April marks the turning of the seasons where we say goodbye to the cold of winter and look to brighter, warmer days ahead. It’s also traditionally the season of renewal and energy – and when it comes to the digital advertising industry that certainly seems to be the case. As this month’s Spotlight shows, things are busier than ever, and important changes are afoot.
What we have for you today: The low down on customer empowerment, publishers’ new business models, and an important Novatiq product update.
Missed our first newsletter? Don’t worry, you can read it on our blog here.
A puzzle for publishers
Since the news broke that third-party cookies are on their way out, much of the focus has been on how advertisers will react. But publishers will also be greatly affected, and the signs are that many are considering their next move.
No one yet has the whole answer. For every Quartz removing its paywall is a Guardian considering introducing one (in this case for its mobile app).
What’s clear is that leveraging first-party data to build audiences will be crucial to future publisher business models – as argued by representatives of The Washington Post, Quartz, and Bloomberg at a recent industry roundtable.
McKinsey thinks so too. In a recent report, the consultant listed ways in which publishers can adapt to the post third-party cookie world, including by leveraging owned touch-points to generate first-party data. We agree wholeheartedly ‒ especially if that data is enriched by intelligence from telco networks to build 360-degree profiles of web users across devices.
Consumers are in control
Since GDPR, the trend in adtech has been to give consumers more transparency and control over their personally identifiable information. This month sees this trend continue to play out. Google, for instance is moving ahead with further testing of Google Topics and other Privacy Sandbox initiatives, which aim to enable privacy-centric personalised advertising. Meanwhile, Apple’s iOS 15 update includes features to hide your email address from marketers and a “Private Relay” tool that acts in a similar way to a VPN.
Regulators are also stepping up efforts worldwide to empower consumers. The California Attorney General’s Office has released an opinion on the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) stating that a consumer has the right to know internally generated inferences about them. This puts an end to unconsented probabilistic IDs in the state and further aligns CCPA to GDPR.
Our view is that global jurisdictions are following the EU’s lead – the best bet for any adtech company is to comply with the regulatory gold standard (i.e., GDPR) as doing so will pretty much guarantee you’re compliant everywhere.
What’s new at Novatiq?
This month has also been a busy time at Novatiq HQ. Most importantly, we have launched an updated version of our core Fusion platform. Fusion 2.0 integrates the IAB taxonomy for attribute categorisation, enhances our Segment Builder feature, refreshes the Campaign Dashboard, and offers users the ability to interact with our web APIs via REST. We’re excited about these changes and what they mean for our customer user experience.
We’re also pleased to announce that our very own Founder and Chief Product Officer, Tanya Field, has won the Silver Award for the Founder of the Year category in the AWS Software Startup Awards. Congratulations Tanya!
More ways to get inspired
And finally, if you’re looking for some more insights on the adtech ecosystem why not check out our latest blogs?
This month, we’ve examined how privacy and programmatic can be reconciled for a much more consumer-centric advertising ecosystem. We’ve also taken a dive into the topic of measurement in the post-cookie era (spoiler alert: it comes down to being able to verify and attribute audiences at scale).
Thank you for reading – and see you in May.
