As marketing budgets shrink and performance expectations rise, many advertisers are looking to artificial intelligence (AI) and automation to solve the efficiency equation. However, while automation is powerful, it has its limitations. The brands winning in 2025 are the ones that know how to balance scale with substance. They’re using automation to move faster and drive scale, while grounding their decisions in real, verifiable insights representing actual people.
Eyeota, a Dun & Bradstreet company and YouGov work together to help marketers unlock real audience intelligence and machine acceleration. It’s a collaboration built to show marketers how to deliver smarter, more accountable campaigns in an age where both trust and time are in short supply.
There’s no denying the value AI brings to the marketing toolkit. It enables faster segmentation, dynamic content creation, real-time media optimization, and predictive modeling, all of which can drive impressive performance when done well.
That said, AI is only as good as the data we feed it. The best AI is built on real data. As Jess Saunders, Vice President of Global Partner Success & Operations at Eyeota, a Dun & Bradstreet company, puts it:
“AI doesn’t make decisions. It’s like a GPS. It can only guide you efficiently if the map it’s using (that is, the data) is detailed and accurate. It can lead you directly to your destination, or it can send you completely off course. It all depends on that map.”
That’s where Eyeota and YouGov come in. YouGov provides high-quality, research-based data based on inputs from real people, not just observed online behavior. YouGov and Eyeota have a 1:1 match, facilitating the sharing of these high-quality seed audiences with Eyeota. These audiences are then lookalike modelled by Eyeota and distributed into buying platforms.
While automation can accelerate execution, it often lacks context. Without human guidance, campaigns risk becoming tone-deaf, irrelevant, or even harmful to brand trust. AI can tell you which customers might convert, but it can’t always tell you why they’ll care.
Marketers still need to exercise strategic oversight, creative thinking, and empathy, particularly when reaching nuanced or hard-to-identify audiences. In the end, AI is another tool that helps us solve questions and challenges that still need to be identified by humans.
“Machines are great at amplifying what’s already working. But only humans can identify what’s missing,” says Dörthe Jans, Global Head of Advertising Solutions at YouGov.
That’s why it’s essential to pair AI capabilities with verified, consented data that reflects actual consumer sentiment, not just inferred behaviors.
YouGov’s approach to data is simple: start with real people, ask the right questions, and keep the process transparent. Known as Research Reality, this methodology combines survey-based insight with strict data quality controls and ongoing consent from panel members.
With a connected panel of over 29 million people across 55+ markets, YouGov builds a single-source view of how individuals think, feel, and act. The result is a dataset that reflects what people really believe - not just what they’ve clicked on.
That’s a crucial difference when exploring topics like AI. In a recent YouGov survey across 17 markets, 22% of people described themselves as cautious about AI’s growing presence, with concern highest in France, the US, and the UK.
It’s a reminder that sentiment still matters, and marketers need more than algorithms to make meaningful decisions.
To illustrate the power of combining YouGov’s deep audience insights with Eyeota’s activation capabilities, consider the case of a global audiobook and podcast streaming platform. Facing increased competition and looking to improve their end-to-end customer acquisition strategy, this brand aimed to build its approach on five key pillars:
To address this, YouGov designed a custom survey define and understand their key audiences and track the brand’s KPIs. The survey responses were enriched with YouGov’s syndicated consumer data to build a more nuanced picture of the brand’s audience. Eyeota then transformed these research insights into six distinct, privacy-compliant digital audience segments, based on entertainment and media consumption behaviors.
From there, Eyeota modeled the segments against its qualified online user pool, identified lookalike users, and delivered the resulting audiences directly into the brand’s programmatic buying platform. This allowed the brand to activate each segment with precision, tailoring both messaging and creative to specific audience needs.
As the brand’s Head of Brand and Communications put it:
“YouGov allowed us to find our exact target audience and put actionable plans against these segments. The result has been growth in key brand metrics, but more importantly, a positive impact on the business.”
This case demonstrates the value of aligning research with activation, ensuring audience insights aren’t just insightful, but also immediately actionable in the digital environment.
In the age of automation, speed is easy. What’s hard, and far more valuable, is speed with specificity. That’s where AI must be grounded in something deeper than generic signals. It needs a foundation of real consumer insight.
That’s the guiding principle behind the Eyeota and YouGov partnership. By combining YouGov’s high-quality, survey-based research with Eyeota’s automated audience modeling and activation tools, marketers can move fast and stay grounded in reality. AI helps scale the process, but it’s the human understanding underneath that makes the results meaningful.
With the right balance of tech and audience intelligence, marketers can meet today’s challenges and tomorrow’s opportunities. After all, when AI knows who it’s talking to, it doesn’t just optimize. It connects.
Looking to see how you can benefit from the combined power of Eyeota and YouGov?
Reach out to the Data Desk today to explore how real audience intelligence can elevate your marketing strategy.