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Google unveiled two solutions that enable brands using its Display & Video 360 to tap first-party data and machine learning: optimized targeting and Exchange Provided Identifiers (EPID).
Optimized targeting is currently available for YouTube video action campaigns within Display & Video 360, and it uses machine learning to help advertisers find new and relevant customers who are likely to convert within their campaign goals, without relying on third-party cookies.
Display & Video 360 product manager Shreya Mathur and senior product manager Rashi Verma explained in a blog post Thursday, “Because it uses the same goals as our automated and custom bidding solutions, optimized targeting reaches people most likely to drive impressions, clicks, or conversions as defined and customized by the advertiser to drive business outcomes. This ultimately leads to better performance and increased conversions.”
They added that early testing found that advertisers using optimized targeting in Display & Video 360 saw, on average, a 25% improvement in their campaign objectives when using Google audiences, and they can possibly see, on average, a 55% improvement when using first-party data.
EPID provides Display & Video 360 with new signals that it uses to automatically future-proof frequency management tools.
Google began testing the feature earlier this year, receiving EPIDs from several publishers and exchanges, including Magnite.
In the coming months, the company plans to use EPID to inform Display & Video 360 users’ frequency management solutions, ensuring that brands can continue to avoid repetition while maximizing reach efficiency, even when third-party cookies go away, without the need to make changes in their account, since EPIDs are organically embedded in Display & Video’s technology.
And in the near future, Google said it will use EPID as a signal for building Google audience segments in Display & Video 360, enabling advertisers to deliver more personalized ads on publishers’ sites for which EPIDs are received.
EPID will eventually help brands unlock other core advertising functionalities, like cross-device reach on a domain-by-domain basis, as well as invalid traffic prevention in a privacy-safe way.
Mathur and Verma explained, “You may be familiar with Publisher Provided Identifiers, also known as PPIDs, which became available for publishers to use programmatically last year. PPID allows publishers to send Google Ad Manager a first-party identifier for marketing use-cases. EPID expands on this technology. It makes it available to more exchanges, publishers or vendors looking to share their first-party identifiers with Display & Video 360’s backend to improve the quality of programmatic ads served on their respective properties. EPIDs from a given exchange or publisher cannot be used to inform marketing strategies outside of that publisher’s inventory. This protects people from being tracked across the web.”
They concluded, “As digital advertising changes, it’s essential for advertisers to stay ahead of the curve while meeting people’s expectations. Consumers want privacy, but they also want relevant ads. In fact, 62% of consumers in the U.S. consider it important to have a personalized experience with a brand. We don’t believe this should be rocket science for programmatic advertisers. This is why we are building simple, off-the-shelf solutions in Display & Video 360 with first-party data and machine learning.”
