NIQ launches global data clean room on Snowflake for ad measurement

NIQ announced on October 2, 2025, the launch of its data clean room on Snowflake, designed to enable both data enrichment and outcome measurement for marketers worldwide. The consumer intelligence company's first dedicated clean room supports critical use cases for marketers, media owners, retail media networks, and ad tech platforms.

The Snowflake-based clean room enables marketers to enrich their proprietary first-party data with NIQ's privacy-compliant consumer signals. According to the announcement, the secure environment facilitates audience discovery, segmentation, scoring, and campaign activation while protecting consumer data and upholding global privacy standards.

"Advertisers are sitting on a wealth of first-party data, but unlocking its full potential requires the right consumer signals and data collaboration solutions," stated Lana Busignani, General Manager at NIQ. The clean room environment allows marketers to uncover high-value audiences, sharpen segmentation, and activate campaigns with greater precision, according to Busignani.

Beyond enrichment capabilities, the clean room supports outcome measurement by leveraging NIQ's retail insights to help advertisers and media owners assess campaign impact. This functionality allows marketers to tie media investments to real-world outcomes, accelerating the industry's shift toward outcome-based planning and optimization.

Dennis Buchheim, Global Head of Media, Entertainment, Advertising & Marketing Technology at Snowflake, emphasized the strategic importance of the collaboration. "We are proud to play a strategic role in the evolution of advertising measurement with NIQ, whose unique data assets and solutions make this possible," Buchheim stated. "Together, we're enabling marketers to make smarter, data-driven decisions with confidence, all while prioritizing consumer privacy."

Both NIQ and Snowflake operate clean rooms to ensure privacy maintenance, data auditability, and measurement data export according to approved aggregation rules. The collaboration underscores both companies' commitment to innovation, consumer privacy, and measurable marketing outcomes.

Technical infrastructure and data scope

NIQ operates with a global reach spanning over 90 countries, covering approximately 85% of the world's population and more than $7.2 trillion in global consumer spend. The company delivers what it calls the Full View, combining holistic retail read and comprehensive consumer insights through advanced analytics and state-of-the-art platforms.

The clean room architecture on Snowflake represents a secure collaboration framework where data remains protected while enabling analytical processes. According to Busignani, the partnership with Snowflake, already a strategic partner to most global advertisers and media companies, helps clients improve the quality and value of their first-party data to drive better outcomes.

The system operates through constraints—rules limiting data analysis within the clean room and controlling export parameters. These constraints must be appropriately designed, implemented, and monitored to effectively limit data usage and disclosure, according to Federal Trade Commission guidance on data clean rooms.

Industry context for clean room adoption

Clean room technology has emerged as a critical infrastructure component across the advertising ecosystem. Amazon launched its Publisher Cloud clean room technology in June 2024, enabling advertisers to leverage publishers' first-party data for audience targeting while maintaining strict privacy controls.

The market has seen significant consolidation activity, with LiveRamp announcing a $200 million acquisition of Habu, a data clean room software provider, in January 2024. That transaction aimed to provide customers with a unified platform for connecting, managing, and analyzing data across all clouds, walled gardens, and clean rooms.

Snowflake has established itself across multiple advertising use cases, with major advertising holding companies building marketing technology infrastructure on the platform. The company's computational capabilities enable faster investment decision-making through enhanced channel insights.

Major streaming platforms have integrated clean room providers into their advertising offerings. Netflix partnered with Snowflake, InfoSum, and LiveRamp to facilitate secure data matching between advertiser first-party data and Netflix's audience segments without compromising individual privacy.

Retail media measurement implications

The NIQ clean room launch addresses persistent measurement challenges across retail media networks. European research published in July 2025 revealed that while 88% of buyers require ROAS data, only 71% of retail media networks currently provide this measurement, highlighting inconsistencies across the ecosystem.

Media measurement and attribution top the list of areas requiring standardization, with 78% and 69% of stakeholders respectively identifying these as critical needs, according to IAB Europe's research. The organization actively addresses these gaps through Measurement Standards for Retail Media, providing frameworks for consistent metric comparison across platforms.

Retail media measurement remains challenging despite significant industry growth, according to experts speaking at the IAB Australia Commerce & Retail Media Summit in July 2025. The closed-loop nature of retail media provides advantages over traditional advertising channels, yet significant challenges remain in implementation across omnichannel environments.

The Australian market demonstrates sophisticated approaches to omnichannel integration, with retailers developing capabilities bridging physical and digital experiences. This foundation enables comprehensive customer journey optimization across touchpoints, aligning with the outcome measurement capabilities NIQ emphasizes in its clean room offering.

Privacy and regulatory considerations

The FTC issued guidance in November 2024 warning that data clean rooms "are not rooms, do not clean data, and have complicated implications for user privacy". The regulatory body emphasized that by default, most data clean room services are not privacy-preserving.

The commission's technical analysis revealed that data clean rooms can add new avenues for data leaks and breaches. Giving another system access to a dataset expands the perimeter that needs to be defended against attack and error, according to the FTC document.

The FTC explicitly states it "remains vigilant in policing any unfair practices or deceptive claims about data collection, disclosure, sale, or use – regardless of the technologies employed." This stance has immediate implications for companies utilizing or considering clean room implementations.

The timing of the FTC guidance, released in November 2024, suggests increased regulatory scrutiny of privacy-enhancing technologies and their marketing claims. The agency emphasizes that using clean rooms does not automatically prevent impermissible disclosure or use of consumer data.

Market positioning and competitive dynamics

Platform adoption metrics indicate substantial advertiser engagement with retail media technology. Criteo's platform currently serves approximately 4,000 brands and operates retail media programs for 225 retailers globally, demonstrating the scale of infrastructure supporting clean room integrations.

First-party data integration has become table stakes, with StackAdapt becoming the first DSP to embed Snowflake Cortex AI within the Snowflake Native App Framework in July 2025. The integration eliminates the need to move data outside Snowflake while seamlessly transforming raw first-party data into actionable insights.

The demand-side platform landscape has embraced Snowflake connectivity, with The Trade Desk launching Galileo in January 2023 for first-party data onboarding and activation via CRM, CDP, and clean room providers. The platform established direct integrations with Snowflake alongside Adobe, Amazon Web Services, Habu, InfoSum, LiveRamp, and Salesforce.

Cost data import functionality expanded significantly in mid-2025, with Google Analytics adding Snowflake among nine additional data sources in open beta on June 24, 2025. The enhancement allows marketers to consolidate advertising spend data from multiple platforms into a single analytics interface.

Why this matters for marketers

The NIQ clean room launch on Snowflake represents infrastructure development addressing fundamental industry challenges around first-party data activation and outcome measurement. Marketers managing campaigns across multiple retail media networks face persistent standardization gaps that limit cross-platform performance comparison.

The emphasis on outcome measurement aligns with broader industry shifts toward commerce-driven attribution models. Retail media spending achieved 22.1% growth in 2024, outpacing the broader advertising market by nearly four times, according to IAB Europe data.

Brand diversification across retail media networks has accelerated, with brands working with four to six networks more than doubling from 10% to 24% in European markets. This proliferation creates operational complexity requiring unified measurement frameworks that clean room technology addresses.

The partnership reflects Snowflake's strategic position in advertising technology infrastructure. Major advertising holding companies have built marketing technology stacks on the platform, with implementations establishing transparency mechanisms that reverse traditional agency data models.

The collaboration's emphasis on privacy-compliant data enrichment responds to increasing regulatory scrutiny. European markets have invested heavily in measurement standards and unified definitions to address fragmentation issues, with certification programs launching to bring standardized measurement and transparency to retail media campaigns.

For marketing professionals navigating the transition to outcome-based measurement, the NIQ clean room provides infrastructure connecting media investments to real-world business results. The system's integration with Snowflake's existing advertiser and media company partnerships reduces implementation friction while maintaining the security protocols necessary for regulatory compliance.

Timeline

• September 2024: IAB and IAB Europe release in-store retail media measurement standards for public comment
• November 2024: Federal Trade Commission warns data clean rooms not a privacy silver bullet
• January 2024: LiveRamp announces $200 million acquisition of Habu data clean room provider
• February 2025: Adobe launches Real-Time CDP Collaboration for privacy-first advertising
• March 2025: IAB Europe releases updated retail media definitions for European markets
• June 2024: Amazon launches Publisher Cloud clean room technology
• June 2025: Snowflake and Acxiom announce plans to transform AI marketing infrastructure
• June 2025: Netflix adds Yahoo DSP as fourth global programmatic partner with Snowflake clean room integration
• June 2025: Google Analytics adds nine new data sources for cost data import including Snowflake
• July 2025: IAB Europe publishes retail media best practice guides addressing measurement standardization
• July 2025: StackAdapt unveils Snowflake native app for first-party data activation
• July 2025: European retail media partnerships extend as measurement challenges persist
• September 2025: Albert Heijn earns first retail media certification under IAB Europe programme
• September 2025: Criteo becomes first onsite retail media partner for Google Search Ads 360
• October 2, 2025: NIQ launches global data clean room on Snowflake for enrichment and ad effectiveness measurement

Summary

Who: NIQ, a consumer intelligence company covering over 90 countries and 85% of the world's population, partnered with Snowflake to launch a global data clean room. Key figures include Lana Busignani, General Manager at NIQ, and Dennis Buchheim, Global Head of Media, Entertainment, Advertising & Marketing Technology at Snowflake.

What: A data clean room on Snowflake's platform enabling marketers to enrich first-party data with privacy-compliant consumer signals for audience discovery, segmentation, scoring, and campaign activation. The system also supports outcome measurement by connecting media investments to real-world results using NIQ's retail insights.

When: Announced October 2, 2025, marking NIQ's first data clean room dedicated to supporting data enrichment and outcome measurement use cases for the marketing ecosystem.

Where: The clean room operates globally through Snowflake's infrastructure, supporting marketers, media owners, retail media networks, and ad tech platforms across NIQ's network spanning more than 90 countries representing $7.2 trillion in global consumer spend.

Why: The launch addresses marketers' challenges in unlocking first-party data's full potential and measuring real-world campaign impact. The collaboration accelerates the industry's shift toward outcome-based planning and optimization while maintaining privacy compliance and data security through approved aggregation rules.