The marketer’s guide to identity in a cookieless world

By Lotame managing director – Australia and New Zealand Luke Dickens | Sponsored
 

With third-party cookies on the chopping block, marketers stand to lose a lot. When Google flips the switch on third-party cookies, 50% of marketer connections will effectively go dark (based on the browser’s market share). Publishers have learned the hard way that walled gardens will put profit above doing the right thing when push comes to shove. And the shoves these last few weeks have been staggering.

The good news is marketers always have options. To weigh those choices, here is a Cliffs Notes-style view to identity in a cookieless world.

  1. Contextual
  2. Google’s Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC)
  3. Authenticated identity (deterministic)
  4. Non-authenticated identity (probabilistic)

 Lotame branded

Contextual. Everything old is new again? Contextual targeting is targeting based solely on the content of the page — and how digital advertising started. Publishers package and sell content adjacencies, similar to print advertising.

Not a whole lot has changed since early days, except the algorithms have gotten smarter. Contextual targeting, although not a solution to identity per se, is privacy safe. Context has its place and use cases, such as top funnel brand awareness and recall. It’s a bit spray and pray but still reliable when used for the right reasons.  

If you’re looking for precision, buyer beware. Context may miss the mark. Premium content comes at a price too, and there’s only so much of that inventory available so don’t count on scale. While contextual targeting solves for interest-based advertising, it leaves wholly unsolved a marketer’s need for measurement.

Interestingly, more than 60% of Australian publishers are bullish on contextual targeting as a replacement for audience targeting. But 75% of advertisers beg to differ*. That’s a big enough divide to make you pause about putting all your eggs in the “context alone” basket.

Cohorts. Google’s answer to interest targeting is its FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts) proposal. In Google speak, a cohort is the browser’s way of grouping people based on a shared browsing history. Translation: a browser is deciding for content owners and providers how to classify their owned content.

Who made Google boss? They do control half of the Internet so they have a large stake in the game. Scale is definitely in the win column though. At this point, there are more questions than answers about cohorts.

  • Will they open the methodology black box to advertisers and publishers?
  • Is this yet another way Google pads its wallet and eliminates competition?
  • Who can/will validate Google’s claims of 95% accuracy?
  • Will advertisers be able to measure transparently?
  • Are cohorts privacy safe and are there controls for the consumer?
  • What if Google does pull the plug in Australia?

Authenticated (deterministic). Authenticated identity requires the user to provide a known piece of personally identifiable information, a.k.a., an email address. Publishers, data providers, and brands ask consumers to log-in or register to a site/app to unlock content or other services in exchange for that email key.

There are a lot of worthwhile pros here. It’s a highly accurate solution and great for targeting and measurement as it can be tied to a person. User consent is easy to track, which is great for consumers and marketers. 

How many consumers log in to every site they visit? Early estimates expect the authenticated web to capture 10-20% of users by 2022. So, scale is a real issue. Are marketers willing to ignore 80% of consumers to focus on a known 20%?

Non-authenticated (probabilistic). To capture that 80% of the open web, marketers can use non-authenticated identity. Probabilistic technology assigns a cluster of devices and browser signals to an ID that can be moved via established pipes into activation channels. These publicly available signals can include IP address, time stamp, or browser user agent.

Probabilistic identity is the perfect complement to deterministic identity. It provides a lot of scale and operates across use cases for finding new customers. Probabilistic is data minimized so no email, home address or phone number are required. Marketers can expect more precise targeting across devices and domains, and the ability to frequency management, critical when courting new customers.

No solution is bulletproof, however. Probabilistic identity does rely on IP address, which some perceive as a con. However, IAB Europe Transparency and Consent Framework 2.0 stipulates that “with consent, vendors can create an identifier using data collected automatically from a device for specific characteristics, e.g., IP address, user agent string.” With this in mind, make sure your non-authenticated identity provider can show a clear and auditable privacy trail.

What’s the best solution for your business? No one horse will win this race. A portfolio of solutions can help maximize scale and coverage, while building your brand and the bottom line.

* “Beyond the Cookie: The Future of Advertising for Marketers and Publishers,” Lotame Global Survey Report, February 2021

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