Digital media consumption is on the rise, but the supply of high-quality data signals is dwindling.
“The personalized targeting data points we’ve gotten used to are under examination,” said Jeremy Hlavacek, CCO of data services provider Experian.
But “any time there’s change in a market,” he said, “there’s opportunity.”
Hlavacek joined Experian in March after more than six years at IBM, most recently as CRO for Watson AI advertising and The Weather Company’s digital media business. He also served as The Weather Company’s VP of global automated monetization before the acquisition by IBM in 2015.
“Advertisers want better identity data, better segments and better understanding of consumer behavior,” he said. “So they’re going to shift to higher-quality, more precise, more accurate, more trusted data sets.”
Hlavacek spoke to AdExchanger.
AdExchanger: With brands starting to rely more on anonymized data signals and AI-based probabilistic models for targeting, will there be less demand for the personal data that Experian trades in?
The demand for targeted, data-driven precision media is increasing, and that’s not going to slow down. There are just different use cases. There’s a case for personalized advertising on the lower-funnel performance side where there’s a lot of scale, a lot of dollars and a lot of big companies at play.
The AI-driven, probabilistic models can work well in awareness and upper-funnel models. But with that kind of probabilistic approach, you’re not engaging the consumer, and consent is not always obvious.
Are you concerned that financial data, credit scores and related information are going to come under regulatory scrutiny or that advertisers might decide they’re too risky to use for advertising?
We always need to be conscious of that. If consumers are having a bad experience, they’re going to let their legislators know.
We treat privacy very seriously. Everything we do is consented and PII safe. We vet our partners closely, and we’re not sharing data into risky environments. Experian has a rigid legal and compliance department, and sometimes we run into challenges with that, but it’s the right approach in the long term.
With the push for privacy, what types of data companies will be at risk?
Companies of all shapes and sizes are affected. There are plenty of headlines about Big Tech companies facing fines and lawsuits in the US and the EU. But if you’re a small business in California and you have an email listserv, it’s a lot of work to comply with that regulatory burden.
We’re going to find out over time that it’s not so simple to say, “Let’s stop data-driven advertising because Big Tech companies are bad for the world.” You’re also going to find that you’re hurting small and medium-size businesses in some cases.
How is Experian taking advantage of its Tapad acquisition?
We’re working on translating Experian’s offline data into the digital space. We’ve taken the Tapad identity graph and married that to Experian’s offline graph, and we’re pushing to bring our team and the Tapad team together under one brand as we get into next year.
Is Experian considering more acquisitions?
Experian is an acquisitive company. We’re going to need more connections and more technology to bring this data set to life in the tech ecosystem.
As we move to a world of consented first-party data, those data-sharing relationships are strongest on the sell side. A lot more people are going to have a relationship with the New York Times or Weather.com than The Trade Desk and WPP. You’re going to see us strike more sell-side partnerships.
Are buyers showing more interest in first-party-data-based targeting?
It depends on the market. For CTV, it’s almost all seller controlled. For retail media networks, all the data is coming from the retailers. Open exchange programmatic buyers who’ve done things the same way for the last 10 years are probably not pushing for Seller Defined Audiences.
But as dollars are shifting from open exchange programmatic to fast-growing channels like retail media and CTV – which are already using the sell-side approach – there’s a chance that CMOs start to say “Maybe we should do everything that way.”
What’s Experian’s position on data clean rooms?
We’re agnostic. We haven’t picked any one clean room. We work with all of the names you would expect – Snowflake, InfoSum, Habu – really across the board. It reminds me of the early days of DSPs or SSPs, where suddenly there are so many of them. Are we going to live in a world with 15 different clean rooms? Probably not. My guess is it comes down to two, three or four winners.
How is Experian thinking about a potential recession?
The movement of interest rates has a big effect, and not only on consumer demand. When interest rates are higher, people take out fewer loans and do less refinancing. Typically, when people take out loans, they use a credit report, so we have an indicator that things have slowed down.
Mortgages, auto loans and retail behavior are question marks right now.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
For more articles featuring Jeremy Hlavacek, click here.
