1Audience Introduces First-Party Data Onboarding

Your favorite AI audience insights tool, 1Audience, now offers first-party data onboarding to help publishers close the gap between their O&O viewer data and advertiser demand, ultimately driving incremental revenue.

The integration of this new feature underscores our commitment to further expand our audience and identity capabilities, accelerating publishers’ ability to activate high-value audiences, enhance addressability, and maximize the monetization potential of their premium inventory in a privacy-compliant manner.

According to eMarketer, CTV ad spend in the U.S. reached nearly $30.10 billion in 2024, growing at an 18% year-over-year rate, and yet much of this inventory is still transacted with limited audience enrichment. The lack of identity resolution and precision targeting that truly realize the value of O&O audiences has often left publishers at a disadvantage, with their inventory being commoditized rather than valued for its unique insights.

Not all hope is lost though since in recent years, much of the sell-side has finally begun to claim some of its share of the audience creation pie - and rightfully so, given they hold the keys to their users. This is one reason why the augmentation of 1P audience data is becoming a necessity to addressability in CTV.

The other being the sheer value it drives in terms of premium CPMs, greater demand matches and a certain level of future-proofing (for the next foreseeable future at least). 

A recent report by IAB and BWGStrategy points out that, “ad buyers are increasing spend where they can tap into 1P data and reach engaged audiences at scale,“ and that about half of ad buyers who ran in CTV, search, social and retail media in 2023 increased spend in those channels in 2024.

When we talk about the significance of first-party data and its role in improved advertising outcomes, it’s natural to compare the 3 types of data advertisers and publishers are mostly dealing with. 

First-party data is widely recognized as the most reliable and valuable source of ad-related insights for marketers. Consisting of firsthand user information collected directly from a publisher’s O&O platforms, 1PD collection eliminates inaccuracies or discrepancies that often arise from intermediary services, ensuring greater precision and control. Additionally, it comes at no extra cost or intermediaries.

Publishers typically gather this data using device IDs uploaded through ad servers and collaborate with advertisers via deal IDs to facilitate targeted campaigns. Advertisers, in turn, share their proprietary audience data with publishers, enabling the delivery of highly relevant and personalized ads to the right viewers.

Second-party data delivers outcomes similar to first-party data, with one key difference; the data belongs to trusted external partners rather than the inventory owner. Widely used by niche and mid-tail FAST publishers who otherwise may have limited access to deep 1P audience insights, 2PD from distribution partners, device manufacturers and/or complementary publishers typically also requires no intermediaries as data transition is done directly between the two parties.

Third-party data is situated on the other side of the spectrum in that the data collection source is not the owner of the user data. 3PD providers such as TransUnion, Experian, Epsilon, Acxiom etc often allow publishers to access pre-built audience segments and deliver these anonymized user profiles to advertisers for merchandizing their inventory efficiently.

Despite the key differences between these data types, it’s important to acknowledge the unique value of each source in delivering powerful insights and advertising outcomes.

By onboarding authenticated 1P data, such as device/platform IDs, viewing behavior and ad engagement data among others, publishers can now establish deterministic matches that provide high-fidelity identity resolution and superior targeting accuracy.

At the same time, probabilistic modeling powered by 1Audience’s AI-driven intelligence layer helps fill the gaps, using advanced algorithms to analyze behavioral patterns, contextual signals, content consumptions insights and historical engagement patterns to identify likely audience matches.

The aim of 1Audience’s new 1P data onboarding functionality is to provide publishers with a rich, holistic and data-driven mix of probabilistic and deterministic identifiers to make the most of their audiences across CTV.