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Tags containing: "first party data"

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

How AI can provide publishers with the identity advantage

The post-cookie era of digital advertising is approaching. Google may have postponed its plan to remove third-party cookies, but the result remains the same: industry players must prepare for a huge amount of industry upheaval. Most notably, there will be a significant drop in data availability.

Publishers – with direct access to audiences and first-party data – are widely acknowledged as being best-placed to survive in the ecosystem’s data-frugal future. But having valuable first-party data at their fingertips won’t be enough for them to flourish. Moving forward, publishers must discover new ways to optimize their offerings, enhance their monetization strategies, and heighten the value of the user experience.

With technology powered by artificial intelligence (AI), publishers can harness the capabilities needed to become digital advertising’s main providers of quality, first-party data. They will also be in a position to build of scalable, privacy-safe data solutions. By combining the power of AI with valuable first party data, publishers have a significant competitive advantage.

AI helps publishers leverage their pair of aces

Publishers were already holding a pretty good hand, with content and consent their figurative aces. Publishers build trust among their regular users by generating high levels of audience engagement and loyalty through the production of editorial content. This, in turn, helps them earn consent from logged-in users to gather and use their first-party data.

Publishers’ first-party data strategies, therefore, give them a solid basis to achieve reach with known audiences. However, it is broadly acknowledged that consented data has its limits. At best, only one in 10 users are willing to share personal information, such as age and gender. However, almost a quarter (23%) are reluctant to do so regardless of how it could improve their online experience.

Consequently, optimizing reach beyond known users relies on publishers taking different approaches to data, aside from adopting log-in walls. To increase the effectiveness of their strategies, data processing and enrichment solutions driven by AI and machine learning are vital. Publishers looking to preserve the availability of their online content will find these especially advantageous. But all publishers stand to gain from their benefits.

Predictive modeling is one of the most valuable capabilities made possible by machine learning. The removal of third-party cookies will make deterministic data less accessible. However, with consent, publishers can leverage their logged-in user attributes as a robust analytical base for predictive models. These models then allow publishers to extend addressable reach with accuracy. This helps them target unknown audiences that exhibit similar attributes to their logged-in users.

The quality of these predictive models is also very high. For example, Ad Alliance – Germany’s number-one advertising sales house – achieved 70% market reach in a campaign for e-commerce company, OTTO (up from 32% for standard run of network campaigns), with 92% accuracy in age segment targeting.

Contextual is the trump card

To boost reach and engagement even further, publishers can also feed real-time contextual insights into their data solutions to enable privacy-friendly targeting. Contextual analysis upholds user rights to data privacy by utilizing inferred characteristics rather than declared ones.

AI technologies accurately predict audience preferences based on the content they consume. This information can then be used to personalize targeting and the user experience. For example, French publisher, Le Figaro, utilized 1plusX’s real-time audience targeting, contextual targeting and first impression targeting solutions to strengthen relevance, maximize impact, and enhance the user experience, all while adhering to data privacy regulations.

Bringing users’ content consumption into the mix, publishers can then use advanced AI analytics to develop precise, interest-based audience segmentation. This further improves targeting capabilities, resulting in stronger alignment between ad content, editorial content, and user intent. By leveraging data enrichment and machine learning capabilities on top of its contextual targeting tool, Le Figaro was able to deliver precise targeting solutions to connect with first-time users. As a result, the publisher generated an average campaign reach increase of 38% across campaigns from all verticals.

Publishers play a key role in shaping how the ecosystem accesses and uses first-party audience data sets. But simply being the gatekeepers of user data won’t give them the competitive edge they need. AI-powered solutions allow publishers to support privacy-centric advertising and optimize their own revenue streams.

With the enhanced capabilities of predictive modeling, publishers can make the most of their consented data and expand their reach to unknown audiences with a high degree of accuracy. By combining this with contextual data, they can deepen the personalization of the user experience and maximize the effectiveness of targeting methods with heightened relevance. Thanks to AI, publishers can ensure they have the optimal solution to identity challenges in the post-cookie era.

Advertising | Revenue

The Insider perspective on post-cookie advertising

At Permutive’s July 14 Global summit, The great privacy reset, Jana Meron, SVP, Programmatic & Data Strategy at Insider shared her views on the cookie chaos with Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director at DCN. “The sky is not falling,” according to Meron.

Watch or listen to the full conversation (below) for insight into Insider, Inc.’s data strategy. In particular, they explore the reasons why first-party data performs better than third-party. Their conversation also provides practical advice on how to prepare for digital advertising’s cookieless future.

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Publishers: Use your data to close and retain more deals

To convert brands in direct-sold sales conversations, publishers are tasked with proving the quality of their audience and inventory. From prospecting to sales decks to wrap-up reports, we’ve increasingly heard questions about how publishers can use third-party data to support the sales process. The good news is that most organizations already have a lot of valuable data that is leveraged by other teams.

However, just because your organization is collecting data doesn’t always mean that it’s being used successfully. This can be due to lack of alignment on organizational strategies or data living in siloed or complex systems. Often, it’s simply about having a lack of time to understand how to effectively leverage the data. Most ad ops teams are plugged into a variety of data sources that can also provide valuable insights and compelling stories to support the sales process.

Ad sales teams can increase direct sales by using data to zero in on the right buyers and showcase value in pitch decks. They can also use it to effectively package inventory and report on campaign performance in a meaningful way to clients. 

Finding the perfect buyers

Prioritizing the right buyers is one of the largest challenges for sales teams everywhere. Leaning on existing relationships or brand recognition can work up to a point. However, informing your prospecting with additional data sets allows you to quickly identify the right prospects to approach and shed light on new market segments. One example of this can be found in a publisher’s programmatic data. With normalized advertiser data, sales teams can identify the biggest spenders on open exchanges for more detailed buyer analysis.

Once those potential buyers are identified, it’s important to understand compatibility to ensure you can tell a story that aligns with a brand’s goals. This typically comes in the form of media quality data from verification vendors that measure metrics such as viewability thresholds, fraud rates, and brand suitability. Based on specific brand goals, content alignment and risk tolerance, publishers can further narrow their list to only include prospects that match up with what their inventory has to offer.

Highlighting inventory and audience value

As a premium publisher, it’s not enough to simply tell buyers that you know your audience. Advertisers only pursue direct deals if they’re confident that the inventory purchased is reaching their ideal audience. First-party data can be helpful here. It allows you to discuss content engagement, demographics, traffic and other metrics that showcase site performance and your user personas.

However, this story becomes even more powerful when combined with third-party measurement and contextual data such as overall viewability, engagement metrics, invalid traffic rates, and more. All of these use established industry standards such as those supported by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).

The biggest challenge here is understanding how to line up these data sets. They you can decipher which metrics are going to resonate most with buyers who want an objective truth. More specifically, which metrics gives them the confidence that delivered impressions will reach these users consistently. When used in conjunction with data-driven prospecting, data used during this stage of the sales cycle can provide an opportunity to easily show clients how you can meet their needs.

Advertisers also want to understand where their creatives will go and how they might perform.  Creating compelling, tailored packages using all of the available first- and third-party data can level up your pitch. It also helps ensure that expectations are clear going into each campaign.

Telling the performance story

Now that you have the client, how do you retain and expand the relationship? Traditionally, campaign wrap-up decks include run dates, traffic drivers, top-performers and other KPIs. This is a great place to leverage data from different sources to drive home how quality, engagement, and context help brands meet their goals.

Third-party data enables you to confidently highlight benefits such as:

  • You serve zero fraudulent impressions
  • Your campaigns met the client’s viewability thresholds
  • Campaigns were served alongside content that positively supports the brand’s image
  • Make goods won’t be necessary due to successful targeting

Whether campaigns meet buyer expectations or not, third-party data sets can serve as a retention tool and allow you to speak the same language as your customer. Your team will be able to outline what worked and what didn’t, while including data-driven recommendations for the next campaign. This strategy will give buyers more confidence in your ability to course correct and maximize their return on ad spend.

TLDR: It’s important to infuse your sales strategy with data

Gone are the days where the only sources of buyer friction came from viewability discrepancies and buffering requirements. Yes, those still remain. However, buyers increasingly value inventory that is brand suitable, fraud-free, and in-geo. This makes inventory scrutiny and sales conversations more complex. But the right data can cut right through that to increase conversions and drive business.

Advertising | Perspectives | Revenue | Supporter Spotlight

Viewability + engagement = highly valuable impressions

Imagine that you’re driving down the highway and many of the billboards you pass are facing in the wrong direction. Advertisers paid for their messages to be displayed. However, some percentage of these ads have no chance of being seen.

If you were an advertiser, would you be willing to pay a higher price for only those that were guaranteed to be viewable? Or would you rather pay a lower price to buy all the billboards and roll the dice? Perhaps this is a simplistic way to look at the programmatic landscape, but I hope it makes the point. Ads that have a low probability of becoming viewable have little or no value.  

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King

If the above makes any sense, then why does the Media Rating Council

continue to enforce such a low requirement for viewable impressions?  The MRC deems that an impression counts as viewable when only 50% of the pixels are in view for one second. If your answer is that “it is what it is,” then perhaps we in the industry should raise our expectations. Let’s consider setting a higher standard for ourselves and our advertisers, AKA, the lifeblood of our businesses.

Viewable impressions are more valuable to advertisers, command higher CPMs, provide a better ROI, and increase publisher income. So, let’s find a sustainable way to increase supply without jeopardizing the quality of our content, degrading user experience, or resorting to disruptive devices.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

You spend hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars annually creating exciting, informative, entertaining, beautiful, provocative, and inspiring content for your audiences. Your goal is to engage readers in this content so they spend more of their most precious resource, time, on your site. They read your stories and move from the home page to below the fold with deeper dives into your content. And ad units scroll into view and are revealed during these engaged user sessions.

Intuitively we already know that an ad you can see is worth more than a non-viewable one. However, logically, one that is viewable while you are engaged in consuming content that is of interest is even more valuable than the billboard you cruise past at 70 mph.

When I was a magazine publisher, ad buyers regularly asked for their ads to be placed “far forward on a right-hand page.” They believed that these were more likely to be seen than those within stories in the magazine. The reality was then as it is today: that an ad adjacent to content where a reader is engaged is far more likely to be seen and effective.

And the cookies came crumbling down

While Google’s recent announcement has given all of us a reprieve, we know that the times are a ‘changing. So how do we respond now that publishers have bought some time and tech companies have a longer runway to build alternatives?

There is no question that there will be dozens if not hundreds of “better” data mousetraps in the marketplace during the coming months. Yet the fact is that we already have many of the tools necessary to enhance the value of our websites for advertisers. Your sites already have the right target audiences. You capture their attention and interest with your content. And they’ve come to right place to enjoy that content. Maybe the missing link is that some of your billboards have been installed facing the wrong direction.

So, here’s the big idea. Serve ads only to readers when they are engaged in content and continue to serve them viewable ads for as long as they remain engaged.  It can be done. It is being done on hundreds of sites. (Check out Inc.com or Rightmove to see.) You can do it too. And when you do, your programmatic ad revenue will increase by 20-40%.

About the author

Bruce Brandfon is Chief Media Officer of Duration Media. Prior to that he was EVP of Webspectator, and before that VP and Managing Director at Publicitas. Before joining Publicitas, Bruce was VP and Publisher of Scientific American. He has also held leadership positions at The Philadelphia Media Network, Newsweek, and Time Inc. Bruce is Director of the Board of Advisors at Planet Forward, and an Adjunct Professor of Media Studies at Westchester Community College.

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Why third-party cookies should be dead to you (regardless of what Chrome does)

On June 24, Chrome shook the industry once again by announcing it will delay the deprecation of the third-party cookie, which was expected to be in 2022. When the news broke, many industry players gave a sigh of relief. The two-year time frame to migrate to a cookie-less infrastructure was quite tight for many. And not all companies were prepared to buy and sell data and inventory without the good old third-party cookie.

Transitioning a multi-billion-dollar industry to a new framework is not a trivial matter. This is keenly felt in a highly interconnected ecosystem like digital advertising. However, it’s a crucial step that we all must take. The cookie-based infrastructure has been called into question by data privacy regulations, such as GDPR. It is also inefficient.

The many limits of third-party cookies

Third-party cookies are domain-specific and can only be read by the server that created them. Technology platforms need to synchronize IDs with each other to create a common reference and share user-level information. This process, also known as cookie matching, takes place on advertiser and publisher websites. Significantly, this creates several issues:

  • Value loss: the pool of identifiable users is reduced by 10-20% each time platforms match IDs with each other, creating lost opportunities for publishers to monetize their assets and for advertisers to reach their audiences.
  • Privacy compliance: cookie matching represents an exchange of personal data. This is difficult to align with the requirements of data protection regulations such as GDPR and CCPA in terms of control and transparency.
  • Data leakage: because of cookie matching, user data can be accessed by companies that lack a business relationships with advertisers and publishers. This puts their data at risk.

In November 2019, ID5 commissioned a study to assess the scale of the problem. The study, conducted on 68 top news and magazine websites in Europe, found that 58% of vendors that were registered with the IAB TCF had never been seen to take a GDPR consent parameter in their pixel.

Some vendors that were not being sent the consent string were sharing a completely fabricated consent string. The study also found that some of the companies triggered to monetize publisher-branded segments on their sites had no relationship or contract with publishers.

Therefore, we must transition to a cookie-less infrastructure to operate more efficiently and protect consumers’ data. And yes, that’s regardless of what Chrome decides to do with cookies.

Two of the major browsers have already deprecated cookies

The cookie matching process is far from being efficient or privacy-compliant but it still enables user identification which allows the deployment of campaign strategies such as targeting, retargeting, frequency capping and measurement. However, let’s not forget that cookies are already not available on 30+% of the traffic since they have already been blocked by Safari and Firefox. So those valuable campaign strategies cannot be applied in those browsers. That’s the main reason why cookie-less traffic is massively under-monetized. A study by Google estimated that the ability to identify users accounts for 50 to 60% of publishers’ ad revenue. Another study conducted by Bidswitch shows that eCPMs are 50% lower on Safari and Firefox.

Furthermore, Publishers’ first-party data loses its value in cookie-less browsers. First-party data belongs to the domain that has collected it. To activate it and power retargeting or prospecting campaigns, media owners need to find a way to share it with their monetization partners. This has been historically done with third-party cookies. In browsers where cookies are blocked, first-party data sharing represents a challenge.

By adopting solutions that enable privacy-compliant identification without relying on third-party cookies, publishers can benefit from all the capabilities that cookies offer without any of the hassles associated with them.

Use the extra time wisely

Publishers have multiple alternatives available to them. So, they have no reason to continue relying on cookies, which puts their users’ data at risk and causes them to miss out on revenue opportunities.

Many smart publishers have already integrated with future-looking solutions. These enable the individualization of consumers in browsers where cookies are blocked. This enables them to get incremental value from their Safari and Firefox traffic and to lay the foundation for the future when all traffic will be cookie-less. This also allows them to offer their customers a better and more privacy-compliant experience on their website.

If you haven’t started this process already, Chrome’s delay is certainly good news for you. However, you shouldn’t wait. The time to act is now.

There are different approaches and solutions that enable user identification in cookie-less browsers. However, it takes time to evaluate, integrate and measure which of them bring the best results and offer the best level of service. Use this extra time wisely do not delay the process further. Start integrating and testing next-generation identity solutions and encourage your monetization partners and clients to do the same. Migrating to a new infrastructure requires a collective, industry-wide effort. And publishers are positioned best to lead the way.

Advertising | Perspectives

Building a 360-degree customer view to thrive in post-cookie publishing

Last year was a whirlwind ride in ad land. Publishers navigated through a tumultuous period of reduced ad spend, axed campaigns, and overzealous keyword blocking. However, 2021 brings with it a new and arguably more significant challenge: the deprecation of third-party cookies and other universal identifiers.

But don’t listen to the nay-sayers as they opine the prospect of a doomed ad ecosystem. Instead, know this: The impending changes to online advertising, while no doubt disruptive, present incredible opportunities for advertisers and publishers alike. Publishers and content creators possess troves of first party data. Given their direct relationships with audiences, they may be in the best position possible.

Publishers: Seize your moment

Eliminating third-party cookies and other universal identifiers alters the dynamics of the digital advertising market. The “cookie-free” world aims to serve the needs and wants of consumers first and foremost. Consumers will set the terms for digital advertising. This marks a fundamental change from what we’ve been used to.

Publishers currently have the strongest and clearest connection to consumers through their large networks of audiences. As the market makes its shift away from universal IDs, we can expect to see many brands and advertisers work more closely with publishing partners. But this additional leverage doesn’t mean publishers can get away with business as usual. Innovation is crucial. For publishers to establish staying power, they’ll need a sophisticated first-party data strategy that’s proactive and meets the needs of today’s advertisers.

Diversification is key

As the digital advertising industry moves beyond personal identifiers, diversification will be key to success. A single-point, silver-bullet solution to replace cookies or MAIDs isn’t what anyone’s calling for. It’s unlikely that such a solution will exist given the ubiquity and heavily embedded infrastructure we rely on today.

Rather, the answer will more likely involve a diversified portfolio of solutions and approaches to data-driven targeting and measurement. The fundamentals for sound data strategy won’t change, though. In the “cookie-free” world, publishers will still need to:

  • Preserve customer experiences and deliver heightened value to visitors
  • Support advertisers in reaching the right people with the right message at the right time
  • Optimize yield through diversified approaches to inventory packaging

Strategic shifts

However, changes to data strategy will center around three core areas. Publishers will need to maximize data to build stronger advertiser relationships, leverage context-based technology to increase understanding of one’s inventory and commit to measurement that extends beyond baseline metrics.

Publishers must:

1. Maximize the value of your greatest assets: Harness the power of data and enrich the understanding of your customers.

As premium publishers move towards a subscription model and first-party data becomes critical, we expect to see the shift to gather as much known first-party data as possible. Many will leverage new subscription models in order to do that. The new data will primarily reveal demographics and online behavior restricted to a publisher site portfolio. However, publishers will need to enrich that data to get a 360-degree view of their audience to better sell inventory.

2. Learn how contextual intelligence drives value.

There are myriad signals on a page. Sentiment, for example, reveals the tone and context of an article. Understanding this context (and doing so at scale) will play a more integral role in ad targeting as cookies disappear.

ID-free technology such as contextual intelligence maintains an acute focus on content and consumer mindset. This allows intelligent publishers to curate inventory packages, based on high value content, which their advertisers seek.

Tapping into reader sentiment will be of particular interest to both advertisers and publishers. Research shows the value of emotionally connected customers. They buy, visit, and pay attention at higher rates compared to people who don’t share the same emotional connections. As context gets more advanced, expect to see this area explored with great interest from both advertisers and publishers as they aim to create detailed views into the content interests and subsequent consumption behaviors of their audiences.

Furthermore, brand safety, suitability, and sentiment-based decision making opens up publishers to more curated, bespoke solutions. This will more accurately value their supply and subsequently make addressable media more valuable. Plus, contextual advancements across a variety of formats, coupled with new and more data-informed approaches to context, will create additional opportunities for advertisers to reach people in an anonymous capacity. Sky’s the limit for the future of contextual.

3. Find out how analytics and insights matter more than ever.

Among the adtech lessons of 2020—media moves fast. Measurement must keep pace during critical times. It must also operate across all channels and platforms to ensure a comprehensive view of success and uncover areas for optimization.

We can also expect a greater focus on analytics with limited reliance on personal identifiers. Publishers will want to prove that their sites are safe for advertising. They’ll need viewable inventory that features low invalid traffic (IVT). They will also want to provide rich insights to show the best creative performance, media attention across multi-format content (such as video, CTV or streaming audio, eSports, desktop, and mobile).

A portfolio approach for the future

We cannot overstate the importance of looking ahead, beyond universal IDs. Digital advertising exists to evolve, and businesses need to adapt. The change to identity unquestionably baffles the best of us. However, some may mistakenly invest in only one solution when we’re certain another shift will closely follow. The nature of this business requires more forethought and imagination, especially now. By widening the array of solutions and ap

Advertising | Perspectives | Revenue

The race is on for publishers and brands to leverage first-party data

Privacy regulations and browser updates are restricting the use of personal identifiers and customer data gathered via third-party cookies. Needless to say, this is causing no little disruption to the way the digital advertising industry works today. 

To prepare for this privacy-focused future, publishers will need consent-based audience data. Brands will have to adapt the way they target and measure campaigns, and identity solutions. And technology providers will need to solve these challenges as updates continue to roll in. 

As data deprecation continues — and the deadline for the removal of third-party cookies in Chrome draws near — we partnered with Forrester to research how brands and publishers are preparing. The project surveyed 100 advertisers and 100 publishers in the US and UK. We asked about their current data strategies, with Forrester providing analysis on the future of customer data in advertising and how the industry can realign itself successfully. It shows that within the oncoming threats, there are opportunities for publishers and brands who have access to first-party data.    

Privacy regulations are a concern, but solutions are underway  

Data deprecation is an ongoing issue. New regulations and frequent browser changes, including the recent announcement from Google banning alternative identifiers in the bidstream, are creating a certain amount of chaos. These changes will dramatically change the way people are targeted on the web. And brands are feeling the impact. 

The Forrester research shows that 73% of brand respondents are very concerned about increasing privacy regulations. And 69% are concerned or very concerned with the restriction of third-party cookies in major browsers. However, despite this high level of concern 41% of brands are still relying “mostly or exclusively on third-party data” to target their audiences. 

Brands know they need to take privacy seriously. But time is running out to reduce their use of third-party data and test first-party data strategies. Some work has begun, 36% of brands say they are starting to explore accessing publishers’ first-party data. They are also starting to move away from relying on third-party data. Yet, more advertisers need to look at alternative ways of targeting. They should work closely with publishers to incorporate their first-party data.

There’s an opportunity for publishers to partner with advertisers 

Publishers are working hard to build-out their data monetization capabilities. They’re keen to supplement their subscription and ad revenue through advertiser partnerships. The research shows that 95% of publishers surveyed have started building their first-party data monetization strategies. However, only 28% are ready now with an established, implemented strategy. 

Identity and tracking individual across the internet — knowing their every move —  isn’t the only route to understanding consumers. Publishers understand their audiences and are building cohorts — a group of users that share some common attributes or behaviors — from their first-party data insights. This will give publishers an opportunity to build direct relationships with buyers, as publisher cohorts are privacy-safe. They allow advertisers to continue to target and reach audiences post-cookie, across platforms. 

Publishers are primed to take action. Half of those surveyed believe increasing privacy restrictions will allow them to work more closely with advertisers. Access to consented, granular data on their audiences will strengthen their advertiser relationships, especially as first-party data becomes even more valuable to brands. 

But convincing brands to test, trial and book campaigns with this cohort-based audience data is vital for this closer partnership model to succeed.

Publishers must proactively showcase the power of their first-party data 

In order for brands to wean themselves off third-party data, they need scalable, relevant audiences. They also need partners that can help them reach those audiences across all buying platforms. 

Brands should look to publisher cohorts to test first-party data campaigns. They need to be open minded about how they can reach new audiences as the industry rebuilds itself for the future. While publishers have gained significant ground in establishing their strategies, brands will need to find trusted partners. Publishers that are proactive about collecting their first-party data and sharing their work with brands are the ones that will benefit most. 

Instead of replicating the old ways, publishers and brands should see this as a chance to build deeper relationships and prepare for buying via cohorts that don’t identify and track people as individuals. It’s time to embrace a future based on first-party data.

Advertising | Innovation | Perspectives | Revenue

How cookie deprecation puts publishers in a sweet spot

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 | Revenue

The year of publisher-driven identity

Many publishers have not realized the full promise of programmatic advertising. And that is largely thanks to the use, and misuse, of third-party cookies. By providing user information access to everybody who would listen, and by enabling less scrupulous players to harness this information outside of the publisher sites, third-party cookies have devalued premium publisher inventory. These practices have enabled brands to harvest and reuse data. They have also put user’s personal privacy at risk.

Programmatic advertising could have driven vastly increased yields for publishers. Initially, many publishers benefited from opening up to global competition so that they reached more brands and marketers than they could contact directly. Programmatic advertising offered the ability to monetize each user individually to its true value. The publisher was able to access the increasing amount of programmatic demand funneled through the agency trading desks, and with much more transparency and control than working with ad networks.

Algorithms could be set to optimize for further revenue growth. This freed up the sales team to focus on more strategic buyers, higher margin activities like creative solutions. It also increased the importance of technical operations. Its growing efficiencies and economies of scale could be delivered by this automation.

Sadly, many publishers have yet to fully experience these benefits. Instead, many have suffered from a race to the bottom in terms of prices, from information imbalance with buyers and ads that have had a negative impact on their users’ experience.

Third-party problems

The single biggest factor responsible for these missed opportunities is third-party cookies. Therefore, it will come as a relief to many publishers that third-party cookies are being deprecated from browsers. Both Safari and Firefox are already blocking them by default. And Chrome plans to deprecate them from its market-leading browser “within two years” of January 2020.

Publishers should view this as an opportunity to redefine the user identification infrastructure that powers the digital advertising ecosystem. The year of publisher-driven identity has arrived.

However, it would be a mistake to wait for third-party cookies to crumble without working on an alternative. We still need advertising to be workable, and for all parties, but in a more balanced way.

Solution-oriented

Brands require user identification capabilities to engage with their audience online in a controlled manner to measure the performance of their marketing investment. Because of this, having no identification would be worse than using an imperfect identification system. In fact, there is a significant risk that it would drive brands’ investment to the places where they can identify users without third-party cookies. (Yes, that means the walled gardens with their logged-in authenticated audiences which have volunteered a wealth of personal data.) Many savvy publishers understand this and have already invested in identity solutions that work for them as well as clients.

Publishers are the “first party” that their readers, viewers and listeners engage with. Their audiences trust them to provide valuable content and reliable service. Thus, publishers are in the best position to inform users of the value exchange between content and advertising, gain their trust, and collect their consent to enter into a personal relationship. In the privacy-first world we now inhabit, they are in the driving seat.

Publishers are also in the driver’s seat from a technical standpoint. Now that Apple and Google have decided to end autonomous access to devices by third parties – via the removal of cookies and MAIDs – identification will be enabled by publishers. It will be websites that decide when and with whom to share user IDs. It will be media owners who will allow brands to identify users, access data, manage frequency capping, and measure campaign performance. And they will reserve this privilege for the brands who truly value their audiences and will refuse it for all the “free-riders” who have exploited them over the past decade.

Identity matters

When working with identity solution providers, it is important that publishers keep these objectives in mind. They must ask themselves the following questions: Can I control the user IDs I am sharing with brands? Is my audience data protected by these solutions? Do I have guarantees that the privacy choices my users make will be respected? Only a clear, positive answer to these questions will ensure that publishers’ leading role in the future of identity management is guaranteed, and that they come out as the clear winners of the current infrastructure transformation.

The core benefits of programmatic advertising remain clear. Price discovery, increased competition, granular audience segmentation, and automation will continue to provide value to publishers who can harness them. But with increased control over when, how and by whom their audiences are accessed and used, these benefits will truly translate into incremental revenue for publishers. The pendulum is about to swing back towards publishers. And this serves the greater good for the open internet, digital advertising, and consumers.

Advertising | Industry-Research

Publishers accelerated diversification strategies in 2020!

As publishers reflect on 2020, most will agree that Covid-19 took center stage. The year was filled with business struggles, but it also offered some growth opportunities. What’s New in Publishing’s (WNIP) year-in-review, Media Moments 2020, identifies “diversification” as the paramount lesson from 2020. Importantly, the report makes it clear that publishers who are dependent on advertiser revenue need to rethink their strategies and include consumer revenue streams.

WNIP’s report covers the industry’s focus on “trend acceleration.” Certainly, while there has been marketplace disruption the past two decades, nothing has accelerated market shifts quite like Covid-19. Media Moments looks at 2020 to showcase these market changes and identify winning publisher strategies.

Notable 2020 highlights

Print final shift to digital

Any print publisher who survived 2020, will need to go fully digital in 2021. In fact, Poynter reports that nation­al newspaper circulation in the U.S. is down 30% since 2016 and 60 newsrooms closed recently due to the impact of Covid-19.

Launching a differentiated digital brand with fresh content is vital in this marketplace. Revenue diversification is key for sustainability. Offering virtual events, newsletters and podcasts are important touchpoints to broaden revenue opportunities as well as develop consumer loyalty.

Audio is an expending revenue source

Audio has proved to be a strong and viable business for publishers and they look to expand their audio businesses in 2021. Some have their business by producing dedicated podcast content while others grew through acquisitions. Many publishers are testing new formats for podcast integrations in content outside of news. Other examples include a new commentary format from AMC to complement their video business and Marvel’s experimenting with fictional content.

Spotify, iHeartRadio, and Apple are a few of the leading podcast platforms. While Spotify is among those building their content portfolio of content, others are building their podcasting infrastructure like iHeart.  This year alone, Spotify acquired content producers Gimlet and The Ringer. iHeart, on the other hand, acquired podcast analytics company, Voxnest. Even given the coronavirus’ negative impact on advertising spend this year, podcasting did not register large declines. PwC’s updated predictions approximate $814M for podcasting ad revenue, just 6% below PwC and IAB’s original forecast.

Publisher exercise first-party data

In January 2020, Google announced that Chrome would phase out support for third-party cookies in the browser within two years. This didn’t come as a big surprise, given that Mozilla FireFox and Apple’s Safari made similar announcements in 2019. Of course, this trend will mandate reducing digital advertising’s reliance on cookies. As a result, an already tough seller’s marketplace for publishers is getting tougher. Fortunately, many publishers acted early and started to develop first-party data strategies, benefitting from their trusted relationship with consumers.

Once again, publishers are touting the merits of contextual advertising.  And many publishers are building the tools to serve contextual advertising better than ever before. In fact, Vox Media launched Concert Ad Manager, a self-service tool for publishers to build and implement ad campaigns across the marketplace. Publishers using this tool include NBC Universal, Penske Media, Quartz, and others. This type of tool is extremely helpful to small and medium size publishers.

As the pandemic transformed our world, consumers searched for news and information to help them navigate the crisis. From dropping paywalls to record traffic, publishers responded, and they were reminded of the trust consumers place in them. By concentrating on consumer value, publishers can prioritize a consumer-first strategy and register growth in consumer revenue.

Advertising | Perspectives

To win in the digital ad game, focus on the end (user)

Lately, every week brings more news of sweeping changes from the media world’s tech titans to their platforms and ad policies. And none of them are more alarming than the end of the third-party cookie — if you believe the headlines.

However, this tectonic shift in how advertising operates on the open web today does not need to be a death knell for publishers and their ad supported revenue models. Publishers will win if their focus is on the end game: their users. Let’s start with a quick recap of the changes undertaken by the largest browsers and device owners.

The third-party cookie & data privacy

In January,Google declared the retirement of third-party cookies from Google Chrome by 2022. This gives the industry only two years to completely rework technology fundamental to the operation of the internet. 

Not long after, Apple announced enablement of its Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) by default on all browsers on iOS, not just Safari. 

Advertising creative & traffic changes

In May, Google rolled out a feature designed to block ads it deems use too much network or battery power (also known as “heavy ads”). 

In August, Apple announced the iOS 14 feature that automatically redirects from News+ publisher links to the Apple News app. 

How publishers can win

Let’s briefly level set the real-world context behind these Google and Apple updates. 

Forty percent of online US audiences currently access the internet through a third-party cookieless environment such as Safari or Firefox. What does this mean? It’s likely a significant portion of your traffic already has third-party cookies disabled.

Once Chrome joins the ranks of Safari and Firefox, another 45% of online US audiences will no longer be trackable with third-party cookies. That means 85% of US online audiences will be untrackable by third-party cookies by 2022. This could seem like the end for your ad supported revenue model. But is it really all gloom and doom?

Not even close. The elimination of third-party cookies is a good thing for publishers. That’s because your first-party data and onsite cookies just skyrocketed in value. 

Step 1: Prioritize data security to protect your users. And yourself.

If onsite users consume your content (or media), they value your property and their relationship with you. Don’t let precious user data leak from your site for targeting on other sites.

Rather than spending the next 12 months on the hunt for a perfect cookieless solution, lock down your data today. Update your security terms and conditions. Determine which of your technology partners enable secure and cookieless targeting and matching – or who they are considering for this solution. Why? You can then deliver unique and proprietary first-party data for onsite targeting – for a premium. Recognize the unique value that you deliver brand advertisers by coupling your media and data. With the right configuration of content, data and unique ad formats, publishers can decrease the number of ads onsite and still increase revenue and performance. 

Next let’s tackle the ad creative and traffic changes. Google and Apple aren’t blocking “heavy ads” and redirecting users to the News+ app simply for the sake of undermining publishers’ businesses or thwarting audience traffic to your site, though it may feel that way. Rather, long page load times and barriers of entry like paywalls are terrible for users. Apple and Google (and Facebook and Amazon) know their value is their user base. Publishers must prioritize the end user, too.

Step 2: Optimize the user experience. Optimize the revenue potential.

We live in a world of instant information and gratification. This point has been punctuated by the pandemic’s ongoing surge in digital content consumption. With each wasted second on page load or obstacle to information, publisher bounce rates increase exponentially.

Alternately, a decrease in latency inversely correlates to revenue, with RPMs increasing as high as 70%. To accommodate, the industry is witnessing monetization solutions shift server-side, like Prebid, or even closer to the CDN in some cases. Explore these options when investigating or assessing monetization partners. Moving server-side has added benefits for first-party cookie persistence that can also enable a higher premium for your first-party user data. 

It’s easier said than done, but this technology exists today. I’ve witnessed its results firsthand. To prepare for the death of third-party cookies, double down on your most valuable asset — your users — and bullishly safeguard their experience. The result? Happy and returning users, a future-proofed business model and positive impact to your bottom line. 

Advertising | Perspectives | Revenue

Why publishers need to push back on platform-specific “cookie-less” solutions

With the imminent demise of third-party cookies in Chrome, and other browsers blocking them already, everyone is talking about “cookie-less” solutions. But what exactly are “cookie-less” solutions? And how will they help – or hurt – publishers?

For the most part, when someone says they have built a “cookie-less” solution, they mean that they don’t rely on third-party cookies. Instead, they use first party cookies or locally store some bit of information they can use later to identify the user.

There are obvious challenges with using first party cookies or local storage compared to third party cookies. Notably, that they aren’t accessible across domains. Therefore, identifying a user from one site to the next is not possible without additional technology or signals.

However, the benefit is that all browsers currently still allow them to be set with JavaScript. (Though, in some cases, set with shorter TTLs). For our purpose here, and to keep things focused, let’s make the false assumption that any platform offering a cookie-less solution can successfully and accurately connect these first party cookies across domains at scale.

First parties and risk

So, if third party cookies are essentially dead and first party cookies can work as a viable replacement, this sounds perfect. Well: Not exactly.

Any identity provider that can read and write a first-party cookie to store their own identifier, also has access to all of the publisher’s own cookies. (With the exception of HTTP cookies with HttpOnly properly set). They also have access to any other first-party cookies set by any other technologies (ad tech or otherwise) on the page.

There are three problems with this level of exposure:

  1. Data from first-party cookies could be leaked to other platforms who are incorrectly reading first-party cookies that they did not set.
  2. Platforms can overwrite the publisher’s own first-party cookies or the first-party cookie of another platform, causing issues.
  3. Cookies set by the publisher and all platforms writing first-party cookies are included in HTTP requests to the publisher’s servers. Cookies can become so large that the browser starts to limit them. (~4kb is the limit in most browsers.) Or they will cause network latency and increase consumers’ bandwidth usage.

Too many cookies

If there were only a handful of identity providers being used by the publisher, these may not pose too much of a risk. The publisher could properly audit the code and manage the cookie space accordingly.

Unfortunately, there are already 15-20 different companies offering identity solutions using first-party cookies. Standards have not been established. And that  means it is open season for identity providers to manage first-party cookies as they wish. Yes, even though these cookies are supposed to belong to the publisher.

Prebid.js is the exception. It employs a standard implementation for identity providers to read/write cookies and publishers have control over the name of the first-party party cookie used by default. But even here, several of the modules handle cookie naming, reading, and writing on their own.

Check your IDs

This leads to the question: Why do we have so many “identity providers”? Are they all doing something unique and special? Some are. But many are just ad tech companies “offering a first-party cookie solution.” Unfortunately, these solutions are simply a means to an end for platforms to get their own ID in the bid stream to make it usable for themselves.

This may seem necessary and feasible today. But what happens when every ad tech platform decides they need their own ID in the bidstream? Publishers would need to support hundreds of IDs on their page. SSPs would need to pass these IDs to DSPs. And Data Platforms and DSPs would need to be able to ingest and understand all of these IDs. Beyond just these technical challenges, having this many IDs poses significant privacy challenges, like we have today with 3P cookies. And it certainly does not move the industry in the right direction for consumers.

Shared solutions

At ID5, we believe there are identity providers that deserve to be on publisher pages and in the bidstream: those that are providing a shared ID for all platforms to use. However, vendors that are creating “cookie-less” solutions simply to power their own platform should instead use these shared IDs as a currency to transact across platforms while using their own ID for internal purposes and building their own graph.

Publishers need to push back on any platform-specific “cookie-less solutions.” They are not beneficial to the industry and are causing confusion and technical challenges. Shared ID solutions improve technical efficiencies and provide a common language to communicate about users across platforms. They also allow the various platforms in our industry to focus on what they do best. Identity should be a commodity and not a differentiator and should be handled by companies who focus solely on providing shared identity solutions.

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