by Robin Bootle, Co-Founder & COO, Mulitlocal
A lack of standards in life implies an absence of quality and consistency, and when it comes to programming, this absence adds complexity that can hold campaigns back from achieving their true potential.
While industry initiatives aimed at reducing complexity and improving interoperability are an important step forward, shared protocols are only part of the solution. Because it’s standards, especially around audience definitions, that instil confidence, trust and transparency, which are critical for the data that’s driving digital advertising.
Consistent audience definitions remain the foundation for effective curation. Only then can brands know what they’re buying. That’s why standardization – taking the time to examine all the different ways of buying an audience, understand them and then develop a unified base-level taxonomy – can transform curation and its value.
Complexity fosters confusion
The industry recognizes this is an issue. The high number of ‘don’t know’ responses to this year’s question on investment in curated marketplaces in IAB Europe’s 2026 Attitudes to Digital Advertising Report is attributed to this lack of a unified taxonomy. It highlights the challenge around curation because of a lack of “… standardized definitions and reporting, making it difficult for stakeholders to quantify their involvement.” Self-declared content vertical audiences have little value unless they’ve been subjected to the necessary scrutiny.
Perhaps the issue lies in how people view a standardised taxonomy. At one level, it can be seen purely as a data management issue and the responsibility of the associated team. But this plays down its importance because it’s much more than a data exercise. Getting it right unlocks consistency, scale, transparency, portability and measurement, which feeds into more successful campaigns.
Without it, all the data available for audience curation simply represents a wealth of individual, small marketplaces. True value, however, lies in delivering scalable, meaningful, usable audience segments, and here the sum of curation is greater than its parts. But this is only possible if an audience segment means the same thing, irrespective of the data sources contributing to it.
Take, for example, the classic ‘Auto Intenders’. This may be derived from 10 sources. Each may be based on different modelling approaches, signals, behaviors, recencies and location definitions. And many data segments, when put live, fail to explain what they are or use in-house jargon, making it unclear what they deliver. It’s a mess.
Rather than forcing buyers to interpret what an audience segment represents, a unified taxonomy standardizes the data. Suddenly, the work’s done for you. Now it’s easy to know what you’re buying and then buy the correct audience for your campaign.
It also supports discoverability. A unified taxonomy allows all relevant audience segments to be surfaced at the click of a button. This eliminates the need to scroll endlessly through lists to find different options that may (or may not) link to the audience you are trying to reach.
Brands and agencies know what they’re buying and expecting, so there’s trust in the data. It also supports the desire for greater transparency in digital marketing. By understanding the data, audiences can be ported across different channels, entities, partners and frameworks.
Standards liberate, not constrict
One danger with the term ‘standardization’ is that it’s often seen as limiting. The argument is everything’s suddenly the same; everything’s vanilla. But for curation, it translates into more scale and opportunities.
IAB Europe neatly sums this up in its report, commenting, “As the market pushes toward greater transparency and quality assurance, clearer frameworks and shared terminology will be essential to unlocking broader adoption.”
In a world awash with audience segments, Multilocal has built a unified taxonomy that removes fragmentation and confusion and delivers audiences that can be understood and activated with a common definition across all media types, including CTV, audio and digital out-of-home. Then, rather than buying misleading labels, advertisers can instead invest in consistent, meaningful curated segments that can be deployed across digital advertising. As a result, curation’s true value can be unlocked.
