial Personality > Secure, Savvy Credit User, High Home Equity Balance Latest posts
Brands are increasingly focused on offering personalized experiences while respecting consumer privacy. Addressability enables them to reach specific audiences with relevant messages, and personalization crafts unique content that aligns with each audience's interests and needs. By combining these strategies, brands can create more relevant and effective marketing campaigns. With new regulations and signal loss reshaping the landscape, alternative identifiers like the ID5 ID and The Trade Desk's Unified I.D. 2.0 (UID2) are gaining importance. These tools give advertisers a more holistic view of consumers across channels, enhancing personalization and addressability even as traditional third-party cookies lose relevance. To shed light on this topic, we interviewed experts from Audigent, Basis Technologies, CvE, ID5, MiQ and others. They shared insights on navigating privacy, utilizing new identifiers, and enhancing personalization with consent. Drawing from their perspectives, we've identified five considerations to help brands adapt and succeed in this evolving landscape. 1. Embrace a privacy-centric approach With the increasing focus on consumer data protection, prioritizing privacy in your addressability efforts is essential. Implement strict data guidelines to protect personally identifiable information (PII) and maintain compliance with state-specific regulations. To achieve this, empower consumers by providing clear and transparent choices about data sharing and honoring their preferences. Avoid targeting based on protected categories or sensitive information. By adopting a privacy-first mindset, you can build consumer trust while still delivering relevant advertising experiences. “It's important to champion consumer privacy and the free internet. We need to strike a balance between the two. This balance is essential for our jobs, the economy, news, politics, and all the valuable content and information we rely on.”Drew Stein, Audigent 2. Personalize with consent Consumers are more willing to share their information when they see clear benefits. In fact, over half of shoppers—and two-thirds of Gen X and Millennials—express a desire to receive holiday shopping deals directly from their preferred brands1. By offering value through loyalty programs, special offers, or interactive platforms, you can personalize experiences without compromising privacy. To implement this strategy, encourage consumers to share their preferences and needs by being transparent and giving them control over their data. This approach builds trust, empowers your audience, and enhances personalization. “Building personalization based on the data consumers have consented to share should lead to a positive experience that drives better engagement because it's relevant to them.” April Weeks, Basis Technologies 3. Personalize with contextual targeting Contextual targeting involves delivering ads based on the content users are currently engaging with rather than user identifiers. By focusing on personalization through contextual targeting and dynamic content, you can align your strategies with your audience's real needs and interests. This approach allows advertisers to reach consumers on websites with more visitors matching the demographics, behaviors, or interests they want to target. “Personalization absolutely can thrive. We have various solutions, all utilizing IDs for targeting and personalization. Beyond that, we can also personalize using context, geo-contextual data, and creative strategies.” Georgiana Haig, MiQ 4. Use alternative identifiers As advertisers move beyond third-party cookies, exploring alternative identifiers offers reliable means to connect with consumers. Options like email addresses or device IDs provide direct connections, improving targeting accuracy. Utilize identity graphs to link different signals and identifiers to establish strong ties to individual users or households. This approach maintains, and can even enhance, your ability to reach the right audience and measure campaign performance. “It's not just about maintaining addressability. It's about massively improving addressability. When we run tests with some of our clients, they're seeing 30, 40, 50, 60% incremental reach by using ID5 versus cookies.” Mathieu Roche, ID5 5. Build partnerships Navigating the complexities of addressability doesn't have to be a solo effort. Partnerships between brands, publishers, and tech providers can lead to innovative solutions that benefit everyone. Consider engaging in data partnerships to access new audience segments without maintaining extensive data. Collaborations focused on your tech stack can enhance your ability to deliver personalized content effectively and at scale. “The rise of second-party data partnerships is going to be an interesting trend over the next couple of years. And if you need mass scale across the world, I think that's a much more cost effective and scalable way to do it.” Paul Frampton, CvE Steering toward success The future of addressability and personalization hinges on your ability to adapt to the changing privacy landscape while delivering meaningful, personalized experiences. By focusing on these five key considerations, you can navigate the complexities of modern advertising, build stronger relationships with consumers, and drive sustainable growth. Connect with our addressability experts Footnote Online survey conducted in June, 2024 among n=1,000 U.S. adults 18+. Sample balanced to look like the general population on key demographics (age, gender, household income, ethnicity, and region). Latest posts
Originally appeared on VideoNuze Connected TV (CTV) is a leading platform in digital advertising, combining the precise targeting of digital ads with the broad reach and storytelling power of traditional TV. This creates an immersive experience that offers full-funnel marketing results. As consumer time spent watching CTV has doubled over the past five years and linear TV viewing patterns have shifted, advertisers now see CTV as essential for reaching and engaging audiences. Of those CTV users, viewers increasingly choose to watch content with ads. By 2025, free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) viewers will increase to 49% of CTV users, further highlighting the opportunity for marketers to captivate audiences in ways standard digital display ads can't match. With the explosion of consumer time spent and advertising dollars following, making CTV more addressable and targeted requires a combination of identity and audience. Historically, the IP address has been the most popular way to target a household with a CTV (e.g., LG, Samsung, Vizio device) or streaming platform (e.g., Disney+, Paramount+, Roku, Amazon Prime, etc.). As IP addresses continue to fluctuate in terms of durability, consistency, and type, including the increased adoption of IPv6, we have seen a new incumbent enter the CTV ecosystem: Unified ID 2.0 (UID2). UID2 stands out as a particularly valuable tool for CTV advertisers. It provides a standardized way to identify and target users across CTV and traditional channels like display and mobile while respecting consumer privacy. Given that purchases might not occur on CTV, UID2's ability to link ad exposure on CTV to conversions on other devices is crucial for demonstrating a CTV campaign's true impact. Authenticated audiences are key to CTV's appeal A significant advantage of CTV is its high rate of logged-in, authenticated users. This provides marketers with reliable first-party data for targeting and measurement purposes. UID2 benefits from this since it's a universal identifier based primarily on first-party data, such as people’s email addresses and phone numbers. Authenticated viewers can also be connected across different devices, enabling marketers to understand the full customer journey, which helps attribute conversions more accurately to CTV ads. Key advantages of CTV for digital marketers Superior viewing experience: Larger screens and a captive audience watching high-quality on-demand content Authenticated users: Enables precise audience targeting, more personalized ad experiences, and enhanced cross-device attribution Value exchange: Viewers get cost-effective content with personalized ads, leading to higher engagement "Authenticated viewers and universal IDs like UID2 are revolutionizing CTV advertising, enabling the effective delivery of personalized content and ensuring strong engagement for marketers; Paramount is committed to optimizing across platforms and will continue to utilize tools and advancements that maximize reach for our partners and improve the user experience for our viewers."Travis Scoles, Executive Vice President, Paramount Advertising The role of universal IDs in CTV advertising Universal IDs, like UID2, play a critical role in CTV by ensuring consistent user identification across platforms while respecting privacy. Adoption of UID2 is gaining traction in the TV industry, with brands such as AMC Networks, Disney, Dish Media, FreeWheel, NBCUniversal, Roku, and Paramount integrating it into their digital advertising ecosystem. As authentication increases across traditional digital and mobile apps, especially CTV, universal IDs like UID2 enable cross-device and cross-channel identity strategies without cookies. This is especially important as traditional identifiers like third-party cookies and IP addresses face an uncertain future. Better understand and reach your audience with identity graphs For CTV ad spending to catch up to time spent with CTV, the industry must use these authenticated signals and universal IDs. Identity graphs, like Experian’s, integrate various identifiers (e.g., universal IDs, CTV IDs, IP addresses), allowing CTV platforms to understand relationships between households, individuals, and devices. This understanding enables: Publishers using universal IDs can make advertising on their platform more addressable, which will lead to higher demand. Marketers can achieve greater precision with cross-device targeting, cross-channel frequency management, and more holistic measurement since conversions often happen on non-CTV devices. Viewers receive a more personalized ad experience (without seeing the same ad repeatedly), which will increase engagement with a marketer's campaign. Watch our Ask the Expert video with The Trade Desk to deepen your knowledge on CTV advertising and UID2. Watch the video here Latest posts