Articles by: "Jim Egan, VP, Global Strategic Sales – IAS"

How cookie deprecation puts publishers in a sweet spot

March 3, 2021 Jim Egan, VP, Global Strategic Sales – IAS

Among the many changes witnessed in 2020, cookie deprecation has sparked conversation throughout the industry. Technological shifts, driven by browsers, alongside increased privacy legislation combine to create new challenges for advertisers looking to reach specific audiences. As a result, IAS found that 49% of industry experts surveyed in our 2021 Industry Pulse Report listed third-party cookie deprecation as the top challenge for the upcoming year.

The implications for advertisers have been widely listed: targeting, measurement, and attribution will all be affected. But what does it mean for publishers? And how will it shape relationships with advertisers and ad tech vendors?

How did we get here?

While browsers are undoubtedly driving the pace of cookie deprecation, consumer concerns about privacy and data collection also play a role. Last year, IAS found that 88% of consumers are aware that websites and apps collect and share their data for advertising purposes. And, unaspiringly, this finding coincides with increasing global privacy legislation. Between cookie deprecation and legal requirements, the industry is witnessing a seismic shift in how digital ads will reach consumer audiences.

What are the implications?

The bad news is obvious: Third-party cookie deprecation challenges current methods of audience targeting, attribution, cross-channel targeting, and measurement. However, that doesn’t mean third-party cookies provide the best method for reaching consumers.

Third-party cookies are not only limited to web environments, but they also have device and household limitations. In other words, third-party cookies don’t necessarily have a one-to-one relationship to actual consumers. Therefore, it can’t represent a precise “identity.” The good news? Knowing this, third-party cookie deprecation presents the industry with an opportunity to find something better. For publishers, the shift creates an opening to regain control over the value of their media and how they provide it.

How do publishers play a role?

In the short term, publishers can help advertisers leverage current technology that bypasses the use of third-party cookies. By proactively responding to the shifting environment and enabling the use of existing, developing solutions, publishers can establish themselves as partners to advertisers in this new era of digital advertising.

Verify that inventory is viewable, brand safe, and fraud free

Publishers should take time to review their inventory and assess for viewability, brand risk, and fraud. Ensuring that ads have the opportunity to be seen by real people, in brand suitable environments will remain the first step for advertisers looking to connect with consumers. By proactively evaluating content, publishers will be positioning themselves as partners to advertisers in the evolving digital landscape.

Work with a partner to optimize advertiser KPIs

Verification companies can provide more than reporting capabilities. Publishers should consider partnering with a verification provider that delivers solutions which automatically optimize their inventory toward advertiser KPIs.

Unlock value with contextual targeting

As the industry seeks alternatives for audience targeting and identity resolution, contextual targeting is experiencing an innovation renaissance. Industry innovators have been revisiting the technology, improving it, and creating new, exciting solutions to propel targeting tactics forward.

Publishers who package their inventory with content in mind will have an advantage in building relationships with advertisers shifting toward contextual methods. Additionally, publishers can work with verification partners that pre-screen pages and develop curated pre-bid segments to ensure they’re helping brands target the right environments for their audiences.

What about the longer term?

In the long run, the future of identity resolution will require advertisers to work directly with trusted partners across the entire ecosystem. While there is unlikely to be a single silver bullet solution, publishers should be considering the consumer, what devices they’re using, and how to marry various identifiers to create a robust understanding of their user.

All aspects, from email addresses in an effort to build Pseudonymous Deterministic Authenticated Identification, to latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates, to CTV IDs should be considered when thinking about working with brands to identify consumers. With direct access to first party data, publishers have intimate knowledge of their consumer base. This will allow them to help advertisers start to piece together identity in the absence of third-party cookies.

As cookie deprecation approaches, publishers should expect brands to become more reliant on their data and content expertise. However, despite the challenges ahead, publishers hold the key to establishing themselves as trusted partners in this rapidly changing ecosystem.

Advertising | Perspectives

How marketers and publishers can collaborate for success

May 11, 2020 Jim Egan, VP, Global Strategic Sales – IAS

In the current environment, the brand safety and suitability tactics used by advertisers are prompting debate within the industry. Many marketers, themselves impacted, are adjusting their strategies, halting or reducing investment, and tightening their risk tolerance. The result has caused a ripple effect across the publishing industry that underscores the vital role that advertisers play in supporting a free and independent press. Our society is dependent on high quality, factually sourced journalism. And the outlets producing this information are essential to keeping our public both safe and informed.

Advertisers, concerned about appearing adjacent to COVID-19 content, may resort to highly restrictive brand safety practices. Publishers, in turn, are concerned about the balance between editorial integrity and the bottom line. Here’s how both sides can align:

Communication

Publishers should seek a direct dialogue with their agency and advertiser partners. It is imperative that lines of communication are open. It is also important that buyers clearly establish and convey their brand’s suitability strategies and concerns. Mutual understanding of a brand’s perspective will open up opportunities for buyers to leverage the unique combination of content and audience engagement that only a premium publisher can provide.

Education

Education and communication are first and foremost right now. We’re in a climate of misunderstanding when it comes to the strategies that brands and agencies are employing. Fundamental knowledge of the varying technologies, how they’re applied, and most importantly, how that aligns with the content where advertisers want their ads to appear is paramount.

For example, keyword blocking has been a part of the brand safety narrative for years. And It has been thrust into the spotlight amid the current crisis. Industry professionals now wonder about the impact of overblocking on impression volumes. And there’s understandable concern about how this type of approach can affect publishers.

Keyword blocking has value if used in careful moderation. However, it’s important to remind advertisers that the practice is just one piece of the puzzle. Advertisers should frequently revisit and scrub keyword lists to ensure that scale is not restricted by an ever-increasing list of outdated terms. Another valuable reminder for advertisers: use whitelists. In the same way that keyword lists should be frequently assessed, whitelists should be actively employed and reviewed to make sure that trusted sites are included.

Content categories are a great way to ensure that advertisers aren’t approaching brand suitability binarily. Instead, they must evaluate topics for appropriateness with different levels of tolerance. Finally, the increasing use of cognitive semantic technologies will also benefit publishers. By enabling marketers to only advertise in contexts that align positively with their brand values and allowing for greater flexibility, this technology opens up valuable opportunities to connect with consumers that might otherwise have been lost due to standard blocking practices

Technology

Verification technology is a powerful tool and has come a long way in the last decade. With solutions now leveraging machine learning and contextual, semantic technology, marketers can now elevate brand suitability strategies to reach consumers in thoughtful, appropriate ways without alienating publisher partners.

The shift toward cognitive semantic technologies, specifically, paired with increasingly sophisticated machine learning models provides marketers with greater flexibility. This allows for more nuanced, nimble approaches to address brand suitability. Contextual targeting works by taking a deeper look at the content on a given page and assessing its suitability based on the topics covered, whether the tone is negative or positive, and which emotions are conveyed. Evolving verification technologies help marketers protect their brands from unsuitable content. They also grant them the flexibility to reach consumers in the right places without limiting scale and negatively impacting publishers.

Collaboration

In times of uncertainty, it’s common to see marketers react reflexively and conservatively, with rapid adjustments in strategy. Although this approach is understandable, it bears potential side effects for publishers who see unexpected decreases in advertising. Technological advancements only help when publishers and advertisers bridge the gap and collaborate.

Recent initiatives, such as the 4A’s APB Brand Suitability Working Group for Trusted News Environments, have marked an effort by industry members to take further steps toward collaboration in hopes of aligning all players toward common goals. Anyone can understand that marketers want to avoid content that’s unsuitable for their brand values. But working together is necessary to underscore the importance of premium news and a free press.

Perspectives

2019 will be tough on ad fraud—and that’s great news for publishers

December 14, 2018 Jim Egan, VP, Global Strategic Sales – IAS

As the year winds down and we look ahead to 2019, it’s time to take stock of what changed in 2018, and what it means for the year to come. This year’s changes are not only next year’s challenges, but also next year’s opportunities. The digital landscape will become tougher in 2019 and the digital content industry will be no exception.

This year we saw significant and welcome change in how the world at large treats some of digital’s most prominent and longest-running dilemmas. A series of indictments handed down this year, combined with an ongoing investigation into at least one New York-based publisher make it clear that the U.S. Department of Justice will no longer treat ad fraud as an unavoidable cost of doing business in digital. Instead, the government plans to treat ad fraud like what it is: the intentional theft of advertising dollars. While that’s bad news for anyone peddling fraudulent traffic, it’s great news for the ecosystem as a whole, and for premium publishers in particular.

A positive outlook

The fact that the Justice Department is getting serious about ad fraud may not seem like a particularly positive sign for the digital content business. After all, it’s certain to occasion some difficult conversations between buyers and sellers in the short term as officials put pressure on digital to clean up its act. However, taken another way, the move by federal law enforcement is a sign of respect for an industry that has finally reached maturity. Digital is finally seen as capable of playing by the same rules that other businesses do, both online and off.

These interventions by law enforcement officials in recent months have cast new levels of scrutiny on the digital media space. That spotlight, while intense, will also enable premium publishers to shine by differentiating themselves from the fraudsters being exposed.

The coming year presents a huge opportunity for publishers that can successfully position themselves to take advantage of the drive toward quality media. Here are a couple of critical tips:

Know your buyer

Buyers may be shifting more ad spend to programmatic, but that doesn’t mean that it’s time to de-prioritize your direct buyer relationships. Partner with your buyers to identify their unique needs. In the current climate, low levels of fraud are going to be on everyone’s wish list. These insights can be used to help package your inventory for programmatic channels and private marketplaces where premium ad dollars are increasingly flowing as marketers seek out quality guarantees.

Know yourself

Partnering with a third-party verification and optimization provider can provide more insight into the kind of quality metrics that are increasingly top of mind for buyers. As fraud investigations ramp up in 2019, media buyers will be under increasing pressure to ensure that they’re buying genuine human impressions from transparent sources. Being able to authenticate your own inventory, understand quality levels across your properties, and hold any traffic partners accountable will provide a huge advantage in conversations that will be increasingly quality driven.

Onward to 2019

Authorities getting tough on ad fraud is long overdue, and will lead to some tough but necessary conversations. It will also give premium publishers, those that are creating quality content for engaged human audiences, a chance to differentiate themselves from the bad actors among us. Ad fraud has been a murky, under-discussed digital challenge for too long. That lack of exposure has only allowed bad actors to blend in with responsible businesses. This heightened scrutiny will highlight the differences between the two, and bring about very welcome change.