- Audience segments
- Raw signals get transformed into labeled segments like “in-market: running shoes” or “interest: home mortgages.” Segments are what advertisers buy, not a spreadsheet of names (usually).
- Data enrichment & profiling
- Data brokers combine first-party signals with other sources (purchase history, offline lists, demographics) to create richer profiles.
- Distribution & sale channels
- Real-Time Bidding (RTB) / Ad exchanges: When a web page loads, an ad auction sends a bid request that can include user signals and segment IDs. Advertisers bid to show an ad to that user.
- Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs): Advertisers buy audience segments through DSPs using segment IDs or data-provider integrations.
- Marketplaces & data-providers: Companies sell predefined audience lists (e.g., “recent auto-intenders”) via marketplaces or APIs (historically companies like LiveRamp, Oracle BlueKai, etc.).
- Onboarding & lookalikes: Advertisers upload a customer list, a data onboarding provider hashes and matches it to online IDs to target existing customers or build lookalike audiences.
- Delivery formats
- Segment IDs / tags: Buyers get an ID representing an audience (no raw PII) to target.
Whitelabel lists / offline files: For direct marketing, data brokers may also sell lists (email, phone) — depending on legal rules and contracts.