idfree insider: The Ad Industry Is Changing. Some Things Shouldn't.

GDR

3 hours ago

3 min read

October 2026

We see Patterns. Not People.

GDR Among Top 10

GDR makes the Top 10 list of privacy-first audience data providers in 2026.

Smart Talk

Gunnar Kihl shares why AI can speed things up, but trust still turns the wheels.

Netflix Ads

Netflix Ads connect your global audience. The Trade Desk makes it work.

One of the Best Privacy-First Audience Data Providers in 2026

We're happy to share that Global Data Resources has been named one of the

Top 10 Best Privacy-First Audience Data Providers in 2026 in a new industry research report.

At GDR, we've spent more than a decade building audience intelligence around geography, consumer insights and privacy-first principles. To be recognised as a leading provider makes it all worth it.

Today, we help marketers understand and activate audiences across 37 markets,

covering 2.8 billion consumers.

No personal IDs required. No need to choose between privacy and performance.

Recognised for Privacy. Built for What’s Next.

Get the full story

Smart Talk: AI Can Speed Up Advertising.

Trust Still Makes It Work.

Automation is changing the workflow. It hasn't made relationships obsolete.

In our latest Smart Talk, GDR's co-founder and COO, Gunnar Kihl, talks about how business still comes down to trust, understanding what clients actually need, and creating value on both sides of a partnership.

To Gunnar, a good partnership works when the products fit together, the commercial opportunity is clear, and customers benefit.

And while AI can help us move faster, it doesn't eliminate the need to understand the people and businesses we work with.

"You can generate a report in seconds. That doesn't automatically mean you've asked the right question or chosen the right audience. Experience still counts. Understanding the business problem still counts. And knowing when something makes sense commercially? That hasn't changed."

Read the full Smart Talk

Blocking Identity Resolution Infrastructure

“It’s not enough to block cross-site cookies to prevent cross-site tracking today because the tracking industry has not stopped trying to track users on the web. They have ushered into what they call the post cookie era and in our latest releases we have put strong protection in place. We will continue to prevent covert and cross-site tracking by default, while maintaining the ability for websites to provide first-party personalization to their users.”

- Apple on why they use domain blocking in Safari to target cross-site tracking providers

Talk to Gunnar about Targeting Without Tracking. It's What We Do (Well).

Netflix Ads Keep Growing. Better Audience Targeting Is Growing With It.

The Trade Desk is enabling advertisers to activate first-party and third-party audiences against Netflix inventory through Kokai.

Netflix expands its advertising capabilities, and The Trade Desk opens new opportunities for advertisers to connect premium streaming inventory with meaningful audience intelligence.

The Trade Desk explains:

"Advertisers can activate audiences from our premium data marketplace with more than 4 million segments from over 300 providers across commerce, behavioral, demographic, and geographic data. The result is rich scale and relevance when reaching a buyer’s ideal audience on Netflix inventory."

For advertisers:

This means more ways to connect premium streaming inventory with relevant audiences - and to bring greater consistency to audience strategies across media channels.

Get the full story

Smarter. Faster. Sharper.

Move To IDfree AI - Modern Geospatial Intelligence

Over 5,000 ready-made audiences in 21 markets are waiting for you at IDfree.

Every IDfree audience is built on one model - designed by SkySeg, our research branch.

12 overgroups to plan and buy, 36 cells underneath for precision.

Please talk to Gunnar about moving & upgrading your favourite audience for free.

Until December 31st, we continue moving users' old audiences to the new IDfree tool. In many cases, each audience gets a sharper profile from the upgrade alone.

Agentic AI for Digital Audio Advertising

First use case for digital audio turns natural-language media briefs into tailored advertising products.

smartclip, RTL Group’s adtech business, is advancing agentic advertising with a new Sidekicks-powered use case developed with M6 Unlimited, the advertising sales house of M6 Group.

“Agentic AI has the potential to fundamentally simplify how media is bought and sold,” said Thomas Servatius, Co-CEO, smartclip.

“With Sidekicks, we are creating an intelligent layer between buyer intent and media inventory. Our work with M6 Unlimited demonstrates this in a tangible way: a brief can become a tailored media product through conversation, while the media owner remains fully in control.”

See the press release