Written by Stafaniya Radzivonik on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership).
Nowadays we’ve been hearing repeatedly about the upcoming cookieless and ID-less world in the ad tech industry. However, what does it actually mean and how is it going to change our online activities? Let’s get to the roots of it.
User Identification
Any user can be identified, recognized and tracked within an online environment. Third-party cookies (3P cookies), device IDs and sophisticated IDs such as IDFA, AAID, IDFV serve the key role in that mission. They help advertisers to target the right audiences and deliver relevant ads according to user’s preferences and interests. Though, to what extent it’s allowed — under the question mark.
The implementation of CCPA, LGPD, GDPR, TCF v.2 as well as an attempt to unite them under GPP alongside LAT introduced by Apple and Google in 2012 brought to the table the notion of user’s consent where users can opt-in or opt-out and adjust the data shared at any time.
Cookieless and ID-less world
Following these data privacy restrictions, Apple released a new App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework in 2021 where fingerprinting is prohibited giving full control to users. In turn, Google announced a deprecation of 3P cookies in Chrome by the end of 2023. Given that, the future of cookies and IDs is a foregone conclusion.
The upcoming cookieless and ID-less world puts marketers in need of exploring ways to run successful campaigns without user IDs as well as challenges ad monetization strategies of publishers. It becomes necessary to adopt a portfolio of alternative approaches and solutions to target and serve relevant ads without clear identifiers.
Options available to advertisers and publishers
Privacy Sandbox Proposal
Topic is rooted in Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) and designed to support interest-based advertising. It facilitates more privacy for consumers on the web by means of analyzing online activity (behavior) of users within the browser without any cookies. It determines up to 350 cohort-based topics per user that could be adjusted as matching or sensitive and stored up to one week.
First-Party Data
Leveraging and storing the first-party data (1P data) collected by the publisher across all applicable devices (websites, apps, smart TVs) within the customer data platform (CDP) unveils the possibility to consolidate all the touch-points with the audience as well as to build a coherent profile of each user required for more targeted campaigns.
Universal IDs
A universal ID, a single identifier assigned to each user, allows passing anonymized information about that user to the approved partners. There are 1P data-based (LiveRamp, ID5, etc.), proprietary (TTD, Stroer, Criteo, etc.), and industry IDs. Though it’s widely tested, a universal ID requires email addresses of users which collection could be definitely challenging.
Contextual Advertising
Contextual advertising is based on keywords retrieved from the page content where topic-based targeting grants advertisers control over ad placement as well as ensures brand safety. This is an effective way to show relevant ads without collecting 3P data.
Smaato’s holistic approach
At Smaato(Now part of Verve Group), we’ve been building data cohorts and audiences on the basis of 1P data from in-house gaming studios, 2P data shared by our web, in-app and CTV publishers, and 3P data received from data providers and shaping it by means of advanced targeting options (geo segments and geo-fencing, behavioral, contextual and privacy targeting).
Mostly, it’s been centered around our contextual ad technology. This includes Moments.AI™, which focuses on real-time delivery to the freshest URLs and most relevant content. Our contextual toolbox also contains ATOM (anonymized targeting on mobile), a pioneering privacy-first targeting product based on AI algorithms.
Alongside data and technology, we’ve been actively measuring performance via CPM, CTR, and VCR where personal data is not needed.
Thus, even with our strict adherence to and adoption of all data regulations as well as bracing for cookies and IDs to crumble, we’ve been seeing a high potential to deliver effective omnichannel campaigns for marketers as well as to add value to the ad monetization of publishers.
Most searched questions
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Most searched queries
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Cookieless world
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