Who said cookieless targeting doesn’t scale?

Dotdash Meredith’s cookieless targeting tool, D/Cipher, has propelled the publisher to a 12% increase in digital ad revenue year-over-year, marking the second consecutive quarter of double-digit growth.  

D/Cipher is proving its worth in driving campaigns like the one the media company conducted with Pandora. The campaign resulted in 76% higher foot traffic when compared to other targeting methods. 

But this isn’t just about impressive numbers. It’s about Dotdash Meredith setting a new standard in the industry. With third-party cookies becoming obsolete, their ability to pivot and innovate with tools like D/Cipher is a masterclass in adaptation. 

“The performance is amazing because the industry is always trying to find ways to tie media buys to real results. This proves that Dotdash Meredith can drive national brick-and-mortar sales for a brand without any cookie or identifier,” Lindsay Van Kirk, Senior Vice President and General Manager of D/Cipher told ADWEEK. 

The publisher’s success is part of a broader narrative vividly discussed at the recent AdMonsters Publisher Forum in Boston. Let’s connect the dots between Dotdash Meredith’s achievements and the strategies shared by top publishers.

Connecting the Dots from Publisher Forum

Several sessions highlighted how publishers leverage data to secure ad spend and ensure brand safety, aligning perfectly with Dotdash Meredith’s success story. Conversations weren’t merely about surviving the post-cookie apocalypse — they were about thriving.

Data-Driven Strategies:

Patrick McCarthy, SVP, Programmatic Monetization, Dotdash Meredith, emphasized the importance of big data in ad operations. “We are a very data-driven company. When you go into meetings with our C-suite team, hunches really aren’t acceptable. Our whole programmatic and advertising part of our business is really driven by our CFO and Chief Innovation Officer, who is a former data scientist. Data is absolutely paramount to making your case for new investment, for new products to be rolled out,”  he said.

This reflects D/Cipher’s ability to utilize first-party data and contextual signals to outperform traditional cookie-based methods. He also highlighted the role of predictive analytics and real-time data applications. The publisher is proving that first-party data and advanced analytics are the future.

Echoing the power of data, Jesse Waldele, SVP, Digital Operations and Client Success at Dow Jones, shared how they’ve ditched third-party data in favor of first-party insights, fueling more effective ad solutions. Their “Thematic AI” tool, which predicts the best content placement using AI, has driven noticeable performance lifts for advertisers. Dow Jones’ focus on real-time measurement ensures that advertisers keep rebooking.

While the benefits of big data are clear, reliance on it also comes with obstacles. The high cost of data management and the risk of data privacy issues can be a significant barrier for smaller publishers.

Brand Suitability and First-Party Data:

In her keynote, Jana Meron, Vice President of Revenue Operations & Data, The Washington Post, discussed the power of first-party data in achieving brand suitability and effective ad placements. She noted, “The intersection of deterministic and probabilistic first-party data is where we get our power.”

The Washington Post observed a 3x performance lift when using first-party data compared to third-party data with standard display, and a 5x lift when integrating custom ad units designed for their audience.

While first-party data offers significant benefits in targeting and personalization, the session also highlighted potential downsides, such as difficulties in scaling deterministic data due to the reliance on user logins, which can limit reach. Additionally, there are concerns about balancing privacy with data collection, as overly aggressive data strategies might lead to consumer pushback or regulatory scrutiny.

Still, The Washington Post’s direction is a fundamental shift in how publishers view and leverage their audience data. By focusing on the nuances of their data, publishers can create a more personalized and effective advertising ecosystem, which is essential as consumers become increasingly wary of invasive data practices.

Harnessing Audience Power: Future’s Strategy

Jeff Goldstein, Head of Programmatic at Future, offered a compelling keynote on the importance of understanding and harnessing audience passions. He explained how Future’s approach to audience segmentation — dividing users into “practical intenders” and “passionate intenders” — has allowed the publisher to optimize its content and ad strategies.

Goldstein shared that through their first-party data platform, Aperture, Future has identified high-intent users, leading to a 30% higher purchase likelihood among these users. He emphasized the value of deep audience insights and the role of AI-driven data in refining targeting strategies.

Future’s approach underscores the value of deep audience insights, enabling them to create more personalized and effective media products. By leveraging AI and contextual data, Future exceeds advertiser expectations, driving better outcomes across its 200+ owned and operated properties.

ID Bridging: Navigating the Benefits and Risks

In another session, the topic of ID bridging was explored in depth, highlighting how this technology enables publishers to maintain addressable audiences in a cookieless environment. Ianna Feliciano, Senior Director, Programmatic Advertising, Raptive, and Jasper Liu, Senior Programmatic Yield Analyst, Daily Mail, explained how ID bridging allows for deterministic and probabilistic matching across devices and browsers. While deterministic matching offers precision, it often lacks scale. On the other hand, probabilistic matching provides greater reach but with potential trade-offs in accuracy.

The speakers also explained the risks associated with ID bridging, such as increased complexity in managing multiple ID partners and the potential for data leakage, which can have severe privacy implications. Additionally, the costs associated with ID bridging can be significant, especially when considering the need for continuous vendor management and compliance with evolving privacy regulations.

But when connected with the right partners, ID bridging is becoming essential for maintaining campaign effectiveness in the face of increasing privacy regulations and the decline of third-party cookies. The session emphasized the importance of choosing the right ID-bridging partners and continually testing and adapting strategies to balance accuracy, scale, and compliance with privacy laws.

Innovative Revenue Strategies:

The “One Big Problem” session, a town hall publisher-only conversation, underscored the challenges and strategies in ramping up revenue. One standout solution was monetizing social media audiences. Publishers are turning their social followers into a goldmine, leveraging these platforms to drive engagement and revenue. This strategy, highlighted by some ad ops leaders shows the innovative ways publishers are navigating the post-cookie landscape.

This strategy doesn’t come without its downsides though. Relying heavily on social platforms means publishers are subject to the algorithms and policies of those platforms, which can change suddenly and impact reach and monetization.

Another exciting approach discussed during the Forum was Deal Curation as a Service (DCaaS). This strategy empowers publishers to showcase and monetize high-quality inventory effectively, leveraging first-party data for improved targeting and higher CPMs. Yet, implementing DCaaS can be resource-intensive, requiring significant investments in technology and data management. It can also lead to increased operational complexity, as publishers must manage and coordinate with multiple partners and ensure the integrity of their curated deals. 

In the long haul, DCaaS enables publishers to regain control over their inventory, creating a more curated and valuable marketplace that benefits publishers and advertisers alike. As Scott Messer of Messer Media explained, DCaaS alleviates costs, aggregates sales efforts, and delivers a good product.

The Existential Crisis and Future-Proofing Revenue

Despite Google’s flip-flop on third-party cookies, savvy publishers are already adapting. Our recent Publisher Pulse report, Ramping Up Your Revenue: Digital Publishers Reveal Key Growth Strategies, shows that 71% of publishers are investing in new tools and technologies to drive revenue growth, with the most invested tools including audience segmentation (65%), identity resolution (50%), and AI-driven/advanced analytics platforms (40%).

But this isn’t just about technology for technology’s sake, it’s about addressing the existential crisis of trust and relevance. Publishers like Dotdash Meredith, The Washington Post, and Future are leading the way, demonstrating that investing in first-party data and contextual targeting is key to thriving in a cookieless world.

As Dotdash Meredith’s McCarthy explained, predictive analytics and real-time data are revolutionizing how we approach ad operations, ensuring we stay ahead of the curve. This aligns seamlessly with the broader industry trends discussed at the Forum, showing a unified move towards data-driven, privacy-safe ad tech solutions.

The landscape is shifting, and those who don’t adapt will be left behind. Since many of these approaches may require significant investment in technology and talent, it’s a survival of the fittest scenario, where only the most innovative and forward-thinking publishers will thrive. Regardless of the size of your operation, your best bet is to start small and keep testing iteratively.

Innovation must be balanced with caution — embrace your data, invest in the right tools, and keep innovating.

Editor’s Update 08/14/2024 An earlier version of this article omitted insights from Jesse Waldele, SVP of Digital Operations and Client Services at Dow Jones, and Jeff Goldstein, Head of Programmatic at Future’s keynote.

The post Dotdash Meredith’s Cookieless Conquest and the Publisher Pulse: Notes from AdMonsters Publisher Forum Boston appeared first on AdMonsters.

Google recently announced changes to their plans to deprecate third-party cookies (3PCs) on their Chrome browser:

“…we are proposing an updated approach that elevates user choice. Instead of deprecating third-party cookies, we would introduce a new experience in Chrome that lets people make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing, and they’d be able to adjust that choice at any time.” 

Emphasis added

Reading these proposed changes has led to many interpretations, including the headline “Google cancels plans to kill off cookies for advertisers.” My careful reading of this announcement leads me to another conclusion: while Google will not deprecate cookies, a workflow will be introduced that allows users to turn off cross-site tracking via 3PCs more easily, similar to Apple’s App Tracking Transparency. If this is the case, we may see an accelerated time frame where users may start to opt out of 3PCs sooner than the previously stated 3PC deprecation plans.  

The bottom line is that the advertising industry still needs to prepare for loss of addressability of some cohort of users via 3PCs. This will still be a massive shift that leaves brands wondering: What can we do today to ensure we’re prepared for the post-third-party cookie world? 

Collecting Zero- and First-Party Data 

Brands are likely already using both zero- and first-party data in some capacity for personalization and targeting purposes. Zero-party data is solicited directly from users and generally captured in the form of personally identifiable information (PPI) such as email, address, and phone number. Zero-party data can’t currently be onboarded to Google’s Protected Audience API (PAAPI) or other Privacy Sandbox solutions. Since one-to-one targeting is unavailable through PAAPI, zero-party data should be part of a broader, identification-based targeting strategy encompassing additional retargeting and personalization strategies. 

With first-party data–the data passively captured from site visitors– you can create interest groups within PAAPI. For instance, if a user visits a page for petite women’s jeans, they may be added to a “petite clothing” interest group, enabling brands and DSPs to identify and target these user segments in subsequent auctions. It’s important to note that the current segmentation will be the same for the API, as no changes are expected to be made that will impact the user experience. 

If it’s not a priority already, brands need to start collecting and storing zero-party data in customer relationship management (CRM) or customer data platform (CDP) systems.

Testing Emerging Tactics

The most prominent emerging solution is Google’s Privacy Sandbox, which aims to create a more private internet by reducing cross-app and cross-site tracking, including blocking covert tracking while keeping online content free.

This initiative includes Google phasing out 3PCs and creating new web standards to create technology that protects user privacy while still giving advertisers the tools needed to develop well-targeted campaigns.

While testing is underway, results from the initial trial involving 1% of Google Chrome users indicate that there is still a long journey ahead before completely phasing out 3PCs. 

Evaluating Alternative Identifiers

Deterministic IDs are created via authenticated registration events and rely on a user’s personal identifiable information (PII). Active efforts to collect zero-party data, especially email addresses, are essential because email addresses are the primary piece of PII that creates the most deterministic IDs.

With an email address and a deterministic ID, you can track a user’s first-party behavioral and interest data. For instance, if a user adds items to their cart but doesn’t complete the purchase, their activity syncs with your CRM. You can then automatically send an abandoned cart email or retarget them with relevant ads using a DSP that supports deterministic ID technology.

However, because deterministic IDs rely on PII, they’re expected to be limited in scale availability. Users must share their email information with publishers who sell advertising space on their website(s) or app(s). That said, deterministic IDs are often highly accurate because the information comes directly from users, which is where incentives can come into play.

Probabilistic IDs rely on multiple cross-channel signals to approximate user identity without collecting PII from zero-party data. They may use the IP address, screen resolution, device type, and operating system. 

Because probabilistic IDs are not reliant on PII, the data involved is much easier to collect and more widely available. Due to this approach, probabilistic IDs are often less accurate and have a lower persistence over time due to browser-readable signals.

 Key Questions to Assess Ad Providers’ Readiness  

While testing Privacy Sandbox APIs and alternative identifiers is limited by the current lack of market adoption and, in some cases, technical readiness, there are ways to gauge whether your current or future ad provider is prepared to help you navigate these tactics in a post-3PC world. To ensure your ad provider is ready to help you as 3PC addressability is lost, you can ask these questions:

•     Have you been involved in the W3C and the development of the Privacy Sandbox API specs?
•     To date, what level of testing have you done on the Privacy Sandbox APIs?
  • Which APIs have been tested?
•     How will a loss in 3PC impact your attribution reporting?
•     Which deterministic and/or probabilistic IDs do you support today and why?
  • Which do you plan to support in the future?
•     Which systems and functionalities are 3PC dependent?
  • How are you future-proofing these systems?
  • What systems will be drastically impacted or not future-proof?
•     What approach(es) will you take to future-proof your technology?

 Potential Red Flags When Choosing an Ad Provider

There are a few potential red flags you should watch out for when assessing ad providers, including, but not limited to: 

• They’re unfamiliar with the extent of Google’s shift away from 3PCs or dismiss concerns about the potential severity of impact.
• They don’t already have a plan to account for the loss of reachable audiences caused by Google’s shift away from 3PCs.
• Collecting and maintaining user privacy and consent aren’t core considerations in their strategies.
• They don’t have methods prepared to leverage first- and zero-party data for retargeting, interest-based targeting, or full-funnel campaigns.
• They can’t provide specifics about campaign attribution, performance tracking, and optimization.

While the future state of retargeting following Google’s shift away from 3PCs is still evolving, it’s unlikely that a single tactic will emerge as the solution. Instead, advertisers will need to leverage each of these tactics in concert to maximize the value of their retargeting efforts. 

The post Google’s New Cookie Plan: Empowering Users, Shaping Advertiser Strategies appeared first on AdMonsters.

In the fast-paced world of digital publishing, cookies once played a pivotal role in enabling seamless functionality across the monetization ecosystem.

They facilitated communication between supply-side platforms (SSPs), demand-side platforms (DSPs), ad servers, and attribution platforms. With cookies, ad servers could efficiently apply frequency capping, and attribution platforms could report on view-through conversions—all without the need for active participation from the publisher.

Cookies were indeed powerful, but the landscape is shifting. The impending deprecation of third-party cookies is sending ripples across the digital advertising industry, impacting everyone from publishers to advertisers and consumers. However, amidst the disruption, there lies a remarkable opportunity for publishers to reclaim their power.

The Naked Publisher: A Tale of Data Exposure

In the past, publishers were, in a sense, “naked” due to the industry’s heavy reliance on third-party cookies.

Their valuable audience data, from pageviews to session depth, was laid bare for third parties to exploit. This vulnerability stemmed from the way data flowed through the digital advertising pipes — the sell side, buy side, activation, and measurement entities listed above.

The interruption of these data pipelines is bound to impact revenue streams, but it also represents an opportunity that should not be underestimated. Publishers, instead of lamenting the loss of cookies, should seize the moment.

Redefining Data Ownership and Trust

Historically, publishers stored both first-party and third-party IDs as cookies. While this allowed SSPs, header wrappers, ad servers, and others to access these identifiers, it also spurred the problems of data leakage and the lack of exclusive audience ownership associated with third-party cookies.

Audiences were commoditized as a byproduct of third-party cookies. Publishers’ valuable audiences were never really theirs because the audience could be learned via open pipes and found on inventory elsewhere.

With control over their data, publishers can win more direct revenue and positively impact their bottom line by only sharing Deal IDs versus user IDs through the programmatic pipeline.

Publishers, however, can adapt to the changing landscape by reevaluating their data storage strategies. While some functions still require data accessibility, the evolving market dynamics allow publishers to control access to their proprietary audience data.

It is the publisher’s responsibility as to how they make their data accessible and if the subsequent strategy will result in devaluing their audience for direct buys. They can differentiate between data stored locally and data used for offline matching through techniques like data clean rooms and customer data platforms (CDPs) to facilitate direct media buys.

This shift empowers publishers to instill more trust with their readers by collecting opted-in, verified, and usable first-party data. The era of the cookieless future beckons publishers to take ownership of their audience relationships like never before.

The Evolution of Publisher Power

Embracing this evolution will significantly enhance publishers’ ability to generate premium, direct demand.

Whether audience segments are derived from attributes provided by the publisher or the brand, the key is to ensure that the data is stored appropriately. Publishers can then extrapolate their audience data against all of their inventory, unlocking untapped potential.

In this cookieless future, publishers hold the key to retaining control over and monetizing their audiences while plugging data leaks. With control over their data, publishers can win more direct revenue and positively impact their bottom line by only sharing Deal IDs versus user IDs through the programmatic pipeline. By investing in the right infrastructure and processes to independently store their first-party data, publishers can emerge as the true powerhouses of the digital advertising world.

Seizing the Cookieless Opportunity

As the digital advertising landscape evolves, publishers who proactively plan ahead and implement the right systems and solutions will emerge as leaders.

They will harness the true potential of first-party data, ensuring that the future is not just cookieless but also brimming with opportunities for growth and innovation. The power lies in their hands, and it’s time to wield it with confidence.

The post Embracing the Cookieless Future: Publishers’ Opportunity to Take Control appeared first on AdMonsters.

In 2024, users’ data is under lock and key. Not literally, of course, but with the fall of Chrome’s cookies and stronger privacy regulations popping out of the woodwork, it will be much harder for publishers to reach their desired audience. 

We knew this was coming, but theorizing something and experiencing it are two different beasts. Is the ad tech industry ready to slay this dragon and thrive in a privacy-compliant world?

Optimism exists, but as our contributors warn us below, the industry has its work cut out for it before achieving any success in this new privacy-first world order. 

While reflecting on 2023 and preparing for the uncharted waters ahead, we turned to some of the industry’s leading voices on privacy — from the buy and sell sides, and even in between — to dispense their privacy predictions for 2024.

There are fair warnings ahead — the slow burn to federal privacy laws, the lack of addressaibility, the wait and see mindset. But it’s not all grim — the convergence of ad tech and martech, testing Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs), data collaboration, and more.

Another Year, Another Stand Still on Federal Privacy Regulation

“Consumer demand for privacy continues, and targeted advertising is at the top of the list of concerns. However, the US is still unable to get federal privacy regulations across the line. Instead, the patchwork of state legislation continues to grow. Large technology platforms will tighten privacy features, and there will finally be fewer cookies by the end of the year. 

Buyers, sellers, and ad technology providers must invest resources to manage the increased operational overhead required for compliance. Leading publishers will also test new technologies to securely match info on consented users (like clean rooms), require more extensive employee training on compliance, and develop exciting new probabilistic matching solutions. These solutions will use advanced contextual signals, first-party data, and smaller sets of deterministically matched audiences to build new resilient targeting and measurement solutions.” – Maria Breza, VP, Ad Quality Measurement and Audience Data Operations at SXM Media

Rapid Fire: The Rise of PETs and Consented Data 

“The future of PETs. There has been a surplus of chatter about privacy-enhancing technologies for the last few years. Yet, with the rise in restrictions on sensitive data, companies will start to invest more into understanding the viability of PETs to help them reach audiences in a privacy-protection way (rather than engaging in privacy theater). Regulators are also interested in this technology, but we should expect them to look at these solutions with a critical eye. They will employ experts to help them determine whether (from a mathematical perspective) publishers can use them to deliver and measure advertising without revealing individual user data.

*Note that clean rooms are not PETS; they must leverage PETs to offer a privacy-safe solution.

Experiments in consented data. I have yet to see a widespread effort to get opt-in consent for using sensitive information in the states that require it. Likewise, I haven’t seen companies take advantage of the ability to ask California consumers to opt-in to the “sale” of their data 12 months after opting out. However, the continual tightening of the faucet on data may push companies to have a change of mind. Companies may offer financial incentives or other benefits in exchange for consumer consent. Similar to companies experimenting with the “pay or ok” model in the EU, the shift in regulation will cause companies in the U.S. to think about whether business models here need to shift to weather these changes.” – Jessica B. Lee, Partner, Co-Chair, Privacy, Security & Data Innovations at Loeb & Loeb LLP.

The Era of CDPs

“Given that regulation naturally means fewer options to easily monetize customer data, centralization for storage and coordination of data will require a hub. Ad tech and martech further converge into madtech via the CDP. There are three main areas where this is paramount: 

1. Segment Creation – Today, not enough marketers can leverage their marketing attributes to build segments from 0 and 1PD. Most platforms still require engineering to code the necessary attributes. There will be a requirement to democratize this task so publishers can build custom audience segments they can use more easily. Outside vendors have a greater likelihood of building extensions that handle this function.
2. Data Collaboration – Moving data from platform to platform is complex today. However, there are several technical solutions to make this less burdensome. Building data collection and interactivity infrastructure will become a big business in 2024. The CDP is also at the center of these innovations, insomuch as they’re a required integration partner for this tech.
3. Insight Data – Data and research companies may start to push market and behavior data to the CDP. Today, the data flows in the opposite direction, and brands and agencies send customer data to data and research organizations for monetization. Given the prediction on segmentation and data collaboration capabilities, it would be intuitive for brands to centralize the whole process of insights, segmentation, and transfer in their platform of choice – the CDP.

If the above occurs, we will see even greater adoption of CDP’s, but it’s unlikely that CDP’s will create these mechanisms for collaboration. We may see  vendor extensions into the software that enable these functions.” – Therran Oliphant, SVP, Head of Data & Technology NA at EssenceMediacom

The Decrease in Addressable Users 

“Expect to see the industry truly start to take privacy seriously in 2024. To date, most of the industry is trying to extract as much value out of a shrinking group of addressable users, and in 2024, that number will get so small that it will force many to find new ways to reach audiences.

The group of addressable users will shrink because of the end of cookies and the removal of IP addresses, regulations, and other changes. The industry will need to find replacements for the direct addressability of the past that is privacy-preserving and scalable, and not many current technologies cross that bar. There’s lots of work to do.” – Paul Bannister, Chief Strategy Officer at Raptive

In-App Mobile Advertising Deals With Post-IDFA User Acquisition

“Privacy continues to be top of mind in the mobile advertising ecosystem. Mobile app developers adjusting to post-IDFA user acquisition on iOS must adapt yet again and learn how to run UA campaigns without relying on GAIDs as Google rolls out its Privacy Sandbox. As it adjusts, our industry must find creative ways to navigate the challenges and mitigate the impact on ad revenue. Brand advertisers will also face challenges activating their first-party data, as matching it with supply-side data will become impossible without identifiers.” – Linda Ouyang, VP & GM, Global Supply & Exchange, Digital Turbine

The Plight of Measurement and Addressability

“The cookie is going away. Those who act like it’s already gone are in the best shape. Success boils down to two things – addressability and measurement. Addressability isn’t terribly challenging as identity graphs and clean rooms provide tools to reach desired audiences at scale across partners. The industry is still navigating successful measurement. The result can and will be partially modeled but must pass a CFO and FP&A smell test for believability at the highest levels.” – Jay Friedman, CEO of Goodway Group

A Year of Experimentation and Testing

“As we venture into 2024, the advertising industry is poised to significantly shift toward a ‘Privacy-First’ approach in personalized advertising. This year will consist of constant experimentation and testing, a period where the performance of campaigns may see fluctuations and instability. Marketers will need to adapt swiftly, exploring new methodologies for targeting and measurement.

Companies will increasingly tap into AI and machine learning, creating hyper-personalized content that respects user privacy. This involves leveraging aggregated and anonymized data to serve relevant ads, ensuring individual privacy remains intact.

Additionally, 2024 will witness a surge in transparency tools, empowering consumers to monitor and control how brands utilize their data. This will cultivate a deeper sense of trust and compliance.

In this era of experimentation, the advertising world will strive to meet privacy norms and seek to enrich the user experience. To adapt to these changes, the advertising industry must be nimble, ready to embrace new ways of targeting and measuring, ensuring advertising remains effective and respectful in an increasingly privacy-conscious world.” – Angelina Eng, VP of Measurement, Addressability, and Data Center at IAB. 

The post Lock and Key: AdMonsters 2024 Privacy Predictions appeared first on AdMonsters.

The demise of the third-party cookie once sent waves of fear through the digital advertising ecosystem, but not anymore. That’s because, in the years that followed Google’s original cookie deprecation announcement, the industry has been hard at work innovating new ways for publishers to segment their audiences so that their advertising partners can target them.

For Ravi Mittal, Founder and CEO of Vuukle, the most obvious way to get highly valuable data, including purchase intent and sentiment, is for publishers to ask them. Recently he launched Quizzly.ai — a tool that is part quiz and part game that early tests show readers are eager to use.

We talked with Ravi about how tools like quizzes can fit into the publisher’s and advertiser’s strategies.

AdMonsters: Vuukle recently announced Quizzly.ai. What is that exactly?

RM: It’s an AI-driven quiz that publishers easily embed in their sites using JavaScript. Then the code extracts the content of the page, whether that’s text or images, and sends it to a quiz AI engine. The engine looks at the content and turns the interesting bits into a question-and-answer format.

So take the AdMonsters article on the 10 Commandments of CTV. The chart to the left is the first question of an eight-question quiz that the tool created in real-time.

These quizzes appear at the bottom of the article, which encourages the user to test their understanding of what they just read. The quiz tells the reader whether they’ve answered correctly or incorrectly.

It’s a great way to increase engagement with the publisher’s content.

AdMonsters: Can the tool understand video content as well?

RM: We’re working on it. Soon.

AdMonsters: Does the tool ask the users’ opinion of what they just read, or are the questions about the content itself?

RM: We trained the AI model to pick out specific types of sentences, which enables it to create quizzes on the fly.

AdMonsters: I can see how it would prompt more engagement for people who take the quiz, but how many actually do that?

RM: That’s a great question. We asked ourselves the same question after we built the quiz unit but hadn’t launched it as an official product. But we tested it, and based on the data, it seems people have a natural tendency to test themselves. Without any incentive whatsoever, we’re seeing 8 to 10% user engagement rates for the quizzes.

AdMonsters: How can publishers turn that 8 to 10% engagement into audiences for segmentation and targeting purposes?

RM: Excellent question. There are a few ways to do that. First, we can create quizzes that include sponsored comments that ask about brand preferences, products, brand recall, or any number of things. Those sponsored questions come after the first two questions that are based on the article content itself.

As an example, we recently worked with an electronics manufacturer that was keen to do a brand measurement study. The sponsored question asked about a product or product category of interest. When users answered the question it provided the brand with the information it wanted, but it also informed the publisher about the types of content of interest to their readers. This allowed the publisher to create a unique audience segment they could offer to their advertisers.

AdMonsters: Don’t brands typically hire a comScore or Nielsen to get that data?

RM: Yes, it’s an $80 billion market. Now publishers can get in on it, and tap into a new revenue stream.

AdMonsters. That’s great. What’s the other way for publishers to build their first-party data set?

RM: Another way to collect first-party data is to ask questions that are relatively generic but are tied to IAB categories, such as, “How often do you visit local attractions.” The user responses are stored in the publisher’s GAM or Google Ad Manager. Later on, if a brand wants to target audiences to visit a local attraction, the publisher has a segment of users who answered the question, “frequently” or “monthly.”

These questions provide an opportunity for publishers to ask users questions and record their preferences as definitive purchase intent. It’s deterministic, not probabilistic data.

AdMonsters: So it’s always building audience segments with those generic questions, even if they aren’t sponsored?

RM: Yes, and those questions can be very specific about purchase intent. Are you planning to move in the next six months, or renovate your kitchen, or purchase a new car?

These questions provide an opportunity for publishers to ask users questions and record their preferences as definitive purchase intent. It’s deterministic, not probabilistic data.

AdMonsters: That sounds like a real selling point for the publisher who wants to sell premium audience segments based on purchase intent.

RM: It is a benefit because it’s based on real data that came directly from the users, rather than the guesswork of an SSP or DSP that segments users based on a handful of online behaviors.

Publishers can use the data they collect, to build segments, which they can offer to brands as highly qualified audiences.

AdMonsters: And at higher CPMs because they’re more premium and more unique. But of the 8 to 10% response rate of the people who take the quizzes actually answer those market research and sponsored questions?

RM: We’re seeing about a 40% completion rate. One of the reasons why we get a high response rate in the quizzes themselves and the sponsored questions is we’ve gamified it. Users who take the quizzes in their entirety have the opportunity to participate in a leaderboard.

The leaderboard also drives engagement, page views, and revenue. The more questions the reader answers correctly, the higher they’ll be on the leaderboard. This provides an incentive for readers to refer back to the article prior to answering questions. That’s good for them, and it’s good for the publisher.

AdMonsters: Leaderboards certainly provide an incentive to people who like to play online games. What is your recommendation for deploying these quizzes? Are there some sections or topics that perform better than others?

RM: That’s an interesting question. In the past, quizzes haven’t been major drivers of engagement because the onus was on the publisher to create and deploy them. But when you can automate the process and create quizzes on the fly, things get really interesting. Suddenly it becomes possible to create a quiz for every article and have them embedded on every page.

We recommend quizzes for every article published, even sponsored articles, as each quiz is an opportunity for the publisher to collect data and create really unique audiences.

AdMonsters: I can see why that makes sense for a sponsored article, but does it make sense for The New York Times to have a quiz on every article? I would think the users would stop seeing them after a while.

RM: I agree with you to a degree. There are some topics, say war or crime, where you wouldn’t want a quiz, and especially a quiz with sponsored content. But we can suppress quizzes based on the sentiment of the article.

There are some topics, like sports and politics, that are highly conducive to these quizzes because there are a lot of stats and trivia and people like testing their knowledge. Politics and sports consistently get 10% or higher engagement rates. Articles on relationships see even higher engagement with the quizzes.

AdMonsters: Speaking of politics, next year we will see $10 billion in political ads. People are very wary of generative AI and disinformation. What do you say to publishers who worry about AI-generated quizzes?

RM: That’s a fair question. There are many types of AI, and we’ve chosen a strategy that is risk-averse. We’re using content that is contained in an article itself and has been vetted by the editorial staff. We’re not using generative AI to create new text, and that’s an important distinction. We’re telling people that to get high on the leaderboard, they need to refer back to the vetted content in the article.

AdMonsters: So in addition to boosting engagement and dwell time, the publisher is improving reader comprehension?

RM: That’s right.

Ravi Mittal, Founder and CEO – Vuukle/Quizzly

Ravi Mittal is a highly accomplished entrepreneur and technology enthusiast with a strong background in Information Systems Engineering. He graduated from Imperial College London and quickly jumped into the corporate world, beginning his career at the prestigious Goldman Sachs.

In 2012, Ravi founded Vuukle, a revolutionary commenting platform that has since become one of the largest in the world. This innovative platform is utilized by over 500 websites across the globe, transforming the way users engage and interact with online content. Under Ravi’s leadership, Vuukle has expanded its offerings to include a range of cutting-edge products such as social share bars, reactions, push notifications, real-time analytics, and Quizzly.ai.

With over a decade of experience in adtech, Ravi has become a recognized expert in the field. He has closely worked with SSPs, DSPs, and publishers, gaining valuable insights into the complexities of the digital advertising ecosystem.

The post How Can Publishers Best Gauge User Intent and Sentiment? Ask Them. appeared first on AdMonsters.

With mounting privacy regulations and Apple and Google making sweeping privacy-first ad tech updates, we have landed in the consent-based future. Consent is the currency that will lead publishers to once again build trusted relationships with their audiences to offer them personalized experiences, and at the same time increase the value of those audiences to advertisers. But it all comes down to crafting the right value exchange.

We spoke with Ashlea Cartee, Product Marketing Manager, OneTrust Platform about consent fatigue (yeah, it’s a real thing), the future of compliance frameworks, and whether zero-party data actually makes a difference in bringing advertisers and publishers closer to people.

Lynne d Johnson: I keep hearing publishers and consumers talk about consent fatigue. How is this going to impact user experience and ultimately publisher’s revenue?

Ashlea Cartee: User experience is key. It’s important to put the consumer at the center of how things are being built. It’s also been interesting to see publishers really embrace user experience as they roll out products. User experience is really a competitive advantage and business driver now.

Businesses are coming together to connect the right people to determine how we improve the consent experience overall. At the heart of this is identity. As a consumer, I show up on different devices with a mix of identifiers. Those identifiers are being reduced by the deprecation of third-party cookies throughout tracking, transparency, and also the removal of mobile identifiers. It might vary based on my privacy preferences or my relationship with the organization.

For instance, I might have my identity as a parent, as an individual, or as an employee of an organization. You can’t use technology to tie everything together based on Identifiers and make assumptions without the user’s consent. The creepiness factor comes in when you connect everything based on an assumption. There’s space for the conversation around consent fatigue, the importance of the user experience, and the recognition that you need to find a balance to prevent it from getting too creepy.

LdJ: What can pubs do to streamline the process? It feels like this is an evolution of the conversation around value exchange. What are your thoughts on that?

AC: The value exchange is the entry point. I always think about putting the consumer at the center of the experience. If you’re looking at a subscription model, you’re building that relationship because you want that subscription to continue. If you’re using an ad-supported model, there’s a spectrum of relationships with the consumer. They may have come from some search results or they may be launching into a Pubs app. That’s a much different experience in the sense that they’re anchoring to that pub already. They’re opening that app experience and might be expecting curated content recommendations that are built around that identity. The value exchange is important because it allows you to connect to the consumer in order to give them the right experience.

It introduces the concept of layered notices. It’s not a radical concept, but I think it’s important to focus on. Someone’s going to want to click through and get to the page. Someone else is going to want to read. Publishers should pay attention to the fact that they will get a varied audience. They’re going to be a mix of opinions on how they want their privacy to be honored. There is no one size fits all.

LdJ: There’s been a debate in the ad tech space about a new term zero data. Is zero PD really a thing? And if not, how should we be dealing with this whole one PD versus zero PD? And also how should publishing be leveraging one PD?

AC: When you’re looking at first-party data, you’re oftentimes looking to find alignment between the content you’re producing and the opportunities you’re making available to consumers. Things such as exclusive partnerships, insights or experiences that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to make available to a wide audience. If you can find a more targeted, specific audience where the value is there, those are doors worth opening and they’re going to continue to build that relationship. That’s the value of first-party data.

In terms of zero-party data, I think of it as really direct, very specific, and connecting at a different level. For example, consider a financial institution saying, Lynn, you bank with us. What are your short-and-long-term goals so that we can help you be successful? And let’s say hypothetically, your answer was, I need to buy a new home. I think of that as true zero-party data, very specific to where you are at this moment in your life. Specifically offering information that you thought about before you handed that over. It’s valuable information not just for the business, but also for you. It seems more specific about a moment in time.

It gets you closer to people’s actual needs and what they’re feeling. I don’t feel strongly about what we call it. Perhaps earned data is a new term we can coin which includes both zero- and first-party data. If we set our North Star at the user experiences we’re looking for, we come out with a win.

Register for our upcoming webinar with OneTrust about how consent-based advertising can help to build audience trust.  

The post Consent Is the New Currency: A Conversation with OneTrust’s Ashlea Cartee appeared first on AdMonsters.

Although Google delayed their third-party cookie cut-off, there have to be new and effective ways to aggregate consumer data in an ethical manner. 

Amongst buyers and sellers alike, there is already some discussion about the next phase of data collection practices and theories. So much so, that it could be a bit of information overload for the ad tech newbie or veteran. Regardless, the industry is moving full speed ahead to stay on top of these new regulations. 

One of the more widely spread solutions is Alternative IDs. This medium involves identifiers that are privacy-focused and allows publishers to access first-party data that is volunteered by the consumer. 

This can include data assets such as email addresses, clicks, and names. While the data is collected through cross-device usage, both publishers and advertisers have first-party IDs to find ad placement matches. As of now, there are 10 prominent alternative ID solutions and it is one of the most common practices for cross-site tracking. 

The majority of companies are encrypting their user data. Others are taking it a step further by using ID tokens that periodically alter, similar to the theorized Web3 tokens. 

So, what are the different ID solutions? From February 2022 – June 22, Emarketer and Sincera highlighted that thousands of publishers were using what they called the Top 5 Identifiers. including ID5, Unified ID 1.0, RampID, Prebid SharedID, and Criteo.

Here we look at 10 such solutions and explain how they’re supposed to work.

Top 10 Alternative ID Solutions

ID5 ID

The ID5 ID is specifically designed for publishers. This is an encrypted first-party data ID that gives publishers a unique device ID they can share with their partners and clients. With their ID5’s identity cloud publishers can:  

• Identify users in all digital advertising environments to increase monetization with the ID5 ID
• Ensure compliance with data privacy regulations with their privacy-by-design technology
• Prevent data leakage by permissioning user IDs to authorized partners only

This specific ID is unique because its technology, as mentioned above, is privacy focused by design. Browsers and applications that work with ID5 must disclose to the user that their data is being collected and what kind of information is being collected. Users are given consent, opt-out and do-not-sell signals from ID5 based upon their preference. 

ID5 has a relationship with about nearly 600 publishers and with their mass amount of data assets, ID5 can retrieve that data to create a unique ID. With the data in the ID publishers can use cross-site data collection, profiling, and data measurements, and share the ID with partners to target ads and sell them for higher prices. 

Unified ID 2.0

This specific ID solution was launched by The Trade Desk but has evolved more into a collaboration with Prebid, with Prebid.org taking on the role of operator of UID 2.0’s technical infrastructure. Much like the other solutions, the consumer’s email is used to build the ID and that allows them to receive personalized advertisements. In practice, UID 2.0 can facilitate cross-site app reach, create targetable audience segments, measure attribution and conversion of ad spend, and analyze ad campaign details.

For the benefit of publishers and advertisers, the solution targets ads to users giving both entities encrypted IDs that can be matched in the bid stream. The ID itself does not contain data, but it is transferred in the bid stream process. UID2 is a decentralized system that can be used by small and large publishers and advertisers who want to use the encrypted IDs for matching and who have a large database of users’ emails. 

This solution has become one of the more popular Alternative IDs. In fact, the popular streaming service, Tubi, became the first CTV publisher to implement the ID in July of 2021. 

In terms of its development, The Trade Desk’s Chief Revenue Officer, Tim Sims, said that “Unified ID 2.0 is a collaboration among everyone within the advertising ecosystem to pioneer an interoperable, open-source ID solution that helps advertisers connect with audiences while keeping consumer control and privacy in mind.”

Ramp ID

LiveRamp’s ID solution is self-described as “a people-based map connecting de-identified offline touchpoints and online devices.” It has one of the largest U.S.-based device data assets and works to design its technology to collect that data in an ethical way. 

There are the aspects to the process of creating their ID: 

• Offline PII merging: Resolving separate emails, postal addresses, and phone numbers to a single individual
• Online device linking: Matching disparate devices to people-based anonymous identifiers
• Offline to online: Merging these offline and online identity spaces into a unified, privacy-conscious, people-based ID space

While many ID solutions have interoperable properties, this specific solution is known for its interoperability. It can connect with IDs stored with premium publishers such as Google and Facebook, direct internet deals, and marketplace activations. After the ID is created, it offers cookie syncing to match in DSPs. For optimal user experience, publishers and advertisers who want to outsource ID creation and greater interoperability should be on the lookout for RampID. 

SharedID 

This community-focused ID was created by Prebid and  is inherently unique from the other solutions because it is owned and operated by Prebid.org’s publisher members rather than a vendor. The community-led technology is privacy focused and targeted to work across different publishers and DSPs. 

To start the ID process, publishers write the SharedID as a first-party value. After creating the unique user ID with the data, the publisher can make it accessible to a bidder or “use the user ID as a building block for publisher controlled first party self-declared data without the use of an identifier.” 

The main functionality of SharedID is acting as a storage center for first-party data. On the other hand, unlike many of the other ID solutions, SharedIDonly offers cross-site tracking within the publisher’s domain. Thus, it is recommended that only tech-savvy publishers with fewer resources that want to share their first-party data with DSPs should use this ID solution. 

ConnectID

Yahoo’s alternative ID solution, ConnectID, “uses consent-based, first-party data to bring audiences to life in a world without cookies.” One of the biggest pulls for this specific solution is Yahoo’s large consumer base that consists of 500 million unique user profiles and about 200 billion daily cross-screen user intent signals. In addition, the company has direct consumer relationship data across sites such as Yahoo News, Sports, and Finance. This helps publishers create in-depth identity-based user profiles. 

While the data is expansive, ConnectID only works with Yahoo’s DSP which has audience activation and media measurement with assets such as CTV, programmatic audio and much more. Experts agree that it should be used by publishers or advertisers that have a lot of resources, direct user relationships, and who want to outsource ID matching. 

To start the process, a Yahoo user signs in using their email address and gives consent for the site to use their information. Their address is encrypted after being sent to Yahoo and is then sent back to the publisher as a ConnectID to share for bidding. After the ID is created, the publisher and advertiser’s ConnectID are matched on Yahoo’s DSP which initiates the process across multiple media channels. 

Panorama ID

This specific ID is a privacy-complaint solution for the open web that caters to multiple inputs such as CTV, web, and mobile. Created by Lotame, the solution is powered by the brands’ patented graphing technology and it connects “different types of device identifiers, associated individual behaviors, and privacy choices into a single view, without dependence on cookies.” 

For privacy compliance, Lotame has included a universal opt-out option for consumers. If they opt out once, the decision will be reflected in real-time and maintained across every device and touchpoint associated with the ID. In addition, Panorama ID has access to 90 platform partners and data from 180 providers across 58 countries. For each anonymized ID, there is an average of 199 web and 89 mobile attributes that both publishers and advertisers have access to. 

Since it uses multiple data points, it can be utilized across SSPs and DSPs to match with ads and other IDs. Publishers who want to obtain user content and who have a large user base to provide active consent to be tracked and shown personalized advertisements should look out for this ID. 

CORE ID

CORE ID reaches about 200 million consumers in a privacy-safe way, according to the creator of this ID solution, Epsilon. It offers publishers and advertisers deterministic data rooted in offline name or address data. Publishers and advertisers with resources to outsource ID resolution and matching should use the solution

To start the process, after a user is tagged on the publisher or advertiser website, they call the CORE ID service to see if the user has a CORE ID. If the user does, their email address is pushed through the hashing process and shared with the service provider. Afterward, that data is paired with other data connected to the user that can create a unique profile identifier. The matching process occurs through Epsilon’s DSP and their data processing system called Agility. 

Unlike the previous IDs mentioned, CORE ID does use cookies as a part of the unique ID. Despite this, CORE ID asserts that third-party cookies going away will not affect their process. Since it is “people-based, CORE ID is anchored on deterministic data elements, making it highly reliable and stable. The data is pseudonymized before it enters the digital ecosystem, keeping consumers’ information properly safeguarded and aligned with evolving regulations.” 

Fabrick ID

Neustar launched their unified identity ecosystem in 2020. The Fabrick ID is an “innovation in identity-powered media and measurement that improves omnichannel marketing effectiveness, while future-proofing brands, publishers, and platforms in a privacy-first, post-cookie world.” 

Like many of the ID solutions mentioned, publishers and advertisers can use the ID solution to conduct cookieless audience targeting and data personalization. According to Neustar, Fabrick ID has already fostered success for their clients: 

• With Fabrick’s Multi-Touch Attribution and Marketing Mix Modeling, a retail client increased the accuracy of their cross-media forecasts, reduced data sparsity, and evolved into a 100% data-driven marketing organization. 
• A telecommunications firm increased their ad spend by 4x, increased their on and offline sale conversion rate, and bolstered their ad creative. 

Designed as a cookie replacement, Fabrick ID is a programmatic token made up of a culmination of publisher-provided data. With the PII, clients who use the solution build marketing programs. Once the campaign is executed, Neustar performs measurements using Fabrick and other IDs. It is perfect for publishers that use multiple IDs and want to connect those data points across one platform for transactions and measurements. 

nonID 

LiveIntent’s nonID is unique because it does not require publishers or advertisers to conform to their specific ID solution. According to the brand, their “nonID data processing service is able to safely bridge whatever ID you’re using to the wider digital ecosystem via an active, encrypted email address.” Not only does the solution offer cross-site identification, but it can also help determine which email address is best used for the multi-device process. 

All ID solutions are powered by first-party data, but LiveIntent has data collection assets with 200 million unique email addresses and 25 billion authenticated data signals. 

In addition, due to LiveIntent’s partnerships which allow them to place ads within publishers’ newsletters, they have large access to zero-party data. Therefore, the ID solution is recommended to publishers with newsletters that want to outsource ID creation and matching and who want to generate revenue by putting ads into newsletters. 

SWID

This user-first ID solution was created by a network of operators called the Secure Web Addressability Network (SWAN). 

The Secure Web ID standards are strict as SWAN requires all operators to sign a binding contractual agreement and follow their standardizing terms. Based on the consumer’s data sharing preferences, the SWAN operators created the SWID on their behalf. Transparency is the core of their system. It is best used by publishers and advertisers of no particular size or resources that want a decentralized ad tech system that centers around consumer consent. 

As mentioned above, consumers can choose to opt in or out of sharing their data. On the other hand, consumers can change their preferences any time they please. To start the ID creation process, a pop appears on the publisher page that uses SWAN where the consumer can choose their preferences. If they choose to share their email address, the SWID is created. The SWID is stored into a cookie in a single browser where both the sender and receiver can increase transparency through the ad transaction supply chain. 

Unlike some of the other solutions, publishers cannot buy or sell profile or media data. Publishers can only create personalized profiles for the data which they can sign in to view. 

The post What are the Top 10 Alternative ID Solutions and How Should You Use Them? appeared first on AdMonsters.

Many in the industry were compelled to self-reflect on their consumer engagement tactics after privacy regulations changed, but what new practices are coming to the forefront to help find new solutions? 

Questions have mounted around data ethics, effectively retrieving consumer data without third-party cookies and future-proofing businesses. Essentially, the industry is looking to create a new norm for cultivating a beneficial user experience, but the answer still remains on how the industry will manage data retrieval responsibly. 

In preparation for our upcoming webinar with Permutive: How Publishers Can Use Data to Close More Deals With Advertisers, Wednesday, August 31 at 1 PM ET, (Register Now!) I spoke with Thomas Baart, Customer Success Manager, EMEA, Permutive. We discussed how publishers and advertisers can deliver more responsible advertising to consumers, using first-party data to retrieve consumer data, how publishers can be better consultants to advertisers to improve revenue insights, and the legitimacy of zero-party data.  

Andrew Byrd: As consumers increasingly opt out of sharing their information for advertising, how can media companies, advertisers, and ad tech companies come together to deliver more responsible advertising and how is data ethics a part of that?

Thomas Baart: Data ethics is non-negotiable now, publishers and advertisers (as data owners) need to be responsible with the data they collect and how they activate audiences – or risk consumers opting out en masse. Today, almost 40% of users are browsing in cookieless environments, and Permutive research shows that up to 55% of users in Europe are hitting ‘reject all’ on cookies.

In an industry facing increasing regulatory pressure, dwindling consumer trust, and reduced addressability, publishers, advertisers, and ad tech companies must be responsible with data and build on first-party, non-PII, consented data.

The ingredients that will enable publishers, advertisers, and ad tech to work more responsibly include:

• On-device processing to securely capture data at speed with no data leakage
• Activating audiences via Publisher Cohorts, targeting groups with common attributes and behaviors, versus exposing individual identifiers that can be aggregated downstream
• Building on top of consented first-party data that is sustainable and not impacted by the changes disrupting the advertising industry
• More direct relationships between publishers and advertisers

Regarding ad tech and a more responsible web, publishers and advertisers need to work with technologies built from the ground up for consent, privacy, and transparency. Work with ad tech where they are a data processor and not a controller because ad tech as a controller breaks when opt-out rates increase. Adtech should be an enabler of collaboration between publishers and advertisers, not an intermediary.

AB: Even though Google has delayed the third-party cookie crackdown, privacy regulations are mounting. The advertising ecosystem is still concerned about effectively retrieving and utilizing consumer data. Will first-party data be an effective solution to this problem?

TB: I think most people in the industry anticipated that Google would delay the deprecation of third-party cookies again; however that should not stop advertisers and publishers from continuing to invest in a strong, competitive first-party data strategy.

It’s important to be proactive. The biggest threat to publishers and advertisers is inaction. We know consumers are demanding companies handle their data more ethically, In fact, a Harris Poll survey, commissioned by Permutive, shows that 75% of consumers are not comfortable purchasing from brands with poor data ethics. Regulators also continue to create privacy legislation to protect user privacy and browsers like Safari and Firefox made third-party cookies redundant long ago.

First-party data has proven that it works better and delivers results for publishers and advertisers. We are seeing world-leading publishers and advertisers develop robust and competitive data products on top of contented first-party data. A global beverage CPG brand, for example, course corrected over-indexing in Chrome to reach double the audience that was previously hidden in Safari, helping solve their addressability problems. The campaign delivered 2.1x number of impressions served in Safari vs Chrome, resulting in a 21% lower CPC, compared to the benchmark and a 123% higher CTR compared to the benchmark.

AB: How can publishers become better consultants to their advertisers, especially in terms of leveraging their first-party data and revenue insights to do so? And what are some strategies they can use to future-proof their businesses?

TB: To become better partners to advertisers, publishers need to have the right tools in place to generate valuable and actionable insights to then have better educated, data-driven conversations with buyers.

For a publisher, it’s important to have a clear picture of how advertisers buy your inventory and in what context. It’s important to understand who is buying your inventory, how they are buying, and how that spend is flowing through to your first-party audiences.

Firstly, this knowledge empowers publishers to better position their first-party audiences towards advertisers. Secondly, it equips them to confidently and proactively reach out to clients with ideas on how to increase the programmatic experiences with the publisher. And finally, this type of insight also provides the publisher with the opportunity to move advertisers from the open marketplace to private deals.

AB: There is a lot of current debate on the legitimacy of zero-party data. What are your thoughts on the discussion? Is zero-party data a practical insight? What are the benefits?

TB: Zero-party data is declared first-party data. Declared data is provided directly to a publisher by a user. This includes name, location, job title, email addresses, industry, or preferences about specific topics.

Declared data is valuable because it removes the need to make inferences about the data and what it means, and it’s provided directly and willingly, with controls and permissions in place, by the user. So this becomes useful for practical insights.

However, the challenge with declared data is that it’s difficult to come by. People naturally won’t willingly divulge information about themselves, especially if there is no clear value exchange. So whilst there are creative ways to collect and encourage people to ethically and willingly share information, the volume of declared data is generally low. Therefore, it’s important that publishers and advertisers can leverage tools to scale declared data with machine learning.

Don’t forget to sign up for our webinar with Permutive, How Publishers Can Use Data to Close More Deals With Advertisers, on Wednesday, August 31 @ 1 PM EST (Register now!) We’ll be speaking with Permutive’s Thomas Baart, Customer Success Manager, about Permutive’s partnership with Trusted Media Brand to increase audience size by 22X, increase RFP win rate by 31%, and use first-party data to drive 94% of their direct-sold campaigns. 

The post Effectively Using Consumer Data to Future Proof Your Business appeared first on AdMonsters.

And what happens as email obfuscation becomes an “enabled by default” feature of consumer devices and web browsers?

Just when everyone thought email might be a refuge from cookies and MAIDs, consumer tech companies like Apple are doing their best to ensure that email doesn’t become another tracking vector.

First-party Data ≈ Email

Contemporary buy-side digital marketing and sell-side publishing strategies emphasize first-party data, largely centered around email. Put simply, the mantra is: “get as many consumer email sign-ups as you can.”

All things being equal, this is probably a good strategy for the present day. Direct or deterministic channels and tactics continue to gain ground versus broadcast, and as user-level IDs such as cookies and MAIDs continue to evaporate, email is a next best alternative “connective tissue.”

Emails are also an asset that brands and publishers — currently in a power struggle with major tech platforms — can own and control. This notion of ownership and control is important, because the current presumption that an email record can be “owned” by, say, a brand or a publisher may soon be flipped on its head.

Apple and other tech companies are pioneering new features that may turn email into a Schrödinger-esque mind game where email addresses are unilaterally purpose-limited by the consumer.

“I’ll Have Your People Talk to My People”

Apple and other tech companies are pioneering new features that may turn email into a Schrödinger-esque mind game where email addresses are unilaterally purpose-limited by the consumer; where the email record held by a brand or a publisher (or a walled garden) is little more than a pointer to somewhere…or to nowhere.

Specifically, those features are:

• Email address obfuscation and masking—Apple’s Hide My Email allows Apple users to fill out email sign-up fields with randomly generated “burner” emails like ‘blue126_cat@icloud.com’ which then forward to the user’s genuine email address without divulging the genuine email address. Users can easily disable the Hide My Email address without having to request an unsubscribe or account deletion. Firefox Relay is another example of a browser-based email masking solution.
• IP address masking—Email clients (including Apple’s) can hide the recipient’s IP address by transmitting all pixels and images through a proxy server or VPN.
• Pixel blocking—Email clients block pixels and other mechanisms senders might use to track email opens.

Like Giving Out a Fake Number

Burner emails undermine the concept of addressability and take a great deal of agency away from the email record holder/sender. Consumers will only be reachable via email to the degree they wish to be. With the power of Hide My Email (or similar feature), many consumers probably won’t bother forwarding the randomly generated emails to themselves. I know that’s exactly what I would do: it would be like handing out a fake number at a bar to get someone to go away.

So core metrics like email list size, unsub rate, and open rate all become less meaningful.

Hash and Burn

Aside from screwing up everyone’s newsletter and email list strategy, Hide My Email-esque burner emails really mess with ad tech that uses HEMs (Hashed E-Mails…it’s a weird acronym even for adtech) as a tool for post-cookie/-MAID ad addressability and measurement. HEMs rely on email as a persistent, unique identifier that can work across potentially all logged-in contexts. The core principle is this: myles@fakeemail.com the Walmart customer is the same person as myles@fakeemail.com the WSJ reader, and so forth.

But what if I’m a Hide My Email user?

Walmart thinks I’m rate89_quiet@icloud.com and WSJ thinks I’m infrastructure315_publicity@icloud.com. In this case, there’s no way for publishers, walled gardens, DSPs, or ID graphs to know that both those emails resolve to me.

Email Privacy by Default

Many will say, “But email privacy features have been around for years!”

That’s correct, but never before has a consumer tech behemoth like Apple made these features native and default. For example, as Apple customers upgrade to iOS 15, they are prompted the next time they open the Mail app whether they want to enable Mail Privacy Protection. I checked this myself. Apple might as well simplify the second choice to say “Allow creepy snooping.”

Some predict that Apple may turn on Private Relay (which masks IP address) by default with iOS 16. What happens if and when Apple either makes Hide My Email even easier to use or enabled by default?

And then what happens when other consumer tech companies (Google, for one) update their features and defaults to keep up with privacy pioneers like Apple? From a messaging and feature standpoint, it’s hard to argue that “less privacy is good” once Apple has turned privacy into a heavily-publicized selling point and turnkey feature.

Lastly, why would a consumer ever *stop* using such features once they got into the habit of it? Why ever give out your real email address to any company ever again?

My genuine email address and identity have stayed with me, the zero-party (the data subject). In other words: my email has traveled zero steps from my personal control.

I’m Gonna Say It: Email Might Become Zero-party Data

Does a burner email captured by a brand or publisher still count as first-party data? In my opinion: not really.

Let’s say I supply rate89_quiet@icloud.com as a burner email during a sign-up process. Let’s list out what the brand/publisher has truly acquired and ask ourselves whether any of it counts as “first-party data:”

• A pointer (burner email) to someone who remains unknown
• A pointer that may be de-linked at any time
• An email record that can’t be deterministically linked to any other consumer record

I, the consumer, have not revealed anything! My genuine email address and identity have stayed with me, the zero-party (the data subject). In other words: my email has traveled zero steps from my personal control. I can revoke the data at any time by unilaterally de-linking the burner email from my side.

If a brand or publisher sends me an email, they have no way of knowing whether it was ever received or viewed. I suppose the sender could estimate a probability of receipt, but it’s no longer deterministically knowable whether a sent email has reached a recipient (who will remain anonymous in any case). This is where I think it gets Schrödinger-esque and where I think much of the ad industry misses the point on what “zero-party data” will actually turn out to be and why the concept has genuine importance.

I know there are lots of “gotchas” and exceptions to everything I’ve suggested here, but I hope this has been a useful perspective in understanding the factors that email strategy and first-party data strategy will have to account for both now and in a future that may be coming faster than many of us think.

The post Your Email Strategy May Blow Up Sooner Than You Think appeared first on AdMonsters.

The first era of the internet was created in the 90s. It was characterized by static, text, and graphics. The second era of the internet, our current phase, was dominated by social media. Web2 is characterized by its interactivity but is dominated by larger companies such as Google and Facebook which own a monopoly on the data surrounding content creation and advertising. 

Web3 is proposed to remedy the monopoly of these larger companies. It will give power back to consumers to own their own data and allow publishers to create stronger relationships with them. 

In addition, it is believed that Web3 will address many of today’s consumer privacy concerns, specifically those related to third-party tracking cookies. According to Tre Titone, Web3 could “fundamentally alter the ownership and governance paradigms established with Web 2.0.”

The driving force behind this movement is to leverage blockchain technology to create an inclusive web where people are part of the value exchange and have control over their data and privacy.

What Is Web3?

Luke Mulks, Vice President of Business Operations at Brave Software, asserts that the “driving force behind this movement is to leverage blockchain technology to create an inclusive web where people are part of the value exchange and have control over their data and privacy.” 

The term Web3 was first used in 2014 by Gavin Wood, a co-founder of the Ethereum blockchain. Most theorists classify Web3 into three main categories which include decentralization, ownership, and transparency. 

Decentralization shifts the storage of information from one central system to a multitude of systems. While in Web2 data is stored on one server belonging to one particular owner, Web3 ensures that there is no single authority on data collection and distribution. 

Ownership of data is enabled by decentralization. Recently, more people became aware that within Web2 their data was being collected and used for profit by tech companies. In Web3, users will have ownership of their data and decide how to dispose of it. Consumers will be able to sell their data and choose who to send it to and how it will be used. 

Blockchain technologies provide immediate transparency to all transactions. Consumers will see more clearly how publishers use their data and who they share it with. This will significantly shift the processes within the advertising ecosystem.

Web3 and Its Influence on the Advertising Ecosystem

Many laud the positive impacts that Web3 could have on the advertising industry if it is fully implemented. However, industry experts believe that more work must be done for agencies to connect with consumers. Since consumer data will no longer be stored by a small number of owners, digital marketing will match publishers and advertisers directly to people without any third-party involvement. 

Vitaly Gerko, CPO and Co-Founder at OTM, insists that “to stay relevant and successful in Web3, brands will have to build closer relationships with their consumers. In this new iteration of the internet, catching users’ attention will require more effort, but at the same time, Web3 will provide more opportunities to build tighter connections with the consumer.”

In addition, Web3 is projected to offer more accurate data. Publishers will have direct access to their actual consumers instead of the image of the consumer that is presented by a vendor. Essentially, Web3 marketing will focus on “building meaningful relationships with your customers and creating partnerships that benefit everyone involved.” Publishers will need to reframe their thinking of customers as numbers in a database and more as people.

Untrustworthy systems, such as third-party cookies will be obsolete. Brendan Eich, Co-Founder & CEO, Brave, highlights that “cookies were invented in order for web-based applications written in JavaScript to preserve state on each local device. The problem with cookies however is that they are created and controlled by service providers, not the user.”

Ad tech within Web 3 will not center around building massive databases and squeezing out huge margins from the advertising supply data chain. It will provide ad tech solutions that benefit the user, publishers, and advertisers. In addition, it could help save revenue that would otherwise go to third-party intermediaries.  

Web3 in Real-Time

Of course, Web3 is still in the early stages of development and it is hard to determine how or when it will begin to affect publishers and advertisers.

Although industry experts assert that it could be smart for the ad tech industry to begin experimenting with Web3. Brett Rakestraw, Director of Strategy for creative branding firm Elevation, insists that “It will affect brands on virtually every level, and the sooner brand stakeholders start experimenting and connecting with their audiences in these new ways, the better.” 

The most high-profile experimentation with Web3 in recent years has been NFTs or non-fungible tokens. NFTs allow publishers to deliver unique value to customers, from specific collectibles like magazine covers and tokens. About $13.8 billion was spent on NFTs in 2021. 

In addition, Mulks alludes to a Web3 dApp called Skiff that offers an end-to-end encrypted email service. 

“Skiff is a dApp that you can sign in with your wallet directly from the browser,” says Mulks. “Instead of going through an authentication process with an email and password that is susceptible to data breaches, you just use your wallet and sign in with your private key from your wallet. You can access your email based on your wallet ID.” 

Wallets could also be used by consumers to connect their identity to sites, and instead of logging in they would sign for transactions using their privacy key. This would reduce any worries of data leakage. Although wallets enable identity portability for consumers, they could still expose them to cyberattacks. 

For anybody to understand the future of advertising, they need to focus on the future of privacy, and the future of data ownership and control, not blockchain. And if you focus there, you will see a very clear future.

Criticisms of Web3

Mulks argues that the biggest challenge with Web3 is determining its usability. 

“I think that the biggest barrier to Web3 has been usability and bringing some value to the market,” says Mulks. “I believe it’s a short-term problem. With any nascent technology, the early adoption phase is always like, when you’re going to have the most extreme Wild West stuff happening such as people getting scammed.” 

John Roa, CEO at Caden, maintains the belief that the decentralized web has a usability issue. Furthermore, Roa argues that the conversation around Web3, or what he refers to as the Semantic Web, has lost its initial purpose. 

“The conversation around Web3 has over-indexed into NFTs and cryptocurrency,” says Roa. “There was a former definition before it sucked into the crypto vacuum. The definition for the last probably 10 to 15 years has been this evolution into the Semantic Web which was to create standardization and normalization of data on the web.” 

Instead, Roa advocates focusing specifically on privacy. 

“The bigger disrupter is privacy and regulation compared to ‘Web3’,” says Roa. “For anybody to understand the future of advertising, they need to focus on the future of privacy, and the future of data ownership and control, not blockchain. And if you focus there, you will see a very clear future.”

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