Skip to main content

Advertising & Audiences

The Problem

Post-cookie advertising has a trust problem that no contextual or cohort-based replacement fully solves: someone still has to hold the raw user data and claim the audience is what they say it is. Data brokers vouch for segments they assembled from sources that are increasingly unverifiable. Advertisers pay for “35-44, high income, tech-interested” and get whatever the intermediary decided that means.

What Changes With AIR Kit

  • Users hold their own verified attributes — Demographic and interest credentials are issued by your platform based on actual KYC and behaviour, not declared preferences. They’re cryptographically signed
  • Advertisers buy proof, not claims — The DSP or SSP verifies the credential at serve time. They get COMPLIANT / NON_COMPLIANT — a ZK proof that the user is 25–34, verified, consented, and located in AU. No raw data in the bid request
  • Consent travels cross-publisher — A consent credential issued on your platform is verifiable by any partner publisher without a CMP re-prompt. User consented once; that consent is cryptographically provable
  • Age-restricted serving without storing DOB — Prove isOver18 at ad-serve time for gambling, alcohol, or adult categories. Regulatory requirements met without creating a DOB database

How It Works

1

User completes profile or KYC on your platform

Your existing onboarding. The user verifies their age, confirms their country, or completes interest profiling. Nothing new for the user.
2

AIR Kit issues an audience credential

Your backend fires one API call. A credential encoding the user’s age range, verified country, IAB interest segments, and consent record lands in their AIR Account.
3

Ad server verifies at serve time

When the user visits a publisher page, the publisher’s ad server calls one SDK method. It receives a verified boolean signal: age verified, consent confirmed, segment matched.
4

DSP bids on verified signals

The bid request carries a verified audience flag. DSPs can bid higher on ZK-proven attributes than on unverified self-reported data. The audience segment is now worth more.

What the Ad Server Actually Receives

What the Verifier GetsWhat Stays Private
COMPLIANT / NON_COMPLIANTDate of birth, exact age
Age range (25-34)Full name, email address
isOver18: trueIP address, device ID
Country code (AU)Precise location
IAB segment IDsBrowsing history, clickstream
Consent expiryDeclared interest details

What Compliance Will Ask

Does user consent need to be re-obtained? The consent credential records the user’s existing consent. If they have already consented on your platform, the credential reflects that. Cross-publisher use of the credential is designed to avoid introducing new data processing, but consult your legal team to confirm this applies in your jurisdiction. Can users withdraw consent? Yes. Revoking the consent credential is one API call and takes effect immediately. The user’s attributes become unverifiable across the ecosystem. Does this replace our CMP? No. Your CMP continues to collect and record consent. AIR Kit converts that consent record into a portable, cryptographically verifiable credential.

Integration at a Glance

What your team buildsOne API call in profile completion + one in your CMP callback
Engineering effort1 backend engineer
Timeline to live2–4 weeks
Changes to ad servingPrebid adapter or server-side SDK call
Partner publisher integration3 lines of SDK code to verify