Digital advertising is changing. Third party cookies and mobile device IDs, trackers used to build a $100B ecosystem, are about to be discontinued without a universal alternative to replace them. Let’s dive deeper into how we arrived here, what likely short- and long-term outcomes look like, and what smart marketers can do to prepare for the changes.
Read MorePM360 asked analytics experts about the impact of Google, Safari, and Firefox all phasing out third-party cookies and the biggest missed opportunities for marketers regarding data. Specifically, we asked them:
With third-party cookies crumbling, how will a marketer’s ability to target their campaign, measure attribution, and/or use programmatic buying be impacted? What other areas of marketing may be affected?
What are the biggest opportunities in terms of data and/or analytics that not enough companies or marketers either know about or are leveraging to their full potential?
Feedback from George Tarnopolsky, VP Programmatic at CMI/Compas:
Over the next two years, programmatic marketers will need to evolve beyond using targeting methods that depend on cookies. Changes will impact HCP and patient campaigns differently, with key challenges and opportunities in each.
HCP target list buys on endemic websites will flourish as these tactics often depend on NPIs instead of cookies. On the opposite side, HCP non-endemic buys are primarily cookie-based and will need to pivot to alternative approaches, such as using CRM data activation with large publishers who have login data.
Patient marketing will experience growth in keyword contextual and private marketplace tactics, as these approaches don’t depend on cookies. Also, similar to HCP programs, it’s likely CRM data activation will become another replacement. The growth of CRM targeting will signal a rising importance of large publishers, who are able to protect their content behind a login. An unintended consequence of this change may be a decline in independent content, if smaller publishers aren’t able to monetize as effectively as before.
To prepare for these changes, marketers should audit current media plans. This exercise will be helpful in demonstrating that pharma marketers already employ many non-cookie-based strategies, such as NPI targeting, CRM data targeting, and contextual approaches.
Read MoreApple’s WWDC was a few days ago and there’s one topic people seem to be still talking about: privacy. The company will now require third-party apps to ask permission before tracking users, and are using a nutrition-label-like format to streamline the process.
George Tarnopolsky, VP, Programmatic provides this insight: Users will now get a popup about device id (IDFA) use when they first download an app; the popup will ask whether users allow for their IDFA to be used for ad targeting purposes. This change allows users to opt out of tracking very easily, when apps are first downloaded. App developers will be able to customize this initial popup, for example to illustrate the value exchange from opting into ad targeting. It’s unknown what percentage of users will opt out of IDFA sharing in apps at this time.
At a high level, it is clear that this change will affect the ability of app developers to monetize through ads—and for buyers to buy that app inventory. In the short-term, mobile ad budgets will flow increasingly towards Android apps, which are unaffected by Apple’s change. Long-term, app developers will likely shift more apps to subscription models or require logins. Programmatic buyers will be able to continue leveraging keyword contextual, sitelist, and PMP strategies. In addition, we will likely see an emergence of first party data as the top method for reaching audiences, replacing both browser cookies and mobile device ids.
Read MoreBig news coming from Google yesterday; here’s the scoop from George Tarnopolsky, VP, Programmatic: In the first Scoop of 2020, we speculated that Google will eventually block all third party cookies. Google has now made this change official, announcing that the they will phase out third party cookie support from Google Chrome within two years. There are several implications of this change; some are known today while more will become clearer over the next two years.
It’s certain that Google, Facebook, Amazon, and other “walled gardens” are well positioned to continue operating in a post-cookie world, as they have large pools of logged in audiences and can utilize people-based IDs such as user logins to reach persons.
Contextual advertising will see growth in this new era—with increase of Private Marketplace buys as well as keyword contextual data solutions like Oracle Grapeshot, Peer39, and others.
Large ad tech companies, such as LiveRamp and the Trade Desk will vie for adoption of their universal id as a replacement for cookies.
It’s likely that new walled gardens will emerge; for example, if large DSPs will acquire SSPs in order to get closer to logged in first party publisher audiences
CMI/Compas’s AdMission is already designed with deep first party endemic publisher relationships (Medscape, Haymarket, Frontline, HMP, Bulletin Health etc.)--which allows us to target HCPs on 1:1 basis on endemic sites, without the use of cookies.
