
Have you wondered how the shift toward real-time data is reshaping the way companies connect with consumers? Traditional methods of third-party data collection and demographic targeting are being replaced by more privacy-conscious approaches. In our next Ask the Expert segment, we explore how Experian and Captify’s partnership is harnessing the power of real-time onsite search data to enhance personalized advertising, address identity fragmentation, and provide valuable insights for navigating modern advertising challenges.
We’re joined by industry leaders, Amelia Waddington, Chief Product Officer at Captify, and Chris Feo, Experian’s SVP of Sales & Partnerships. In this segment, they discuss the complexities of identity and the innovative use of real-time data in digital advertising. Watch the full Q&A below to learn more about these topics and discover how the collaborative efforts of Experian and Captify are shaping the future of personalized advertising.
Understanding the power of real-time marketing data
Real-time data provides an up-to-the-minute view of consumer behavior, enabling marketers to make quick, informed decisions. Captify’s use of real-time search data allows for immediate insights, contrasting with traditional third-party data, which often involves delay and prompted answers. This approach allows marketers to see trends and reactions as they unfold, making it possible to tweak campaigns and strategies and always reach the most in-market consumers. By using Captify’s real-time data, we can predict consumer interests and adapt to market changes quickly.
Staying ahead of market trends with predictive analytics
Captify analyzes more than a billion search signals daily, giving brands a detailed look at changes in audience behavior. These real-time insights help businesses make timely adjustments and reach their audiences in the moments that matter. Beyond digital media, Captify’s multi-channel activation strategy extends to platforms such as connected TV and digital out-of-home, ensuring messages remain relevant and effective.
How Experian and Captify work together
Imagine being able to tailor your ads to consumers’ needs and interests in real time. Our partnership with Captify enhances ad targeting and measurement by combining Experian’s vast Digital Graph with Captify’s real-time intent data. “Captify has evolved beyond relying on third-party cookies in isolation and now uses the Experian Graph to provide a more holistic view of identity at both the individual and household levels” says Amelia Waddington, Chief Product Officer at Captify.
As privacy concerns grow, we have built and continue to invest in a signal-agnostic Digital Graph that can make connections across a wide range of identifiers, including the Experian Living Unit ID (LUID). The LUID is a unique identifier representing each household in the United States, based on real households and real people. This allows essential demographic information to be enriched to a household, enriching first-party data with detailed consumer insights, like age, gender, historical purchase behavior, and future purchase intent. By continuously adding new data and building fresh audiences and segments, we provide greater insights into the consumer base. Our Digital Graph serves as Captify’s identity spine, allowing them to connect identifiers together at both the person and household levels. This helps their clients target ads more accurately across different channels, making it easier to track and understand consumer behavior across platforms like TV, digital, and radio.
Here are five key ways our partnership enhances ad targeting and measurement:
Enhancing personalized advertising with real-time insights
Identity fragmentation is a challenge for marketers because consumer data is scattered across different devices and platforms, making it difficult to effectively understand and target consumers. Experian and Captify’s partnership provides the fuel to help advertisers by integrating real-time search data with identity graphs, allowing for accurate targeting across various channels. By combining Experian’s robust Digital Graph with Captify’s real-time intent data, advertisers can deliver highly personalized ads on connected TV that retain their relevance and impact, no matter where the consumer engages with the content.
“We ingest the Experian Graph as part of our internal Graph, allowing us to connect identifiers together at both person and household levels, which aligns with our expansion into TV, out-of-home, and audio channels.”
Amelia waddington, chief product officer, captify
Addressing identity fragmentation
A fragmented identity occurs when consumer data is scattered across different devices and platforms, making it difficult to effectively understand and target consumers. Advertisers need holistic media plans instead of fragmented strategies that risk disengaging consumers, while publishers must demonstrate their platforms’ value by targeting seamlessly.
By enriching and distributing thousands of demographic and behavioral segments, Experian provides the essential data needed to effectively target diverse audiences. Experian’s Digital Graph complements Captify’s data by connecting various identifiers, providing a complete view of individuals and households. This approach helps advertisers overcome fragmentation challenges, and ensure their messages reach the right audience across multiple touchpoints.
Optimizing creative content dynamically
Using real-time data, advertisers can adjust creative elements of their ads to better match consumer interests. This means changing parts of an ad, like images or text, based on current audience data, making it more relevant to the consumer. By partnering with Experian, Captify continues to see a rounded view of a consumer, allowing them to provide clients around the globe with data-driven creatives. These creatives achieve better results than standard ones and enable more meaningful connections with consumers.
Integrating search data into connected TV
Real-time search data plays a crucial role in enhancing the effectiveness of connected TV (CTV) advertising. Captify’s identity solution uses persistent identifiers from the Experian Digital Graph to extract value from onsite search data. Machine learning technology then categorizes these searches to understand consumer intent and create highly relevant audiences. By integrating Captify’s consumer intent data, advertisers can deliver more targeted and relevant ads on CTV platforms. This integration helps marketers reach viewers with content that resonates.
Ensuring multi-channel message consistency
Consistency in messaging across multiple channels is key for maintaining brand integrity and consumer trust. By using Experian’s identity data, Captify ensures that advertisers can deliver cohesive messages across various platforms, including TV, digital, and radio. This integration not only enhances ad targeting precision but also solidifies the brand’s presence, ensuring that every touchpoint reinforces the same core message for a unified brand experience.
Watch the full Q&A
Visit our Ask the Expert content hub to watch Amelia and Chris’ full conversation. In their discussion, they cover identity beyond identifiers, personalized advertising strategies, and the evolving consumer journey. Amelia and Chris also share about interoperability challenges in CTV and how Captify is using alternative IDs like Unified I.D. 2.0 (UID2).
About our experts

Amelia Waddington, Chief Product Officer, Captify
Amelia is Chief Product Officer at Captify, leading the Product, Engineering, Partnerships and Insight teams globally. During her three years at Captify, Amelia has delivered on her product vision to put Captify’s Search Intelligence in the hands of all advertisers—unlocking competitive advantage for clients and partners in a way that’s omnichannel, strategic, open and future-proof. She has launched Captify’s Advanced TV, cookieless and data partnerships product lines. Amelia brings over a decade of experience in driving product strategy, underpinned by expertise across data science, machine learning, and analytics. She has a PhD in computational neuroscience and previous roles include product leadership at LiveRamp and Aimia.

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!
Latest posts

Two storied franchises will collide in this year’s Super Bowl, the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Sports fans from both markets are huge supporters of their football teams, but a look into their behavior and attitudes reveals passions beyond a one-dimensional Cheesehead or Towel Twirler. Considering the vast preferences, marketers recognize the need to define characteristics that truly distinguish their target audience. To provide those insights, we conducted a detailed market analysis using a wide variety of data sources including research information from Experian Simmons, Hitwise, and the Mosaic Consumer Lifestyle segmentation solution, which defines the predominant household types for each area (as featured in yesterday’s post: Cheeseheads vs. Terrible Towels). Today, we delve further into the hearts and houses of Green Bay and Pittsburgh area residents. GREEN BAY FANS PACK THEM IN FOR TAILGATING Green Bay area residents are more passionate about tailgating compared to their rivals in Pittsburgh. Among those who identify themselves as NFL football fans, Green Bay fans are 1.45 times more likely than Pittsburgh fans to have participated in a tailgate party within the past 12 months. They are also better equipped to tailgate due to a higher ownership rate for midsize SUVs, and both light duty and full size pickups (Road & Track magazine top-rated picks for tailgating), compared to Pittsburgh fans. STELLA AND STEELERS GO TOGETHER With every tailgate comes a beverage of choice, and in today’s analysis we’ve found that Bud Light and Budweiser are the light/low calorie and regular domestic brands of beer favored the most by both Green Bay and Pittsburgh fans. However, Pittsburgh fans are 1.56 times more likely than Green Bay fans to down a few of premium brand, Stella Artois. Notably, along with its best selling brands, Anheuser-Busch plans to devote a portion of its multi-million dollar ad spend to this Belgian import. FANTASIZING ABOUT FOOTBALL While all that tailgating is going on, Green Bay fans might also be boasting about their latest fantasy sports selections. They are 1.34 times more likely to say that they participate in a fantasy sports league compared to Pittsburgh fans. That’s not to say that Pittsburgh fans don’t enjoy their fantasy sports, indexing above the national average for visiting fantasy sports and football websites. PLAYING IN THE GREAT OUTDOORS Packers and Steelers fans enjoy being out in the elements, so chances are you’ll probably never see a dome over either Lambeau or Heinz Field. The most popular Green Bay football fan activities, with a higher participation rate compared to Pittsburgh fans, are: golfing, camping, state fairs, hunting, power boating and motorcycling. In the Pittsburgh area, with its impressive network of recreational trails, residents are 1.23 times more likely to in-line/roller skate and are 1.36 times more likely to play hockey, compared to Green Bay. Off land analysis shows that despite Green Bay residents’ close proximity to Lake Michigan and a multitude of water sport opportunities, Pittsburgh fans are more likely to spend time on the water, namely: canoeing, kayaking, sailing, and fly fishing. THROWING DEEP VERSUS HANDING OFF Each year Super Bowl advertisers try to reach their audiences across broadly defined demographics with little ability to measure the direct impact of their super-sized investments. It’s the equivalent of throwing a “Hail Mary” and hoping the receiver will leap above the clutter of defenders and catch the ball. Direct marketers, however, are using the behavioral and attitudinal data we’ve shared here to deliver their messages to a precisely targeted sub-audience. For marketers who want to be relevant and target accurately, this capability is the playmaker that scores a game winning touchdown every time. Click here for the full article Blog post author: Bill Schneider, VP, Experian Marketing Services. We’d love to hear your stories and how you’ve used lifestyle data. Please leave your comments or feedback below.

According to weekly trend data from Experian Simmons DataStreamSM, the number of U.S. adults paying a monthly visit to microblogging site Twitter.com has fallen during the past year by 14%. As of November 29, 2010, 8.25 million adults had made at least one visit to Twitter.com during the previous 30 days, down from 9.54 million adults who had visited the site in the 30 days prior to November 30, 2009. Does this mean the ultimate “fail whale” is lurking just over the horizon for Twitter? Not just yet. Among those who visit Twitter.com, Simmons DataStream shows that the average number of visits per month rose a relative 37% in the last year. Twitter.com visits in late November 2010, in fact, reached an average of 10.0 visits per month, up from just 7.3 visits per month the year prior. As visit frequency increased, however, the duration of the average Twitter.com session declined, suggesting visitors today are seeking more frequent quick hits, rather than spending longer periods of time reading through posts. According to Experian Hitwise, the average amount of time Twitter.com visitors spend on the site during a typical session fell to 13 minutes, 12 seconds on November 27, 2010, down from an average of 15 minutes, 12 seconds spent on the site each session on November 28, 2009. That said, Americans are still spending more time on Twitter.com than ever before. According to Experian Simmons estimates, Americans spent an estimated 2 hours and 12 minutes tweeting and reading tweets on Twitter.com in November 2010, up from 1 hour and 51 minutes spent on the site during November 2009. Swim on, fail whale, swim on. To tweet this blog post, click on the green “retweet” button at the top of this item. For more information on Simmons DataStream weekly reporting of nearly 40,000 consumer variables, visit our website.

As we ring in the New Year this week, Americans will be tossing back a few adult beverages in celebration. While alcohol consumption certainly increases around holidays and other times of celebration, many Americans imbibe year-round. So where across this great land of ours are you most likely to find adults willing and able to raise a glass (or two) and where are you most likely to be surrounded by teetotalers? Experian Simmons has the answer. Leveraging data from our SimmonsLOCAL study, we examined the drinking patterns of adults of legal drinking age in the 106 Designated Market Areas (DMAs) with populations of at least 500,000 adults age 21 and older. We then ranked those markets by the number of alcoholic beverages consumed by the average adult during a typical month. The chart below lists the DMAs that consume the most alcoholic beverages per capita in a typical month. First place goes to Boston, where the average adult of legal drinking age regularly kicks back 14.4 drinks a month. (Celebrations in Beantown are probably already underway.) Rank DMA Average drinks per month 1 Boston 14.4 2 Austin 13.8 3 Providence-New Bedford 13.4 4 Madison 13.2 4 Hartford & New Haven 13.2 6 Philadelphia 13.1 7 Chicago 13 8 Denver 12.9 9 Tallahassee-Thomasville 12.8 9 Milwaukee 12.8 11 Minneapolis-St. Paul 12.6 11 West Palm Beach-Ft. Pierce 12.6 11 Seattle-Tacoma 12.6 11 Tucson (Sierra Vista) 12.6 15 Green Bay-Appleton 12.5 16 San Diego 12.4 16 Baltimore 12.4 16 Washington, DC 12.4 16 Albany-Schenectady-Troy 12.4 20 New Orleans 12.3 20 St. Louis 12.3 20 Colorado Springs-Pueblo 12.3 23 Burlington-Plattsburgh 12.2 23 Syracuse 12.2 23 Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News 12.2 23 Spokane 12.2 23 Portland-Auburn 12.2 Source: Experian Simmons Adult residents of the markets listed below surely know how to have a good time-it's just unlikely to include a cocktail. The chart below lists the DMAs that consume the fewest alcoholic beverages per capita in a typical month. Residents of Chattanooga consume only 6 alcoholic beverages per month, on average, making it the least imbibing market-and probably the one that feels the best the morning after a big gathering. Rank DMA Average drinks per month 106 Chattanooga 6 105 Salt Lake City 7.2 105 Florence-Myrtle Beach 7.2 105 Charleston-Huntington 7.2 105 Tri-Cities, TN-VA 7.2 101 Knoxville 7.4 100 Lexington 7.9 99 Birmingham 8 98 Huntsville-Decatur 8.5 97 Nashville 8.9 97 Evansville 8.9 95 Paducah-Cape Girardeau-Harrisburg-Mt Vernon 9.1 94 Springfield, MO 9.2 94 Tulsa 9.2 94 Greenville-New Bern-Washington 9.2 91 Memphis 9.3 90 Greenville-Spartanburg-Asheville-Anderson 9.4 90 Jackson, MS 9.4 90 Wichita-Hutchinson Plus 9.4 86 Little Rock-Pine Bluff 9.5 86 Louisville 9.5 86 Ft. Smith-Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers 9.5 83 Fresno-Visalia 9.6 82 Greensboro-High Point-Winston Salem 9.7 82 Roanoke-Lynchburg 9.7 Source: Experian Simmons For more information on SimmonsLOCAL's vivid reporting of consumer behaviors, attitudes, lifestyles and media consumption in 209 Designated Market Areas down to the ZIP code level, visit our website.