ADARA Mission Possible: Cracking the Code of Customer Data and Identity Q&A

Defusing the Third-Party Cookie Time Bomb was the first in a series of ADARA webinars on the topic of customer data and identity. Read more from the Q&A, featuring answers from ADARA’s Chief Technology Officer, Charles Mi, and LiveRamp’s Senior Product Manager of Identity, Ian Meyers.

From cookie deprecation to alternative solutions, privacy concerns, and more, Charles and Ian answer every question asked during the session.

The effects of cookie deprecation on consumer marketing

How will cookie deprecation impact email marketing?

• There will be a similar impact to email marketing as the rest of the web. Since most emails are HTML (essentially web pages inside an email client), any third-party cookies embedded in those pages will be treated as if they are on a web page. There are also email clients themselves, such as Microsoft Outlook, that haven’t allowed cookies for quite some time now.

Are we able to scale the changes in the value that will happen on the data provider?

• We expect to see an an equilibrium in the data marketplace. Currently, many segments are priced for third-party cookie volume and third-party cookie access. As consented, shareable data tied to a usable identity becomes a rarer commodity, CPMs will likely rise. However, like other areas of the ad ecosystem, there will probably have to be some relearning of how to effectively use third-party data without third-party cookies, as well as the inherent value that third-party data can add to achieving advertising outcomes. • Although there will be an impact on scale, marketers will have access to better audiences, accuracy, measurement, etc. as we move away from cookies, and authenticated scale will begin to increase as cookie scale decreases.

About this webinar In this ADARA session featuring LiveRamp, two experts explored the implications of third-party cookie deprecation and provided strategies to prepare for critical changes in consumer marketing. Click here to view a recording of the webinar. With third-party cookies going away, will a brand ever be able to target communications to customers and prospects again?

• Yes! Immediate options that come to mind are: • Ideally, agreement by the industry on a common protocol(s). • Walled gardens: Facebook, Google, and companies that can create their own tracking via first-party cookies within their own environments are a scalable option for marketers. • Publishers: Each publisher (e.g., Verizon, Yahoo, or AOL) can act like a walled garden and set their own first-party cookie for targeting and measurement. However, from an operational standpoint, this can get cumbersome for the marketer and measurement would be limited to each publisher only. • Contextual advertising: Some brands will resort back to the tried-and-true form of targeting from when digital advertising was in its infancy. Contextual targeting for some brands may be sufficient enough, given the granularity and personalized nature of a publisher site. • LiveRamp offers anAuthenticated Traffic Solution (ATS) that is purpose-built for the open web and beyond. Its focus is for publishers to rebuild relationships with consumers by enabling a trusted value exchange, wherein the consumer is willing to share his/her first-party data for access to the publisher’s content/experience. • From ADARA’s perspective, our current Cortex product offers the ability to target new prospects and customers across channels in a privacy-safe manner.

If the first-party cookie data on my company’s website isn’t tied to my offline customer database, how do I tie User A visiting my site with the same User A whose information I already have in my offline customer database? What tool can I use or what can my IT team do in this situation?

• Through what is called a “value exchange,” marketers or publishers have the opportunity to engage in an interaction with the user on-site that offers a benefit in exchange for identity. This could be one approach to unifying your customer view. For example, if there is content, services, or even a discount that a user would receive in exchange for providing his or her identity, you may be able to resolve it directly or use an identity resolution vendor, like LiveRamp, to tie the PII touchpoints together.

What’s your perspective on Google Ads Data Hub (ADH)? What’s the current status of CTV/OTT data?

• We think Google’s ADH will be an invaluable resource for gaining insight into advertising on Google owned-and-operated properties such as YouTube, which can no longer be measured on the open web. However, it may prove problematic for marketers who want to work with record-level data in their own environments or who have restrictions on what they can/are willing to import into ADH. Reactivation is limited to Google platforms. • LiveRamp offers targeting and measurement solutions across a diverse array of CTV inventory. Feel free to read more about this on AdExchanger.

Reach out to [email protected] or [email protected] for any questions LiveRamp.com ADARA recently sunset their DSP platform, which used a third-party cookie. Now you are using your real-time audiences on DV360 to serve on the Google Network. Can you explain “DV360”?

• DV360 is Google’s DSP platform. As ADARA transitions our business to be more focused on audiences and data, we are able to push our audiences to many different platforms for activation.

Alternative solutions to cookies

What is the potential of hashed emails replacing third-party cookies?

• Hashed email is a potential solution but like any other solution, there are pros and cons. Here are some considerations to think about: • Email is (relatively) easy to acquire • An email, or email hash, is only a fragmentary piece of identity • Email is less prevalent in certain markets, like APAC, where mobile dominates • Creating a “global” identifier for an individual may not meet privacy standards; methods of collection have been inconsistent and not privacy-first

Since there won’t be anymore cookies, will there be a new first-party “tag” that could be shared after a consumer opts in?

• There will still be “first-party cookies” that are set by the brand or site owner for their own customers on owned-and-operated properties. However, these types of cookies cannot be shared. Other solutions that can be set by the first-party can, in fact be shared, though every site owner will need to adopt a solution as an industry standard in order for it to be useful for targeting, measurement, etc. For example, for ad monetization, there are efforts like thePubCommonID in Prebid that create publisher first-party identity but cannot be shared across domains. So far, there is no consensus on a standardized solution.

Is there a viable blockchain solution to act as a user ID?

• Good question. We’re not entirely sure as we are not blockchain experts. There have been numerous research projects in using blockchain technology to help solve the challenges in sharing a user ID. However, there are still significant technical challenges that would need to be solved prior to adopting, such as the concept of a shared, public ledger, which would present problems if dealing with user identity.

Consumer trust & privacy

When going to a website, a question comes up at the bottom of the screen asking whether you would like to allow cookies or not. When should you say YES vs. NO?

• If you trust the website that you are on and are willing to be tracked by them, including the pages you visit on the website, etc., then you have the option to say yes. In general, you should read the privacy policy to understand how data collected from you will be used, either explicitly or implicitly, and make a decision from there.

Reach out to [email protected] or [email protected] for any questions LiveRamp.com With new legislation like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), will consumers be able to request the data that an organization has about them, how that data is being used, and whether it being used according to the opt-in agreement the consumer agreed to? Will Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) be a solution that organizations can use to deliver that personal data file to a consumer?

• Yes. Both the GDPR and CCPA have affordances that enable users of a service to request data that a company holds about them (subject to certain constraints). CDPs and Consent Management Platforms (CMPs) often offer data governance capabilities that allow youto effectively respond to such Subject Access Requests (SARs).

Measurement

Will the deprecation of third-party cookies impact analytics cookies, namely cross-domain tracking with Google Analytics?

• Yes, it will. Cross-site analytics, such as Google Analytics (and their ability to tell the interests or demographics of your users), will be impacted by this change.

Is Google Analytics (GA) considered a first-party cookie? With Safari’s updates, it’s been unclear whether GA will function correctly for users on the browser.

• In general, the implementation of Google Analytics is technically considered first-party. On-site analytics are not impacted, although Safari does have a seven-day first-party cookie expiration in place.

How will companies track attributions or conversions?

• Traditional view-through conversion attribution will become very challenging as third-party cookies go away. Marketers will have to evolve and adapt beyond traditional media measurement. ADARA works closely with our data partners and data ecosystem to develop new attribution products such as ADARA IMPACT Plus to provide an omni-channel marketing attribution framework. • Apple and Google have suggested various aggregated approaches to measurement: Apple click attribution/Privacy Sandbox proposal. • At LiveRamp, we’re working closely with our SSP and DSP partners to provide log-level measurement on top of our pseudonymous, privacy-safe identifier IdentityLink™.

How should we think about new KPIs?

• We suggest starting with the basics. What moves the needle for your business? Increased awareness? Conversions happening in a specific channel? Establish those baseline metrics first, then backtrack—and through your experimentation, determine which matter.

Reach out to [email protected] or [email protected] for any questions LiveRamp.com