Behind Headlines: 180 Seconds in Ad Tech — Addressability Tools, Cookieless & European Data

Hey there! This is Ari at Sharethrough with another episode of Behind Headlines. In this episode I'll be giving you a 180-second recap of what happened the week of Febuary 7th in ad tech. Let’s go!

First thing’s first, the Local Media Consortium (LMC), a partnership of almost 90 media companies that reach over 190 million users on the open web, passed the pilot phase for its NewPassID, a sign-on tool for smaller publishers to bolster their first-party data collection efforts. During the pilot phase, the LMC tested the NewPassID on a small portion of partnership members like, E.W. Scripps, Lee Enterprises and McClatchy, and the results revealed significantly better outcomes for publishers. The greatest improvement happened in cookieless environments, where NewPassID impressions were sold at 90% higher CPMs while the value of impressions increased by 45% in cookie-accepted environments. Publishers also increased the volume of inventory sold by up to 25%. While there seems to be strength in numbers, the LMC still has a ways to go with its NewPassID in terms of implementing the scale amongst the rest of its publisher partners. (Source: Digiday)

Just in time too, as the IAB expressed its concerns over the disappearing cookies disabling advertisers’ ability to measure performance and the industry’s hesitancy to move away from third-party cookies. According to the IAB’s annual report on the State of Data, they found that spending for third-party cookies increased! It seems as if advertisers just want to grab as many third-party cookies as they can before they disappear for good? Nearly 60% of advertisers haven’t increased their investments in first-party data. (Source: IAB, PR Newswire) 

Speaking of data, Google is in beta testing for its global site tags to improve their enhanced conversions tool. Enhanced conversions extracts consented, first-party data to provide tags a more detailed view of conversions. Advertisers could set up the conversions manually in Google’s Tag Manager, but now global site tags does it automatically. However, there’s a catch. Advertisers have to turn it on manually and accept the user data terms before they can start using the global site tags. It could be useful for businesses that only use the Google ecosystem for their tech stack, but for businesses that want to implement publisher-provided IDs, like the Trade Desk’s UID 2.0, LiveRamp’s RampID, or maybe even the NewPassID if it comes to fruition, Google made it a real hassle. (Source: Search Engine Land)

While the data battle continues, the dust around the streaming wars seems to have settled. When Netflix rose in popularity, people would spend entire weekends binge watching all the episodes of a new release. As competitors like Disney+ and HBO Max started to appear, they too tried to emulate Netflix’s release-it-all-at-once model, but couldn’t afford it. Now, they’ve decided to leave the binge watching to Netflix while they stick to episodic releases. The steady drip of content allows for more promotional and marketing opportunities, while access to every episode may bring an influx of viewers, but it’s inconsistent throughout the year. It’s not that easy for Netflix competitors either, if they release all the episodes of a show, viewers will cancel their subscription or trial once they finish all the episodes. Looks like there’s a real opportunity for ad-supported streaming services to grab audiences without needing a subscription. Provided the quality of the content is up to par with the viewer’s expectations, but that goes for all platforms. (Source: The Information, AdExchanger) 

And lastly, the data dispute between Meta and EU regulators continues, but this time it comes with a warning. In 2020, the European Court of Justice deemed the data transfer standards between the EU and US don’t sufficiently protect European citizen’s privacy. Now, If EU regulators bar Meta from being able to transfer data from the EU to the US, Meta said they might have to leave the EU all together. Not that they want to, of course. Meta claims that by not being able to share data from the EU to the US, it will adversely impact their ability and effectiveness to provide services and target ads, that they will no longer be able to provide services, like Facebook and Instagram, in the EU. So what do EU regulators have to say? It boils down to, “is that a threat or a promise?” Time to get the popcorn ready! (Source: Euronews, Insider)

Thanks for tuning in! For more in-depth information or to subscribe to these weekly updates, check out the links in our blog. This has been Ari at Sharethrough for our weekly 180 second-recap in Ad tech. See you next week!