Today’s data-driven marketing reality is practically unrecognizable compared to the industry landscape of just five years ago. The number of marketplace shifts that have happened in that seemingly short time frame are too many to name, but collectively, they have completely reshaped how marketers engage with audiences.

Traditional identifiers like third-party cookies are fading into obsolescence while evolving global privacy regulations demand new levels of compliance and transparency. These changes make it more critical than ever for brands to partner with data providers that can deliver on three essential pillars: quality, consistency and privacy.

As businesses strive to navigate consumer, regulatory and technology complexities, the right data strategy can mean the difference between fragmented customer experiences and truly personalized, omnichannel engagement. Let’s explore what it takes to achieve quality, consistency and privacy in modern data partnerships.

Quality: A Comprehensive, Trusted Data Approach

High-quality data is the cornerstone of effective marketing. Without accurate, up-to-date and comprehensive information, brands risk wasted ad spend, poor customer experiences and ineffective targeting. Today’s businesses require a holistic approach to data quality that goes beyond basic accuracy to include breadth, reliability and ethical sourcing.

In 2025, high-quality data sources are defined by the following features:

• Integration of business and consumer data: The lines between professional and personal identities have blurred. Marketers need a B2B2C data strategy that connects both spheres for a fuller, more actionable view of their audiences.
• Deterministic and probabilistic matching: The ability to blend these methodologies ensures that identities are resolved accurately across multiple data sources while still achieving the breadth and depth required for strong audience segmentation and targeting.
• Transparency and accountability: Data providers must be able to clearly explain where their data comes from, how it’s sourced and how it is maintained.

A modern data partner should offer continuous data validation and enrichment to ensure accuracy, helping businesses minimize errors, improve decision-making and create better customer experiences.

Consistency: Engaging Customers Seamlessly Across Channels

With consumers engaging brands across numerous devices and platforms, consistency is a key requirement for both data partners and data practices. Without a unified identity resolution framework, brands risk delivering disconnected and irrelevant ads—an experience that two-thirds of consumers say they find frustrating.

Particularly, given the continued signal loss within the marketing data landscape, achieving consistency can be challenging. Here’s what it requires from a data standpoint:

• Omnichannel identity resolution: Effective marketing requires the ability to recognize the same customer across devices, from social media to email to connected TV, enabling a cohesive journey.
• B2P (business-to-person) linkages: The separation of B2B and B2C marketing tactics is becoming increasingly limiting for brands as consumers blur the lines between their personal and professional behaviors and identities. Brands must take an integrated approach to engagement, and that requires data solutions that can merge consumer and professional attributes into singular B2P profiles.
• First-party data enrichment: Ensuring consistency requires more than just recognizing customers across channels and devices—it demands that their data remains complete, up-to-date and actionable. A strong data partner will help brands continuously enhance first-party data with verified attributes, enabling relevance across every touchpoint.

Consistency drives stronger brand affinity and better marketing performance. The right data partner provides identity resolution at scale to ensure messages resonate everywhere that customers and prospects might encounter their brands.

Privacy: A Non-Negotiable Standard in Data Partnerships

In a world of increasing consumer privacy awareness and regulatory oversight, brands cannot afford to take data privacy lightly. Marketing success today depends on compliant, consent-based data strategies that prioritize ethical data collection and processing.

Here’s what modern privacy compliance looks like:

• Adherence to global regulations: A trusted data partner should comply with GDPR, CCPA, emerging and evolving U.S. state laws and all other relevant privacy regulations, ensuring brands avoid legal and reputational risks.
• Security and governance standards: Modern data providers should be able to demonstrate their commitment to data security and privacy via certifications in ISO 27001, ISO 27701 and APEC Cross-Border Privacy Rules, among others.
• A track record of compliance: One of the surest ways to identify trusted data partners capable of keeping pace with the evolving regulatory landscape is to look for ones that have successfully navigated major changes in global privacy regulations and policies in the past. For example, those that were able to pivot their audience solutions to meet GDPR’s stringent standards in the EU understand what it takes to continue to deliver value to clients while respecting growing expectations for data privacy and security.

As consumer and regulatory expectations around data protection rise, businesses must rigorously vet their data partners to ensure they operate under the highest ethical and regulatory standards.

Building a Future-Ready Data Foundation with ID Graph Plus

To meet today’s marketing challenges, businesses need a data solution that seamlessly addresses quality, consistency and privacy in a single framework. D&B ID Graph Plus is designed to do exactly that.

The D&B ID Graph provides privacy-compliant identity resolution, seamlessly linking business and consumer data (B2B2C) to create a unified, accurate customer view. Integrated across ad tech and MarTech ecosystems, it enables precise audience targeting, omnichannel activation and scalable personalization without relying on third-party cookies. With high-quality, trusted data and adherence to global compliance standards, ID Graph Plus helps marketers and sales teams expand reach, improve engagement and optimize marketing performance.

Navigating the complexity of data-driven marketing has never been more challenging than it is today. However, getting it right has never been more rewarding. The key lies in finding partners that can deliver on the quality, consistency and privacy requirements of the modern data landscape.