During a period of accelerated change, this past month has felt especially turbo charged. Google’s most recent announcement stirred up a tremendous amount of conversation about the future of identity, addressability, and the best path forward for the industry.
Most marketers are looking for a way to get through this period of uncertainty with confidence in their ability to connect with consumers. Meanwhile, Publishers need to monetize their inventory while protecting privacy and maintaining control of their data.
Here are four ways both Marketers and Publishers can succeed.
1. Only choose solutions that build trust and credibility.
We all need to show our commitment to consumer privacy by leaning into solutions that respect choice and transparency, including authentication, Google’s Privacy Sandbox, and contextual advertising. To prevent potential damage to our reputations, we must move away from partners that use invasive technologies.
Last week, the IAB Tech Lab released Best Practices for User-Enabled Identity Tokens, which establishes guidelines for the encryption and use of user-provided IDs.
Developed by Project Rearc (which includes LiveRamp), and in collaboration with the Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media (PRAM), this document outlines initial expectations for ID solutions and sets baseline principles for addressability. LiveRamp meets or exceeds each of them. We remain dedicated to working with the IAB Tech Lab to make sure that the standards for data security and protection are updated and enhanced regularly.
As we set industry standards, we must take a stand against solutions like fingerprinting. If we don’t embrace a consumer-first mindset that offers transparency and choice, we cannot move past the perception that the industry is more concerned with preserving the status quo than building a sustainable, privacy-focused approach to advertising.
We must use solutions based on a trusted value exchange where authenticated consumers have consented to sharing their identities with publishers.
Now is the time for us to lean into the privacy wave and restore consumer trust.
2. Preparation is critical start now.
Today, 40% of the world’s browser traffic is already cookieless. Frameworks for how to operate in a post-cookie world are already in use.
LiveRamp is actively working with advertisers to migrate campaigns and use authenticated approaches that are beating cookie-based campaigns head-to-head. These new approaches dramatically increase effective reach by unlocking previously unaddressable inventory on Firefox, Safari, and other cookie-free environments, including CTV and in-app.
Marketers, publishers, and platforms that develop consistent and repeatable benchmarks—especially in preparation for this year’s holiday season—will be able to take advantage of addressability when the economy signals renewed strength.
Publishers and marketers alike are also working hard to strengthen consumer relationships and test ways to encourage authentications in exchange for value. In this year’s ALM presentation, LiveRamp CEO Scott Howe explained that publishers don’t need to authenticate their entire audience to make authentication a valuable strategy. Even authenticating just 5-20% of an audience base can disproportionately improve yield, since authenticated users tend to be more engaged and are therefore more valuable.
Google itself is doubling down on consumer authenticated engagement within their own publisher properties, specifically Google Search and YouTube. Moreover, Google has clearly stated both that they will continue to leverage first-party consumer relationships where there are authentications and also that they will allow independent publishers who use Google Ad Manager to pass on their first-party ID of choice, such as the ATS ID.
3. Take control of your destiny.
Since we were founded, LiveRamp has always remained neutral and independent of media platforms so that we can maximize flexibility, reach, and control for our clients. We help everyone on the demand and supply sides unlock valuable new connections.
By rolling out granular controls, LiveRamp helps publishers take control of their own destinies. They can choose to enable PMPs but not open exchange, or they can choose to empower their DSP of choice while excluding others.
For marketers, this creates the freedom to buy on an open exchange—via a DSP directly with a publisher, or through a PMP with many publishers.
We also have to acknowledge the huge potential upside for independent DSPs and SSPs that, as a result of the recent Google announcement, will be able to better compete for marketer audience buys.
4. Transform your business and the industry.
We must seize this opportunity to turn noise into momentum, together. LiveRamp will continue to play a leadership role, working with the IAB and the IAB Tech Lab to help guide the industry toward best practices that improve ROI with every advertising dollar and yield with every publisher impression.
Together, we can restore trust and show that consumer privacy and publisher monetization can coexist. We can all be successful and establish a level playing field where everyone’s a winner. We can create a sustainable, addressable internet in a post-cookie world.
The countdown has begun.
