Can Sell-Side Curation Solve The Cookieless Audience Problem For Advertisers?

Recorded: Sept. 21, 2026, 2:10 p.m.

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Can Sell-Side Curation Solve The Cookieless Audience Problem For Advertisers? | AdExchanger

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Home Technology Can Sell-Side Curation Solve The Cookieless Audience Problem For Advertisers?

Technology
Can Sell-Side Curation Solve The Cookieless Audience Problem For Advertisers? By
Anthony Vargas

Monday, September 21st, 2026 – 10:00 am
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Publishers are sitting on a treasure trove of audience data. But to turn that data into revenue, publishers must translate it into the ID signals advertisers already use.
At least, that’s the theory behind Permutive’s integration with TransUnion’s identity graph, which the companies announced Monday.
The integration addresses the longstanding audience targeting problems from when users opt out of data sharing and cookie tracking.
Permutive estimates that only about 30% of web traffic nowadays is addressable either via a third-party cookie or an alternative ID, according to co-founder and CEO Joe Root. More generous estimates say about 50% of bid requests include a cookie (in Chrome, that is, since other browsers like Safari and Firefox remove third-party cookies by default).
But, while publishers build their own audience ID graphs and have 100% visibility into their logged-in users, Root said, the data can only get them so far. Most publishers don’t have the ability to match those logins to different email addresses and other identifiers that belong to the same user, or to find lookalike audiences, he said. Which limits the scale they can deliver for advertisers.

As a result of this addressability gap, when advertisers apply data graphs on the buy side, they run out of high-performing, premium audiences to target, said Jim Williams, president of independent ad agency KWG.
Not to mention, when advertisers activate those data graphs in DSPs or inside walled garden platforms like Google or Meta, the data fees pile up, Williams said.
For that reason, Williams sees this integration as a way to use TransUnion’s data to curate more high-performing inventory on the sell side with better match rates, and with lower data fees to boot.
Differentiating a data deal
Meanwhile, buyers might not even know they’re missing out on high-value audiences because of the way programmatic buying works in practice.
Buy-side platforms and DSPs aren’t set up to look for publisher ID signals in bid requests, Root said – they’re typically looking for third-party cookies and popular alternative ID graphs like TransUnion’s.
Now, publishers that use Permutive’s data management platform (DMP) can tick a box in the user interface to activate audience matching against TransUnion’s ID graph, which provides contact info, demographics and transaction history on 250 million consumers and 125 million households.
Because Permutive is already integrated with more than 150 publishers as a DMP – including big names like Hearst, Condé Nast, BBC and Axel Springer – it can match those audiences directly to TransUnion’s data graph.
But how is this integration different from all the other ID graph deals that power sell-side curation?
From TransUnion’s perspective, Permutive’s direct publisher access helped this integration stand out among its many data partnerships, said Julie Clark, SVP of diversified markets, media and entertainment at TransUnion.
“The unique element here is having one key to many different sources, and being able to have that be scaled out across publishers,” Clark said. “This is one of the first times that we’ve scaled in this way where our identity becomes incredibly portable.”
And KWG’s perspective is simple: Permutive and TransUnion still collect their share of media purchased through curated deals, but the curation costs are lower than when data is applied through buy-side platforms, Williams said. He added that his agency has a wealth of transactional data from two major retailers, “and we can certainly deploy those in DSPs and get tremendous scale, but they come at a cost.”
Williams is also optimistic that a new curation strategy will help KWG’s clients target incremental audiences they can’t reach otherwise.
For example, the agency works with a sunless tanning brand. “It’s a pretty niche category, but the users are very valuable,” Williams said. “So, if we’ve done everything that we can do with an Amazon audience, and we’re still looking for incrementality, we can go analog and go to sorority parties at college campuses, or we can identify and find those targets with Permutive’s database.”
Plus, Williams added, Permutive hasn’t let KWG down yet, unlike other buy-side curation offerings.
“We’ve never had great confidence in in the data signals, the match rate and separating the noise from the signal,” he said. “And frankly, I’ve just never seen the productivity. So we’re looking for that measurable and meaningful difference in productivity.”
Curation and the bottom line
Data, like fresh fish, is always best when closest to its source.
For its part, Permutive claims its direct access to publishers’ audience data allows it to produce better match rates than basic open web activation in which data is onboarded via a buy-side platform and matched to alternative IDs.
For example, when testing the TransUnion integration, a financial services advertiser buying ads from a business publisher saw a 12x increase in addressable impressions, which allowed it to reach 5x more consumers on the site, according to Permutive. The test campaign also exceeded the advertiser’s target KPI by 170%.
Being able to target TransUnion audiences via Permutive’s publisher integrations offers KWG a viable alternative to running scaled campaigns for its CPG clients through walled gardens, Williams said. While “the Googles and Metas of the world are scaled,” he said, “we need as much working media as possible, and we need to avoid digital taxes whenever possible.”
The integration provides benefits for publishers, too, Root said. According to Permutive’s data from the last week of August, bid requests that don’t have an ID signal attached net 41% lower CPMs. But a curated deal ID – that buyers know was built using TransUnion’s ID graph – is a signal that can drive higher bids.
So, while publishers might not be monetizing their previously ID-less inventory at top-shelf rates, Williams said, they’re still selling impressions they weren’t otherwise able to sell. And if premium publishers sell more impressions, he said, that ensures KWG has more high-performing working media to buy before having to dip into the long tail.
KWG has already used TransUnion’s ID graph for a recent CPG campaign, Williams said, and the agency has also done some beta testing of Permutive’s platform during a campaign for a well-known beverage brand. Now, he’s excited to see what combining the two offerings on the sell side can do for KWG’s curation strategy – particularly when it comes to driving performance for direct-to-consumer businesses that sell products at a higher price point.
“If we can go direct to publisher and set up PMPs, and we can access quality content at scale and at a cost advantage,” Williams said, “then that’s our day job. That’s what we’ve got to do to keep our brands performing.”

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Publishers possess substantial audience data but face a challenge in translating this information into the identity signals that advertisers currently utilize, a difficulty exacerbated by the decline of third-party cookie tracking. Permutive's integration with TransUnion's identity graph offers a theoretical solution to this cookieless audience problem for advertisers by focusing on sell-side curation. This integration addresses the limitations where publishers, despite having internal visibility into logged-in users, lack the ability to connect these logins across different identifiers or discover lookalike audiences, which restricts the scale of deliverable audiences for advertisers.

The integration allows publishers using Permutive’s data management platform (DMP) to activate audience matching against TransUnion’s extensive identity graph, which encompasses consumer and household data. Permutive is already integrated with over one hundred fifty publishers, including major entities such as Hearst, Condé Nast, BBC, and Axel Springer, enabling it to directly match publisher audiences to TransUnion's data. TransUnion noted that the unique aspect of this partnership is the ability to scale identity across multiple publishers, creating a portable identity structure.

From the perspective of ad agencies, such as KWG, this approach offers a cost advantage over using buy-side platforms, as the curation costs are reportedly lower than when data is applied via those platforms. Furthermore, KWG found that this curation strategy provides greater confidence in the accuracy of the data signals, match rates, and the ability to separate noise from meaningful signals compared to existing buy-side curation offerings.

This data-driven curation yields tangible performance benefits for advertisers. Permutive claims that direct access to publisher audience data results in superior match rates compared to basic open web activation involving buy-side matching against alternative IDs. Testing the TransUnion integration demonstrated significant performance gains, for instance, showing a twelve-fold increase in addressable impressions for a financial services advertiser, allowing them to reach five times more consumers on the site and exceed their key performance indicators by one hundred seventy percent.

For publishers, this model also offers monetization benefits. While curated deals might not generate top-shelf rates for previously ID-less inventory, they secure impressions that would otherwise be unattainable. This ensures that publishers are selling higher-performing media and providing agencies with a wider pool of valuable inventory. Ultimately, this sell-side curation strategy positions advertisers to target incremental audiences that are otherwise inaccessible, allowing them to leverage high-quality content at a cost advantage while mitigating risks associated with digital advertising taxes.