Viant’s alternative ID is getting an upgrade.
Last week, the DSP announced a partnership with data company TransUnion to match its identifier–what it calls its Household ID–to “95% of U.S. adults (18+).” This is made possible by enriching Household ID with TransUnion’s TruAudience identity data, which is based on data from TransUnion and Neustar. TruAudience links to 200-plus data sources, including 16 billion monthly phone signals, 125 million U.S. households, and 10 billion daily online interactions.
Why This Matters:
Viant’s Household ID has been around for some time, and the company claims to have patented the method behind it back in 2012. But how does it work and what makes it different?
Viant says it identifies IP addresses that meet specific criteria, like the residential internet service provider, the number of connected devices, and the times of day those devices are active. From the geo-enabled devices within that group, Viant extrapolates latitude and longitude coordinates and deterministically matches them to a real-world physical address.
That’s what Viant sees as the key advantage of its ID. Traditional identifiers like third-party cookies and MAIDs enabled so-called one-to-one targeting and measurement, but were probabilistic, not deterministic. While cookies are still in use, their phaseout is inevitable, either due to regulatory changes or Chrome’s upcoming opt-out mechanism.
Beyond cookies, hashed email-based IDs—think The Trade Desk’s UID2 or Lotame’s Panorama ID—face scalability challenges. They rely on users logging into websites, which is difficult to achieve at scale. Viant also sees an opening here.
The TransUnion deal ultimately gives Viant more capability with its ID, and more credibility, to help scale adoption.
Experts React:
Dorean Kass, EVP, Diversified Markets, at TransUnion, says the Viant partnership “is about building something advertisers can truly rely on.”
He adds, “By augmenting the Viant Household ID with TruAudience identity data, we’re helping brands tackle today’s challenges head-on—like signal loss—to continue delivering impactful marketing campaigns. We’re proud to support the identity infrastructure that keeps the adtech and martech ecosystem moving forward, empowering organizations to create stronger connections in an increasingly fragmented environment.”
Our Take:
Household ID sounds like an impressive piece of technology. At the same time, as you read about “extrapolating latitude and longitude coordinates” in service of advertising, depending on who you are, it could also sound privacy-backward. Still, an interesting launch from Viant DSP, who has been making a number of them over the last year.
