Tags containing: "first party data"

How Insider Inc. leverages first-party data for its partners

September 21, 2020 Kristy Schafer, VP Americas – Permutive

About Insider Inc.

Insider Inc. is the parent of Business Insider and its general interest news and lifestyle sibling, Insider. Insider is one of the world’s largest digital news platforms, with a global audience of 275 million. The company was founded in 2007 with the launch of Business Insider, which now has 14 editions around the globe and is published in eight languages.

The challenge

Insider, Inc. wanted to gain a more holistic understanding of its audiences to better serve advertisers

Insider faced challenges connecting data across its sites and getting a holistic view of its audience. It wanted to understand programmatic buying behavior and learn which audiences advertisers were looking for. Insider knew that this information would help it to inform editorial and content strategies as well as ad pricing and packaging. To increase the value of advertising on its site, the company needed a solution to connect all the different data pieces in its arsenal.

The Solution

Insider and Permutive build first-party data platform, SÁGA

Insider worked with Permutive’s Data Management Platform to create SÁGA (named after the Norse goddess of history and storytelling). The platform was designed to better understand users and their behavior in order to make tailored recommendations for advertisers and partners.

The platform has three key components:

‘Audience’ enables audience segmentation for effective ad targeting
‘Inform’ empowers strategic content creation recommendations
‘Insights’ provides real-time data to improve campaign performance

The results so far

With a first-party data strategy and an efficient way to view audience data, Insider helps advertisers tailor their campaigns and improve engagement. Now, Insider is better able to:

Create bespoke segments for advertisers

With SÁGA, Insider can discern more than five billion user data points each month. These include: content consumption, engagement frequency, where traffic comes from, and ad clicks — just to name a few. Using this data, Insider can create valuable, bespoke segments for its advertisers. For example, the Insider ‘business influencers’ cohort consists of users that consumed content on the Insider platform over the last week on finance or technology verticals, or as part of subscription-driven stories. To these segments, Insider is also able to overlay third-party data, such as job title or industry.

Tailor content and advertising to users

With better analytics tools, Insider can now discover which content resonates best with different audiences. This helps advertisers make smarter decisions about their content and advertising strategies. For example, Insider found that readers of small business content are often likely to be interested in pet stories. This insight led to a banking advertiser creating a unique campaign that spotlighted how a pet-themed small business worked with said company.

“It’s about understanding behavior. While respecting user privacy, we are able to discern a lot about our readers from what they do on our platform. Our goal is to better serve our audience — and our partners — with actionable insights based on what we know about behavior.”

–Jana Meron, SVP Programmatic & Data Strategy, Insider Inc.

Leveraging more granular audience data helps advertisers reach the right users at the right time with the right message on Insider. This works regardless of whether the browser blocks third-party cookies, which is a a growing reality for publishers.

Showcase the value of first-party data

Today data provided by SÁGA informs all campaigns running on Insider Inc. sites. Each campaign begins with a tailored strategy that aims to meet the specific goals of a given RFP.

“First-party data goes beyond the authenticated web to gauge how readers engage on our platform. This has tremendous value.”

-– Jana Meron, SVP Programmatic & Data Strategy, Insider Inc.

For example, Insider worked with a financial client with strict audience targeting parameters. The advertiser had always relied on third-party data. Insider conducted an A/B test comparing a campaign using first-party data with one relying on third-party data. The result was that the first-party data segment outperformed by +11% against the advertiser’s KPI (+11% first-party versus third-party segment).

Insider Inc. continues to improve its first-party data strategy

Insider has had success with its approach to first-party data but is just getting started. The company plans to make additional improvements, such as:

Creating a rich taxonomy by adding Natural Language Processing (NLP) to SÁGA. This will provide better targeting options for advertisers so they can reach their audiences across different parts of the Insider platform.
Collecting more first-party data. Insider believes that the number of logged-in users at any time will be less than 25% of total traffic. It wants to ensure its campaigns can scale by including behavioral and contextual data alongside that declared data. It gathers first-party data from multiple sources, including newsletters, on-site calculators, and surveys.
Educating the advertising market. In addition to helping to educate its advertising partners about the benefits of first-party data, Insider is committed to spreading the word to the larger advertising community.

Insider is actively preparing for diminution of third-party cookies by focusing on a first-party data strategy. Through its use of SÁGA ,the company now has a radically improved view of its audiences that can greatly benefit its partners as well as readers and viewers.

Advertising | Perspectives

Advertising’s great unknown: Why audience intent matters more than identity

August 10, 2020 Kristy Schafer, VP Americas – Permutive

Today’s publishers are leading the way when it comes to reimagining advertising in a world without third-party cookies. They started thinking about a future based on first-party data long before Google announced that it would discontinue support for third-party cookies.

But now, publishers have an opportunity to reshape the industry for the better by focusing on relevant audiences and intent rather than identity.

Advertisers don’t need to know the identity of an individual that they are targeting; they just need to know that they are reaching a relevant group of people for their brand. And individuals will be able to retain their right to privacy.

Aiming for the right target

How has identity become such a hot topic??

Publishers have been hit by an onslaught of restrictions about the way they use data, with regulations such as GDPR and CCPA, and browser changes from Apple’s Safari and Mozilla Firefox barring third-party cookies by default.

After these browser changes, publishers were no longer able to target their audiences with third-party data in Safari and Firefox. Publisher CPMs are lower in Safari compared with Chrome because these users are not able to be tied to a record or matched to a third-party identity. This has negatively impacted publishers’ advertising revenue.

With Chrome still in play, many advertisers have simply shifted spending and seen reasonable returns. Although as much as 40% of traffic falls on browsers where tracking cookies are blocked, they are currently able to monetize and measure their campaigns on Chrome. However, that will soon change. Before the end of 2021, advertisers will have no option but to find a new way of targeting users.

Attention has turned to the thorny issue of identification. Without third-party cookies marketers will struggle with audience targeting, frequency capping and attribution. They require new ways to measure their campaigns that are not blocked by browsers or inhibited by privacy standards.

Key considerations

As advertisers, publishers and ad tech providers start to reimagine the entire ecosystem, there are three key things to consider:

Are identity solutions privacy compliant?

Ad tech vendors are developing solutions to replace cross-site tracking with third-party cookies. Many of these solutions are still based on third-party cookies or probabilistic matching. This approach is a band-aid solution, not the answer. The IAB’s solution through DigiTrust had to shut down because of its very reliance on third-party cookies. For authenticated solutions where an email (or similar ID) can be leveraged to match users, there is the issue of scale.

Before considering investing in an identity solution, publishers should ask:

Does incorporate techniques that could be fingerprinting? Is the user being probabilistically matched to target them in a new environment without their knowledge?
Has consent been accepted in all areas where user data is being leveraged? Are you able to provide data on a user or delete it easily if the user requests access?
Will this solution work without third-party cookies?

Are you prioritizing user trust?

On publisher sites, users typically fall into three distinct segments: authenticated, recognized (via a 3p cookie) and anonymous. To ensure scale for targeting, publishers need to address each.

Authenticated users are logged in or have a common identifier; recognized users are based on third-party cookies or device IDs; anonymous users are not associated with an ID but their behavior or contextual data can be viewed by publishers.

Across the majority of publishers, the number of authenticated users will be limited. They are typically loyal readers that trust the brand enough to form a relationship. On average, less than 10% of a site’s traffic will be authenticated and even with driving efforts it’s unlikely that number will rise above 25% for all but a few.

Publishers should be thoughtful around how and who they share this user data with in order to retain that trust.

There are some great solutions for authenticated audiences however it is important to recognize that when you factor in match rates to advertisers data is going that scale will be limited.

Considering the type of identifier that a vendor is asking the publisher to release is important to evaluate. Once an identifier leaves the publisher’s environment, whether in hashed form or not, it is susceptible to many different types of nefarious activity, including fingerprinting which is aggressively being blocked by browsers.

The most pertinent considerations for publishers are:

Is an identifier being shared in the bidstream that can expose user identity without their knowledge? Are you protecting your most valuable and unique audience by sharing an identifier that can be probabilistically matched?
What is the long term impact of sharing identifying information on your revenue and business? Who benefits from the data?
What percentage of your audience can be reached through this tactic? What is the plan for non-authenticated traffic? Is there unique first-party data that can be used for campaigns instead of third-party data?

How will you target anonymous users and scale your audiences with first-party data?

When Chrome starts blocking third-party cookies, the only companies that will be able to collect and process data on these “anonymous” users will be those with direct relationships, such as brands or publishers. In order to view data on these users, companies must have both a legal relationship (i.e. ability to collect consent) and a technical relationship (own the inventory).

Publishers will essentially become their own walled gardens and will hold the keys to audience data for advertising because they gain legal consent directly from users on their site and serve ads on the same domain. They will be the gatekeeper of that audience data on behavior or context for these anonymous users and should ensure that this unique data retains value. Publishers must focus on collecting first-party information on both anonymous and authenticated users, including browsing behavior and contextual data.

For example, Entrepreneur Media, a large business-focused publication, was missing out on valuable revenue opportunities because it was unable to target users in real time on Safari and Firefox with third-party cookies.

Working with Permutive, Entrepreneur Media was able to segment and target users across Safari and Firefox without third-party cookies and immediately benefited from a 7.6x increase in targetable inventory. Entrepreneur’s ability to provide advertisers with rich first-party audience offerings allowed the publisher to drive an impressive 11x (1094%) ROI within just two months.

Publishers should look at their existing data and understand:

Are they collecting first-party data on anonymous users?
What can they do to prepare for the time when Google blocks third-party cookies?
What should they be offering advertisers today to start the transition away from third-party data targeting?
Are their sellers able to communicate the value of their own data? What steps can be taken to make teams more operationally ready to be successful in leveraging data?

Trust and transparency will help build the bottom line

There has been little transparency around the fidelity of third-party data. And, frankly, the industry has done too little to change – until now. Publishers have an opportunity to ensure that their data is the cornerstone of a new currency. But we must have honest, collaborative conversations about the framework needed.

There are paths in place with the IAB data labels and consistent taxonomy. But for it to be successful, publishers need to build a long-term strategy.

An advertising industry, built with privacy in mind, can deliver what users expect. True targeting and personalization connects with an audience in the moments that matter, and you don’t need a name (or an email address) for a marketing campaign to be successful.

Advertising | Revenue

Server-side tech will drive the future of publisher digital advertising revenue

July 29, 2020 Josh Torok, Senior Product Manager – Nativo

Every war produces collateral damage. And the browser wars are no exception.

For years, publishers reactively adjusted their monetization strategies based on browser changes to accommodate a rapidly changing landscape in the name of revenue preservation. Many publishers rely on client-side bidding via web browsers to monetize their sites, despite lackluster performance and unpleasant side effects. These include clunky, slow loading sites, personally identifiable information (PII) vulnerability, and interruptive, obtrusive ad experiences.

The resulting situation is driving new publisher approaches – including server-side technology – that have a tremendous impact on their business. The industry is reeling from the economic impact of Covid-19, reacts to CCPA enforcement, and readies itself for the next phase of digital advertising. Yet at the same time, publishers must address certain fundamental technology blockers in the name of reclaiming their monetization strategy and futureproofing their ad revenue through server-side technology.

Let’s assess how investment in server-side solutions will catalyze greater autonomy, sustainability and innovation for publishers in the long run.

Client-side vs. server-side bidding

In client-side header bidding, also known as browser-side header bidding, publishers take their inventory to multiple demand partners as impressions become available. Ad requests are sent to demand partners to place their bids. The highest bid is selected and the winning bidder’s ad is displayed. Code, or JavaScript (JS), lives on the publisher’s page and is executed on users’ browsers when they visit the website.

With server-side header bidding, auction logic is executed on a server. The user’s browser makes a single request to the server, which sends and receives all bid requests. Once the bid is sold, the ad is displayed without affecting page load time.

The browser is not your friend

Many publishers rely on client-side bidding for site monetization through digital advertising. However, the dynamics aren’t always in their best interest.

Poor User Experience Due to Latency: JS and ad tags are notoriously slow. That’s because they’re dependent on the number of ad slots and prioritization of when and how they load. Slow load times result in jumpy, inconsistent content, poor browsing UX, and attrition as a result of reloading or exiting the page.

Non-Data Regulation Compliance: Ad tags in and of themselves are not inherently non-compliant. However, the tag, not the publisher, determines what data is sent to a partner. If code sends data to another partner without explicit user consent, publishers are susceptible to substantial privacy legislation enforcement. Publishers that do not own all of the code on their page are at risk for non-compliance.

Browser Overreliance: Browsers serve as a home base for publisher audiences, auctions, rendering and more. With continual shifts in browser dynamics, there’s escalating opportunity cost associated with publisher over-reliance on an environment in which they exert minimal control.

Some of the browser-based workarounds publishers leverage today likely won’t be viable tomorrow. To extricate themselves from the dynamics of client-side bidding, publishers should invest in server-side technology that will lay the groundwork for monetization innovation in the future.

The solution is server-side

Server-side technology will ultimately be a catalyst for publishers to reclaim autonomy, sustainability, and control of monetization today and well into the future. There are three chief benefits of server-side technology that pave the road for publisher success:

Optimal User Experience: Server-side technology, like content distribution networks (CDNs), preserves the user experience by enabling publishers to optimize sites for faster load times and lower latency. The result? Improved UX and prioritization of when and how ads load. The faster the pages load, the better the user experience will be. And better UX translates to persistent, returning audiences that can be monetized. The introduction of CDN edge computing transitions decisioning around each ad unit – how auctions are managed and when units load–to publishers themselves. This results in optimal monetization and UX.

Identity Solutions: The end of third-party cookies on Chrome is less than two years away. Server-side solutions position publishers for their next phase of innovation: solving for audience and attribution. With the decline of the 3rd party cookie, identifying, targeting and attributing actions to website visitors becomes increasingly challenging. Newfound autonomy will extract publishers from the browser wars. It will also facilitate implementation of identity solutions like publisher first-party identifiers or LiveRamp’s Authenticated Traffic Solution (ATS). This improves addressability across the open web by matching known users to a persistent identifier and enabling marketers to target users in a privacy-first manner.

Control: With client-side bidding, publishers are beholden to decisioning they can’t control, like browsers blocking third-party cookies or the introduction of a new algorithm. But with server-side logic, publishers are empowered to build their own valuable walled gardens, where they determine the rules, dynamics and monetization strategy.

Long-term goals

Server-side solutions – like a prebid server – might result in temporary revenue decline due to a departure from third-party cookie targeting. But that revenue is short-lived. Publishers are wise to play the long game. The innovation and revenue growth of server-side platforms like Amazon suggest the short-term inconvenience is far outweighed by the long-term reclaim of revenue control.

To extricate themselves from browser dynamics, ensure data regulation compliance, build groundwork to preserve UX and preserve tomorrow’s monetization, publishers are wise to look to the server: Investing in server-side innovation today is the ultimate future-proofing for publishers’ businesses tomorrow.

Advertising | Industry-Research

How publishers can reset to serve a cookie-less digital marketplace

July 7, 2020 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

To date, marketers and ad tech companies have heavily relied on third-party cookies – those created by domains other than the one the user is visiting. Third-party cookies are used for cross-site tracking, retargeting, and ad serving. Whereas first-party cookies, which are created by the site the user is visiting, allow publisher sites to collect data, remember logins, and help to create a better user experience. A new International News Media Association’s (INMA) report, “The Third Party Cookie Trigger,” covers fundamentals, complexities, and new possibilities as the industry moves beyond third-party cookies.

Clearly, data is an important currency in the digital ecosystem. However, in January 2020, Google announced that it will phase out support for third-party cookies in Chrome by the end of 2022. The next two years provide the time to reset the digital advertising marketplace. We’ll need to reshape data collection and exchange strategies, redefine advertiser opportunities and enhance the users digital experience. Importantly, publishers have an opportunity to showcase how first-party content consumption data provides a better signal for relevance in the advertising ecosystem.

Disappearing cookies is no surprise

The holy grail of digital advertising is its ability to serve the right ad to the right user at the right time. However, the current path to that grail is questionable. Today’s digital advertising ecosystem is complex and messy. According to the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA), tracking advertiser spend to the publisher is nearly impossible. In fact, publishers receive only 51% of digital advertising spend with up to one-third of the total spend unattributed.

Further, data collection of consumers on the web has a myriad of issues. These range from consumer consent to data tags firing off signals that lead to latency problems. And now with GDPR and CCPA in place, new governance on data collection is in play. So, it was only a matter of time before third-party cookie were phased out.

Moving beyond cookies

Media companies are already investing in technology platforms, modernizing their publishing infrastructure, building a data foundation, and setting new standards for publisher and advertiser transactions. In fact, publishers are taking steps to build scalable audience segments based on their data for advertisers. They are developing ways to leverage their first-party relationship with their users to evolve the advertising ecosystem.

The INMA report also identifies five potential alternative vehicles, some already in the works, to third-party cookies:

Open Web alternative solution: An alternative such as Web browser APIs, driven by Google, Apple, Firefox, and media companies.
In-app advertising: A shift of marketing spend from the Web to in-app advertising (90% of time spent on mobile is spent in apps).
First-party data: An acceleration of first-party data (scalable) by publishers with a connection to advertisers.
Paywalls and logins: Paywalls and logins and first-party cookies offered as a digital currency to use among publishers, brands, and companies.
Universal IDs: Development of universal user IDs (needs to work across all parties and comply with GDPR and CCPA).

The end of third-party cookies affords publishers with an opportunity to re-think the value of advertising served on their site. It also allows them to distance themselves from an over-reliance on ad tech. It’s important for publishers to take the lead in reshaping data collection and exchange strategies in the digital advertising ecosystem to better reflect the value of the first-party relationship.

Advertising | Perspectives | Revenue

Why zero-party data is publishers’ secret weapon in a post-cookie world

March 2, 2020 Michael D. Silberman, SVP Strategy—Piano

The clock is ticking on third-party data.

The death of third-party cookies — courtesy of Google, Apple, GDPR and CCPA — also means the accelerated fade of third-party data. And from ad tech companies to marketers and media companies, the shift has left many wondering how they’ll proceed. Many fear the effect the changes could have on their business.

At Piano, though, we see opportunity where others see threat. And we think the shift away from third-party data is an opportunity to thrive. It puts new emphasis on first-party data. It also enables those companies to draw on something even more powerful: zero-party data.

Every day, users provide media companies with the type of explicit, accurate, data other businesses covet. Consumers willingly volunteer this data as they register or subscribe in order to unlock more content or build a deeper relationship with their site of choice. And it’s exactly this type of information that, if used right, can push those companies ahead in this new data landscape.

The problem with third-party data

To understand their audience and find new users, companies in and outside of media have long been relying on third-party data. This type of data, sold by data aggregators, is available in huge (if shrinking) volumes and can potentially shed light on many different consumer types. However, there are three primary problems with it:

The rising consumer concern around online privacy. Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of tracking and privacy. And that’s driven government privacy and consent regulations like GDPR, as well as the changes in browser cookie policies. This has reduced the reliability of third-party data.

It can be out of date and unreliable. This is why consumers are often targeted for a product they’ve already purchased or decided against, only to have ads “follow” them around the internet for weeks. If you’re building a strategy around data that’s two months (or even two weeks) old, it’s likely already outdated. And the trend towards limiting third-party cookies only means third-party data will become even less reliable in the future.

Sourcing is often hazy. How third-party data is collected, aggregated and then sold is generally a black box. User consent isn’t always known or verifiable. As the industry moves to tighten rules around data transparency, the value and utility of third-party data will continue to decline.

Unlike third-party cookies, third-party data probably won’t necessarily vanish completely — though it will certainly diminish in value. Even so, there are better alternatives available, especially to media companies.

If third-party data is finished, what now?

Some important questions still remain unanswered in this post third-party cookie world. However, what’s not unclear is that the more reliable the data, the higher the value for publishers’ marketing partners and the more they’re willing to pay for targeted ads. And for that, third-party data falls short next to the other options:

Zero-party data is intentionally shared with a business by its customers. This could range from customer relationship management (CRM) data, such as the email address or gender filled out in a registration form, to preferences selected during website customization. As data explicitly shared as part of a value exchange or to improve the customer experience, it’s the most valuable data a company can collect. Critically, it belongs to the customer, not the business. It can’t be used without consent and must be carefully protected. However, it is highly accurate, reliable, and transparent in sourcing.

First-party data is often thought to encompass zero-party data. However, it also includes behavioral data collected by observing customers as they browse your website or app, or visit your store. This type of data is implicit, rather than explicit, but is still considered premium for many reasons. It’s collected by you so is more likely to be accurate. And any insights drawn from your own audience are likely to truly reflect their preferences and behaviors. This means that campaigns and strategies are more likely to succeed. Crucially, there are fewer concerns over data misuse and GDPR non-compliance as you control the conditions in which data is collected and stored.

Second-party data is when first-party data passes through a second set of hands. In other words, second-party data is someone else’s first-party data. It occurs in like-minded publisher alliances, when suppliers exchange data with their retailers for mutual benefit. It also happens when agencies strike exclusive deals with major publishers to empower programmatic buying. Gaining explicit consent to use and share second-party data isn’t always an easy feat, but can be handled reliably with the right technology setup.

Media companies are in a unique position to take advantage of these data sources . This is particularly true for first-party data and the gold standard of all user data: zero-party data.

Maximizing your zero-party data

In the media landscape, companies can use zero-party data to both benefit their advertising partners and personalize the experience they offer users themselves. All while finally aligning the interests of their subscription and advertising teams — something many media companies have been striving to do for years.

Zero-party data is already available through registration and subscription sign-ups. But the savviest companies will maximize their store using many of the same techniques subscription companies have already implemented to optimize their business. That starts with quality content that puts users at the center of the audience experience. It continues in the form of exclusive content, personalized recommendations and customized offers that engage the user and personalize the experience. Only when a true value exchange is in place will users be incentivized to provide their data to improve their experience even further.

A data management platform, or DMP, can then help companies use that data to understand and segment their users. Lookalikes will also allow them to extrapolate the data to cover their entire audience. In doing so, they’ll be able to target ads to relevant users and engage more effectively with their chosen demographic.

Take Piano customer Mediahuis, for example. One of the largest publishers in Europe, they built a substantial base of 4.4 million registered users. They then used the zero- and first-party data collected to create a significant, audience-based advertising business across Belgium and the Netherlands. Audience campaigns grew to 27% of total ad revenue, with clickthrough rates 26% higher than non-targeted campaigns.

That’s the power of zero- and first-party data. Combining your advertising and subscription businesses through a focus on known users leads to a stronger and profitable monetization model, drawing from multiple revenue streams.

And that, as far as we’re concerned, is hardly something to be afraid of.

About the author

Michael Silberman, SVP Strategy, leads Piano’s Strategic Services team. He helps clients develop reader revenue strategies and drive success and revenue on the Piano platform. He joined Piano in 2018 after 10 years building the digital media business at New York magazine, and earlier, as one of the top editors launching and growing MSNBC.com in the early days of the consumer Internet. Visit piano.io to find out more about Piano Zero, an end-to-end solution that empowers zero- and first-party data.

Perspectives

Shakespeare, meet Einstein—Making the leap from data insights to artificial intelligence for content marketing

March 27, 2019 Jon Shalowitz, CEO—LiftIgniter

There isn’t a company leader out there today who doesn’t realize that their ability to harness and interpret data will make or break their business. When it comes to data analytics, the bar is constantly being raised. What was a theoretical concept just one year ago is now mainstream practice in major tech companies. Leveraging data to become more AI-driven is (or should be) on every CEO’s mind.

In fact, research suggests that by 2020, 30% of digital commerce revenue growth will be attributable to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and analytics.

As a content marketer, imagine if you were able to microsegment your readers in the moment and understand which content to best show them to drive subscriptions (or continued subscription). If that sounds appealing to you, read on.

First Party Data

Just look at the renewed importance of first-party data (data you own). In the past, third-party data, or data collected from aggregators, was considered the best way to market to customers. However, privacy concerns (it includes things like purchase and browsing history) have made it less viable.

First-party data, on the other hand, includes website traffic statistics, owned email marketing data, e-commerce data, and the content you publish and promote on your site. The best part is that it’s completely within your control. Also, it builds on itself over the years, which gives you deeper insights than you could have obtained through third-party data alone.

Today, content companies that leverage first-party data are better-positioned to make content recommendations and provide better customer experiences. But to give your customers, users, and readers what they want, you need to be able to process and react to data in less than one second.

And assembling, analyzing, and interpreting the data is no small feat.

From Data to Intelligence

According to 2018 data from Nielsen, Americans spend more than 11 hours consuming various forms of media. And adults between the ages of 18-34 spend as much as 43% of their time reading and viewing media on various digital platforms—a number that’s almost certainly higher today.

All of which is to say: There’s more first-party data up for grabs than ever before.

However, today’s users also expect that content to be relevant. That’s why the most effective content providers not only need to provide content that readers care about, but also content that’s highly tailored to their experiences in that moment.

And in the era of digital transformation, where AI-driven businesses are poised to take in close to $3 trillion, you need a data strategy that performs efficiently.

AI, combined with traditional analytics, can help your company comb through huge amounts of data in real time. And every day you put it off, the data set grows even larger and harder to manage.

Here’s how to harness the power of the data you already have and deliver the content your users want:

Data scientists are often too bogged down with grunt work to focus on what matters.

Today’s tech clutter (the average business today uses roughly 129 apps) creates data silos that make effective communication nearly impossible.

According to a Deloitte survey, 52% of respondents said they couldn’t make information-backed decisions because the data they needed is trapped in siloed departments. When data is isolated, it’s hard to wrangle and figure out how to analyze it. So data scientists find themselves spending 80% of their time on mundane work like figuring out which data to use, managing data movement on and off the Cloud, and understanding what attributes make the most sense to use in your models.

And after all that grunt work, there just isn’t time to do the high-value analysis.

So when you ask your data science team to tackle a portion of data, you may not understand there are many different moving parts that have to come together besides the analytics. And just because your data scientists have PhDs in mathematics or statistics doesn’t mean they have the expertise in data engineering and management to get it all done.

All CEOs need to make sure there’s a programmatic and structured way to enable data science to be ingrained in the data culture—not an afterthought. This means prioritizing building and updating the infrastructure so that there’s time for the most important analysis.

A strong data science platform makes room for truly valuable analysis.

A lot of the businesses we work with at my customer engagement company, LiftIgnigter, say it’s the operationalizing or the engineering part of data analysis that’s the most time-consuming.

It is easy to become overwhelmed by the challenge of turning data into an integral component of business operations—companies often don’t know where or how to begin.

To access the value of your business’s data, your data science team needs to develop not only a clear data strategy, but also find a programmatic way to make this second nature. Typically, this requires either building a platform or leveraging a third-party platform. A third-party platform helps data science teams aggregate the data, ultimately making data analysis a much more democratic process.

But it’s equally critical that the platform is built and fine-tuned for your company’s specific needs. A generic platform may give you lots of different options to run model testing, but at the end of the day, you need to focus your effort on modeling that is the most likely to yield meaningful insights.

However, with the right platform, which typically combines data science and machine learning, a team of five people can be effective as a team of 50. Imagine how much more efficient your team would be if they could focus their time on higher-level analysis.

AI augments the work your data science team can do, in real time.

With AI becoming increasingly ubiquitous, people are worried it will take their jobs. But AI isn’t replacing the data scientist. It’s actually making them that much more effective.

Here’s why: Training user targeting models is one thing. But then your team has to figure out a way to operationalize the continuous updating of the data.

For example, a large publisher company with 40 data scientists can still take several days to do all of the analytics that their editorial or product teams are demanding in real-time. They can hire 1,000 people—but that’s not cost-effective. The data science team is often called on to find compelling nuggets in your data in real-time. They’re constantly bombarded by your revenue team and marketing teams to come up with the perfect segment that will help drive greater revenue.

Large media companies like Facebook have a keen advantage because they have armies of data scientists to dig through their mounting data and figure out what’s relevant. And this is where AI comes in.

In order to compete, your business needs to make that process as standardized, real-time, and with zero wasted effort.

Third-party platforms enable businesses to create, tune, and refresh high performing models efficiently. Whether it’s generating demographic data for audience creation, or live streaming user behavioral signals to train a targeting system, a third-party platform can do a lot of the heavy lifting for you.

If you can create a unified strategy across your organization, optimize the data you have, and work only with trustworthy third-party partners—you’ll be prepared to navigate this new landscape.

Perspectives

How consumer privacy regulation creates opportunities for publishers

February 8, 2019 Mike Pugh, Senior Manager, Client Solutions—IPONWEB

One of the main drivers behind programmatic’s meteoric growth (at least on the demand side) has been the ability to leverage data to find and buy specific users, out of seemingly infinite opportunities, wherever they might be online.

After all, this enabling of “audience-based buying” brought marketers closer to their long-held notion of advertising utopia: reaching the right person, with the right message, at the right time, in the right context.

Data Dilemma

It also, theoretically, went a long way to minimizing wasted ad spend and enabled significant performance gains. The ad dollars flowed. But this shift took its toll on the sell-side.

To secure programmatic budgets (which were growing steadily and taking dollars away from their direct IO business), publishers had to relinquish control over their hard-won audiences by allowing cookie access to DSP partners in real time via cookie syncing. In doing so, they allowed the buy-side to build up and store those valuable audiences in their own platforms, reducing the need to work with publishers directly to gain access to or insights about their users.

Regulation Matters

The rapid proliferation of user-based targeting has understandably been followed by recent increased focus on consumer privacy. The GDPR went into effect across EU member states in May of last year, limiting unfettered access to user information and the ability to share that information with multiple parties across the ecosystem.

With passage of the California Consumer Privacy Act (which really means all of the US, given California’s outsized influence) and the likely imminent passage of the ePrivacy Regulation in the EU in the second half of 2019, the push for greater consumer privacy legislation seems unstoppable. France’s recent lawsuit against Google also indicates that common industry solutions and frameworks for satisfying new consumer data collection, usage, and privacy regulations aren’t always holding up to legal scrutiny, making the prospect of sharing data widely across partners and vendors increasingly difficult in the future.

While the enactment of these measures on such a global scale erodes the value (and calls into question the long-term viability) of cookie-based buying, it may also open a door for publishers to regain over their data and audiences and re-assert their position in the advertising value chain.

Data Diligence

Here are three tips for publishers looking to capitalize on the moment:

Limit access to your pages

A quick Ghostery check across a number of premium sites shows just how easy it is for 3rd-parties to build pools of data on a given publisher’s audiences. Publishers should be constantly evaluating who has access to their users, and what they’re doing with the data they’re collecting. Partners who add value, either by enhancing audience segments with additional data, or providing analytics and attribution services, should be prioritized. Others, who may be packaging up and reselling data, should be de-prioritized or even culled. An added benefit to this pruning process: faster page loading for users.

Use your data to enhance deals with buyers

Creating greater audience scarcity (enabled through the culling process mentioned above) opens a door for publishers to work more closely with advertisers looking to gain access to their users (and maximize the yield they see from those users). Striking guaranteed and non-guaranteed deals directly with advertisers based on 1st-party audience segments gives publishers the ability to more closely link the cost of media to the value of audiences, and thereby extract greater revenue from their inventory, while also benefiting parties up and down the supply chain. Advertisers enjoy the confidence of targeting audiences using the most recent and accurate data pools. And DSPs and SSPs executing the deals incur less waste (and listening costs), because the inventory is pre-filtered to match only the audience the buyer wants.

Let advertisers bring their own data

More than just building and monetizing their own audiences, publishers should start allowing advertisers to bring their first-party data to the table. One of the main benefits to this strategy is that buyers are able to trust the veracity of the audiences they’re buying. From a publisher’s perspective, it opens up new options for inventory segmentation that may not have existed within their proprietary audience pools. Overlaying additional data will always limit scale, by matching cookies at the source of origin rather than through DSP and SSP intermediaries. And publishers and advertisers can at least maximize match rates, minimize data loss, and decrease the risk of inefficient decisioning down the line – thereby offsetting scale issues to the greatest extent possible (while also commanding very premium CPMs).

Audience First

Consumer privacy legislation is pushing us to the point where the party closest to the consumer – typically the publisher – will increasingly enjoy exclusive access to those audiences as well. When we add the unique ability to know who that user is and what their interests are, the value soars. Couple this with the decline in quality and scale in the open exchange and what you have is publisher data that hasn’t been this valuable since programmatic began to take off.

Following these three steps will help publishers maximize that value. It will also deliver greater efficiencies and performance to advertising partners as well as privacy consideration to valued users.

About the Author

Mike Pugh is a Senior Solution Consultant at IPONWEB where he acts as the intermediary between clients and IPONWEB’s design, delivery, and engineering teams to create custom ad tech projects. He is responsible for bringing client-specific solutions to market and ensuring a successful execution of the solution, strategy, and opportunity. Mike is currently the team lead on the TrustX SSP as well as other strategic business accounts. Prior to joining IPONWEB, he led a team of 14 programmatic traders at Accuen, Omnicom’s trading desk. Mike has experience managing programmatic buying campaigns across the Autos, Retail, CPG, Financial, and Pharma verticals on most major DSPs. Mike graduated from the University of Iowa with a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and DePaul University with a Master’s Degree in Economics & Policy Analysis.

Perspectives

Would you outsource data strategy and execution?

February 5, 2019 Michel Benjamin, Director of Marketing—Lotame

It’s fair to say that the advertising industry has embraced audience data. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and its Data Center of Excellence released a study in December 2018 showing that companies have spent nearly $19.2 billion on the acquisition of audience data and on solutions to manage, process, and analyze this data in 2018. That’s a 17.5% increase from the prior year.

Whether it is first, second, or third-party, using audience data to enhance campaigns is more impactful than un-targeted campaigns. While third-party data exchanges have been widely available for over a decade, second-party data marketplaces have sprung up, as the need for increased data quality and questions of sourcing and transparency have also proliferated.

What’s the problem?

Data isn’t just useful for advertising. It is a necessity across every industry. However, for many companies, figuring out how to act on this data is the hard part. There are many reasons why companies fail to use data to drive their marketing campaigns, including:

Lack of enterprise-level strategy (What are we using this for again?)
Strong corporate strategy, but lack of internal talent to execute (How can we get this thing to do what we want?)
Competing needs for limited resources (My whole team is swamped!)
Turnover of employees who manage the software (Our power user quit, now what?)
No collective ownership (It’s not my job!)

The upside of outsourcing

A study conducted in late 2018 found that 78% of the senior digital media decision-makers polled would choose to outsource their data strategy and execution. Data strategy development, management and execution require investments in talent and technology. And many organizations simply don’t have the in-house capabilities or infrastructure.

When asked what specifically they would want help with if outsourcing their data strategy, the answers varied:

30% have some sort of strategy in place, but need help executing the tactics
22% has a basic understanding, but needs help optimizing their campaigns
14% need help from start to finish in developing the actual data strategy and tactics
11% is short on resources and needs additional support to run reports and build audiences

Clearly, there is a lack of internal resources and/or knowledge among many of these participants. Education and knowledge are required to maximize the value of data, from the beginning during data collection through building and executing upon a strategy.

Using data correctly can help drive traffic and grow audiences, which then has a cascading effect on campaign success and the value provided to advertisers. But if you don’t have the internal resources available, or the talent to execute, or even an enterprise-level strategy: What are you to do?

Gain control by giving up

If a company believes that a strong data can be a true source of insights and revenue, then they will take the necessary steps to achieve their goals. Really, outsourcing data strategy shouldn’t be any different from outsourcing marketing strategy or overall sales strategy. Consulting firms have been around for many years, but data consulting firms are not quite as commonplace as others. 2019 is predicted to bring many changes to the publishing industry. And I believe the proliferation of data consulting and outsourcing of data strategy is just one piece of this puzzle.

The publishing industry is facing enough challenges. If it’s time to sink or swim, what would you be willing to give up in order to survive?

Perspectives

Striking the right balance: personalized and contextual advertising

January 7, 2019 Eric Shih, Chief Supply Officer - Teads

As online advertising has shifted predominantly to programmatic channels, personalized advertising has also exploded as marketers are able to leverage data at scale to reach their consumers. However, user privacy has increasingly become a global focal point for both consumers and the advertising industry as a whole. Both publishers and advertisers now need to adapt their methods in reaching consumers beyond just personalized, audience or behavioral targeting.

Personalization Matters

Leveraging data to make more informed ad targeting decisions is a breakthrough versus previous methods where ads were un-targeted. Personalized ads are a win for all parties. It is better for:

Users (connects them to more interesting and relevant ads)
Advertisers (results in higher return on investment)
Publishers (delivers higher CPMs and increased revenue)

Unfortunately, not all targeting is created equal. Certain industry practices have resulted in unpleasant user experiences. Needless to say, these should be avoided (i.e. excessive/ sticky re-targeting where ads follow users around the web).

Users should have the right to avoid cookies and personalized ads via an opt-out option in ads, or via their web browser settings. In Europe, GDPR legislation that went into effect in May 2018, now gives consumers in the EU even more control over their personal data – publishers in the region (as well as global publishers with European consumers) now need user permission for cookies for advertising purposes. It is striking to see that according to our measurement (GDPR barometer) which tracks the implementation of the new legislation in European countries, an average of only 5% of users opt-out from cookies. Therefore, 95% of consumers when asked are willing to consent to data-driven marketing! Contrary to negative press, users are generally not as annoyed by personalized ads as one would believe.

This article will dive into the realities facing publishers and brands today, and how to think differently about creating a more holistic solution when targeting users that is safe, compliant, and thoughtful about user experience.

The Shift Toward User Privacy

A number of pitfalls have emerged around user privacy that could potentially challenge personalized advertising tactics in various content consumption environments.

Government Regulations

GDPR , The California Consumer Privacy Act, Canada’s PIPEDA have all changed the way we think about user data and consent. Teads’ barometer of CMP (Consent Management Platform) adoption reveals that approximately 50% of European publishers’ traffic is filtered by a CMP. This means that almost half of traffic today would not be compliant for personalized advertising in Europe.
Ad targeting leveraging user data will become increasingly difficult in the foreseeable future given the expansion of government regulation. And if you’re not a large walled garden (i.e., Google, Facebook, Amazon), you will become more disadvantaged due to a lack of first-party data at scale.

Social Media & Politics

As hundreds of millions of consumers leverage social media and share substantial amounts of personal information online, the risks of data misuse and even potential hacking of that data continue to increase. This risk was best exemplified through a series of scandals impacting Facebook ranging from Cambridge Analytica’s harvesting of user data, to Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election through targeted propaganda on the platform, to the most recent findings that Facebook shared user data with over 150 companies.The industry is now seeing huge consumer backlash against social media platforms as well as questions from marketers alike, which could ultimately add more fuel to the user privacy fire (while also providing a window of opportunity for publishers to provide a better marketing environment).

Technology Barriers

Beyond government regulation and industry self-regulation efforts in user privacy, technology companies are also implementing measures to prevent ad tracking and hence personalized ad targeting online.

Apple has been leading the charge for consumer privacy and most recently introduced Intelligent Tracking Prevention 2.0 (ITP) on Safari for iOS 12 in September 2018
Safari now blocks first- and third-party cookies and cookie trackers are now completely, which represents 50% of mobile web browser share, rendering the majority of mobile web inventory useless for user tracking and ad retargeting.
Mozilla followed suit by enabling Enhanced Tracking Protection in its latest Firefox web browser.

Brand Safety

Automation and data targeting at scale also have another downside for marketers beyond violating consumer privacy concerns: brand safety.

YouTube, which has heavily relied on its wealth of data and scale, has had a lengthy, recurring history of brand safety violations. Ads have run in objectionable environments ranging from pedophilia videos to extremist and hateful content.
Hundreds of brands have pulled their ads from YouTube in the past two years.
Contextual targeting tools not only provide a solution to avoid these brand safety snafus, but also ensure marketers reach the right audience that they’re paying for.

The Need for Context

Given these increasing challenges, contextual advertising, in addition to personalization, should be considered in a holistic advertising strategy. It serves as an effective, complementary solution in providing the right message to the right user. Contextual advertising also provides an advantage to premium publishers, particularly those lacking their own first-party data or enough scale to leverage data targeting.

Programmatic ad delivery is now the norm, and marketers have become increasingly reliant on user data to target their audiences. This over-reliance on data now creates substantial risk in the form of potential legal and monetary punishments, loss of consumer trust, limited scale as platforms adapt and negative perceptions towards brands appearing in questionable environments.

Contextual advertising – the targeting of ads based on the context of the content that a consumer is reading, watching or listening to – is not a new concept, but it is now an increasingly relevant and important tool in marketer’s toolkit as data becomes more challenged. Publishers can leverage context to extract the most value out of the content that they create to better compete against the walled gardens (which often only provide low quality scale). Marketers can still reach the most relevant (and likely more interested) audiences by placing ads in relevant environments. Users can still receive relevant messaging even when they’ve opted out of cookie-based targeting.

Whether it’s semantic, visual or audio analysis, the tools are available for contextual targeting in almost all content outlets.

A Holistic Targeting Solution

It is crucial to think about how to create relevant ad experiences for users leveraging both personalization and context. Publishers should think about a holistic strategy including targeting via dynamic creative optimization using their first- or third-party data, leveraging interest graphs to understand what content users are consuming, and analyzing content and identifying keywords on their pages to build the right context.

In order to adapt and succeed in a quickly evolving landscape for data and user privacy, we believe publishers and marketers need to exploit both identity and interest to maximize their potential reach and deliver the most optimal messaging.

Perspectives

3 data-based opportunities publishers should be tracking in 2019

December 10, 2018 Megan McKenna, VP Marketing—Lotame

Publishers and marketers are increasingly investing in data collection. Some are becoming incredibly sophisticated with their data use but there is still a reservoir of untapped opportunities and many obstacles to overcome. So how will the data scene change for publishers and marketers in 2019?

1. Outsource versus In-House

Many headlines declare a tsunami of in-housing data capabilities but that’s just not the case. Rather, pieces of the stack are starting to reside in-house. In fact, recent research found that almost 80% of publishers and marketers say they would prefer to outsource data strategy and execution. Overall, data strategy development, management and execution require sizable investments in talent and technology – and many organizations simply don’t have the in-house capabilities or infrastructure.

For those we surveyed who don’t collect their own data (31%), a lack of resources and education were the biggest hurdles. One-third (33%) said that they did not “have the internal resources in place to do so,” while 31% said “I don’t know where to even begin.” Another 21% said “I don’t have the tools or technology needed.” Although, we’re seeing outsourcing trend outside of the U.S., the transition to in-house will be slower than everyone says. Given the obstacles, it’s not realistic to believe otherwise.

2. Successful Measurement

When asked how they benchmark data strategy success, more than half (56%) of publishers said an “increase in returning visitors, uniques, and pageviews” was key. This was followed by “optimization of ad inventory” (49%); “increase in advertising spend” (46%); “overall ROI and monetization opportunities” (38%); and “increase in winning non-endemic advertisers” (33%). Publishers are focused on driving traffic and growing audience which has a cascade effect on their ad success and the value they can claim for partners. This year, we’ll continue to see a focus on using data to drive users traffic to the site but also to inform strategies to keep them on the site for longer. Data can help publishers determine what keeps eyeballs on their page. And that understanding, and success, will lead to increase ad revenue.

3. Data Quality

Our research found that one-third of brands and publishers are creating new monetization opportunities by becoming second-party data providers. This speaks to a demand for data quality. This requires organizations to understand where the data is coming from and how reliable it is from the beginning. In the transparency and GDPR era, this is incredibly powerful. In 2019, we expect to see this trend continue. Quality, safe second party data “fills gaps” and addresses campaign opportunities, yielding significant benefits for brands and publishers.

Given publishers’ close customer relationships, they are in a position to collect a great deal of first-party data. Of course, they should use to deliver great experiences. However, when used wisely, data can also support a healthy revenue stream for publishers, big and small. By taking a few additional steps and watching trends, publishers are poised to reap the benefits of data in 2019.

Perspectives

Monetizing data: 6 ways to make money without selling your data

September 11, 2018 Michel Benjamin, Director of Marketing—Lotame

Publishers keep hearing about monetizing their data to drive revenue, but there are many ways to achieve this. Selling data, whether through a data exchange or a private marketplace, is perhaps the most obvious option to increase revenue. But if you’re already taking advantage or not interested in that option, selling your data isn’t the only way to make money with your customer data. In fact, there are many creative ways in which publishers can monetize their data. Here are six opportunities to monetize data – without selling it.

1. Sell Audiences, Not Site-Sections

When you’re collecting data on your readers, you can use that data to make their audiences more sellable to advertisers. By collecting and organizing audience data from across various sites and properties, you can sell audiences instead of pages or site sections.

Say, for instance, you have an advertiser who sells kitchenware. The first place you would think to put those ads would be in the recipes section of your site, since the people who visit that section most likely enjoy cooking. With a data management platform (DMP), however, you could create an audience of users who have a lot of interest in cooking and kitchenware. The you can display those kitchenware ads across your entire site aimed specifically at those users, rather than just in your recipes section.

Since your DMP allows you to access information about your audience’s interests, you could sell ad space to a kitchenware company even if your site has nothing to with cooking, appliances or home goods. A DMP gives you insights into your audience’s interests beyond your specific site, which provides you with the opportunity to work with advertisers you never could before.

2. Increase Average CPMs

If you’re focused on selling ads, increasing the price of each one will obviously help increase your revenue. But how can you do this? Offering advertisers the ability to target their ads to the exact audience they are trying to reach means they will be willing to pay more to reach that engaged audience. Better-targeted audiences are more sellable. When advertisers know they are reaching an engaged audience on your site, they’ll pay more to have their ads there.

3. Expand Your Overall Audience

If you’ve got large advertisers signed on for big targeted campaigns, you need to be able to fulfill those campaign targets. If you’re lacking enough uniques to make the campaign a success, 2^nd or 3^rd party data may help you expand your targets.

It might seem counterintuitive to pay for data to make money. However, if you’ve got gaps in the data available, you may need to spend more upfront to be able to attract more visitors to your site. More visitors means more impressions, which means more people who see the ads.

4. Get More Subscribers

For subscription-based publishers, reducing churn is of utmost concern. And the key to keeping subscribers engaged is serving the content they want. You can use your DMP to access insights into the characteristics of the people who subscribe to your site. You might find that your regular readers have various interests in common, beyond what you would expect based on the content of your publication. Perhaps, for instance, you run an online golf magazine, so you know your readers are interested in golf. Your data might show you that large portions of your audience are also interested in fine wine, bowling or apparel. By offering content that fits your readers’ interests, you can keep them engaged and coming back for more. Alternatively, you can essentially become a marketer yourself by promoting your content to people who are most likely to engage. From the previous golf example, this might include targeting golf fans on wine sites or pages to bring them back to your pages.

5. Reducing Remnant Inventory

Ideally, you’re already selling all of your ad space as premium inventory. However, that often doesn’t happen. It’s possible, though, to convert more of your remnant inventory to premium, which leads to a substantial increase in ad revenue. As the value of your ad space, and the value of your website as a whole, go up, your inventory will sell faster and for high prices. As a result, more of it will be considered premium.

Data is what drives this increase in value. With data, you can sell audiences rather than sections of your site and reach advertisers you wouldn’t otherwise sell to without audience data. This boosts the overall value of your site to advertisers and puts your ad space in higher demand, making it easier to sell ad space. As a result, you’re able to sell more space as premium rather than remnant.

6. Customizing Content

Your editorial team probably has a pretty good grasp on the type of content that performs best on your sites. And as the old saying goes: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But if you’re looking to keep visitors on your site longer, you’ll need to offer them content recommendations that match their interests, so that they can view more content and see more ads.

Once again, the data can guide you by revealing what kinds of content are performing the best with your audience. Your data will tell what a particular reader’s interests are, allowing you to show them content that deals with those interests. If they read a lot about fashion, for instance, you would serve them content related to fashion.

Data is powerful. And, if used correctly, it can help you increase your revenue, even without selling it directly. They key is understanding who your readers are, so you can serve them appropriately. Data is a powerful tool. Ensure that you are using it in every way possible to strengthen your revenue streams and improve your site overall.

Advertising | Perspectives

The shift towards context-based advertising

June 18, 2018 Sachin Kamdar, Co-Founder and CEO—Parse.ly

The 2016 election, Cambridge Analytica scandal, and GDPR represent a tidal shift in how the ad tech and digital media industry will monetize their audience moving forward. And it’s overdue. Demographic data doesn’t define a person’s identity. People define themselves by what matters to them, by their interests, hobbies, and values, and they show this in what they read about online.

As we talk about technology in the publishing industry, we should consider what kind of tech will move us towards monetization through context-based advertising. This protects data privacy, and has the potential to finally gain an advantage over the platforms where many digital advertising dollars have shifted.

Consumer mistrust of platforms

When consumers found out that Russia played a role in the 2016 election via bots on Twitter, propaganda on Facebook, and even local events in the U.S., we were forced rethink the role social media played in our community. Were they purely a platform? If so, to what degree did they need to police the content and users? Further, if they had so much knowledge about their users, why couldn’t they prevent a malicious influence like Russia from infiltrating their platform?

The Cambridge Analytica scandal certainly didn’t help this cause, and weekly stories break about Facebook continuing to acknowledge privacy and data issues. This has planted the seed of doubt about whether these platforms and the underlying data could be trusted—not just by the general public, but by the marketers who provide the revenue stream for Facebook.

New privacy-conscious controls for consumers

GDPR was borne out of a general concern that consumers had a lack of control and transparency around their digital data—data that bore the monetary fruits of now enormous companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter. That data also created the massive ad tech industry that developed complex methods to personalize and optimize ad targeting to the point where most experts in the industry still don’t quite know how the ecosystem works.

GDPR, in some ways, marks a boon for platforms and the end of an era for the ad tech industry. Any platform that collects its own massive amount of first party data (like Facebook, Google, Twitter), can relatively easily get the consent of the population. Ad tech, though, faces the burden of getting consent through 3rd parties, where the value of giving consent was not only unclear but potentially non-existent. The type of re-targeting and personalization that was prevalent before will start to change under GDPR as publisher-direct relationships with consumers become increasingly important.

Context-based advertising

So where does this all lead, in terms of current industry trends? There’s no lack of interest in moving from a programmatic model to more of a subscription-based model. But most of the innovation and investment in digital tech has been focused on ad-tech, data collection. We need to simply “do better” from an advertiser and consumer perspective given these trends.

From the advertiser side, the credibility of their 3rd party data is eroding with GDPR. There are some publishers that are large enough (or are building collectives) to create their own first party pools of data. However, none of them can reach the scale or targeting capabilities of companies like Facebook and Google. Marketers know this, and if they want the best targeting they’ll still go to the duopoly.

That said, because consumer privacy is becoming top of mind for more and more people, marketers are also worried about the experience around ad campaigns they run. They want to create an experience that doesn’t creep people out (for lack of a better term). Interest- or context-based advertising, as a result is coming back into favor for the privacy-conscious brands and marketers.

Targeting ads based on consumers’ interests or the context of what they’re reading instead of their personal data benefits everyone involved. Consumers maintain their privacy and build trust publishers. Publishers can then pass on this trust to brands who want their consumers to know that they care about their privacy. And, publishers who are armed with the right contextual data can still provide an advertising experience that’s targeted, but doesn’t violate consumers’ concerns.

Not only does data around interests protect anonymity, but it speaks to the core of who people are. Marketers who try to understand what matters to their audience through attention data—the topics and stories they pay attention to online—will have a leg-up on connecting that audience with content and products that they want.