Spotlight
Welcome to the latest edition of Spotlight, your monthly recap of the biggest stories in adtech and digital marketing.
What we have for you today: Alternative IDs come to the fore, ATT opt-in rates increase, the open web is challenged and DoubleVerify takes Adalytics to court
A few weeks on from Google’s cookie bombshell, and the industry is still coming to terms with what it means for adtech, advertisers, and publishers. One thing now seems clear, however: marketers should embrace an omnichannel strategy requiring both first-party data and authenticated identity.
We agree but would go further still. First-party data is vital, and yes, authentication will have a role to play too – but it will not be sufficient on its own. To achieve high-performing, personalised programmatic advertising at scale, privacy-first verification services for the open web are also a must.
Certainly, the days of the cookie as a functioning part of the adtech ecosystem are numbered. Industry insiders agree that third-party cookies may have survived but they’re not exactly thriving. Already neutered in many browsers they are incapable of delivering the match rates advertisers require for baked-in addressability. It’s clearly time to move on.
Unfortunately for Google, moving on does not seem to involve its Privacy Sandbox. According to publishers, the writing’s on the wall. By reintroducing cookies, Google has taken away much of the incentive to support it. Accordingly, the Privacy Sandbox is effectively dead.
The good news is that in the years that Google has spent flip-flopping over cookie deprecation the adtech industry has moved on, and there’s now an ecosystem of highly effective alternative IDs that brands and publishers can rely on. Indeed, given that Google may be forced to give up Chrome as part of its antitrust settlement, there’s a case to be made for the company to open its tech stack up to competitors so the industry can better prepare for a more fragmented future.
Analysis from AppsFlyer shows that 50% of iPhone app users globally now consent to tracking, amounting to a 10% increase since Apple’s ATT framework was first implemented.
This is great news. It is unequivocal evidence that consumers are happy to share their personal data for advertising if the process is transparent, there is clear value exchange (in this case personalised content), and they have control.
Of course, what consumers are signing up to here is to be tracked so that app owners and advertisers can build better audience profiles. Just wait until they hear that they can enjoy the benefits of personalised advertising without being tracked – as is the case with telco-verified IDs. Our telco subscriber take up rate has already smashed ATT’s 50% in many markets.
New research from Relevant Digital reveals that publishers who actively manage and enrich their ad inventory can gain a competitive advantage. The research champions supply-side supply path optimisation (SPO), highlighting a growing need for publishers to influence how their inventory is packaged, filtered, and routed to meet demand more efficiently and transparently. Signal quality, transparency, and collaboration with SSPs were singled out as key levers for success.
We have seen this play out in our work with clients. Supply side enrichment improves publishers’ offering and enables them to put a premium on their inventory. Advertisers meanwhile see better performance from their campaigns and are encouraged to buy again. In the Middle East, for example, Choueiri Group used our addressable audience solution to enrich its ad inventory. As a result, it achieved a 93% rebooking rate over three months.
On a related topic, a recent Ad Exchanger article looked at some of the challenges facing the open web including a lack of a shared understanding of what constitutes quality. With advertisers demanding cheap reach, there’s a danger that publishers will engage in a race to the bottom, churning out ever more low-quality inventory.
We agree with the call to rebrand the “open web” as the “open ecosystem.” Alongside this rebrand needs to come a laser-like focus on quality, delivering the highest quality content and perfectly tailored promotions to consumers. We hope that this is the future towards which the industry is moving.
European regulators have ruled that the Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF) developed by the Interactive Advertising Board (IAB) Europe, which standardises how websites obtain user consent for cookie usage, was found to fail GDPR requirements for valid informed consent. According to IAB Europe, changes to the TCF to accommodate the regulators’ findings have already been proposed and could be effected quickly to ensure compliance.
At present, the TCF is the only scaled viable framework for securing consent. Without it, much of the digital ecosystem would be unable to comply with GDPR. What we would like to see is an ongoing, constructive process of improvement, with regulators working collaboratively with the IAB to ensure the TCF is effective and compliant with all global regulations.
With the news that Microsoft is shuttering Xandr, Digiday asked the question of whether BigTech is moving away from the open web? Our view is that while Microsoft is clearly retreating from providing open web technology and focusing more on its own walled gardens, it continues to maintain a sales play in the open web through Microsoft Ads. So yes, the dynamics are shifting—but Big Tech still has skin in the open web game.
Finally, we have the news that DoubleVerify has filed a defamation lawsuit against Adalytics, alleging that the company published false claims in a report detailing issues with fraudulent traffic in digital advertising.
Ad fraud remains one of the most pressing challenges in the industry. Pursuing legal action, while sometimes necessary, in this case feels wrong. A more constructive path is to acknowledge and address any shortcomings collaboratively, working together as an industry to drive meaningful improvements and restore trust.
We’re attending the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this June. If you’re attending and would like to learn more about how telco-verified IDs can power privacy-first programmatic advertising, then please get in touch – we’d love to meet.
Meanwhile, if you’re on the lookout for more insights on digital advertising, then check out our latest blogs: “Google’s cookie u-turn: what it means for advertisers and publishers,” and “Publisher ID strategies: balancing consent and privacy with user experience”.
Telcos are looking for greater revenue streams than their current models provide. Could a smart digital strategy, providing telco-verified ID solutions at scale for publishers and brands, be the answer?
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