Going cookieless? Not a problem, right?
Dear advertiser, are you collecting first-party data and upgrading your contextual strategy? Do you find that there is enough cookied inventory out there and that Google’s Privacy Sandbox will have you covered?
Let me put it plainly: You’re taking a huge gamble on your company’s ability to reach its target audience, and time is running out!
We, at Intent IQ, have developed a unique set of technologies, tools and advertiser solutions to fill the gap in your cookieless arsenal, starting with iPhone user addressability, retargeting, frequency capping across cookie and cookieless, campaign activation and full-funnel measurement, powering billions of ads every day and the identity stack of tens of thousands of partner sites.
This article presents the steps you can take to regain the upper hand on your cookieless agenda.
Identity resolution – or the scale, privacy and accuracy challenge
Identity resolution, the ability to reconcile an audience with privacy-safe offline and online signals, lies at the heart of all cookieless initiatives. Its path is paved with fragmented, (rightly) regulated signals and first-party data that are unpredictably refreshed and unique among sites, services, browsers and devices. On top of this, advertisers must deal with the incompatible approaches between cookieless Chrome and cookieless Safari (representing 44% and 49% of the North American mobile browser market, respectively).
Cookieless initiatives rely on alternative IDs, such as log-in IDs, browser-based IDs, first-party IDs, contextual IDs and intent signals, each taking a different stab at the scale, privacy and accuracy challenge. But there are limitations: For example, contextual approaches struggle with addressability, while log-in approaches struggle with scale.
A combination of privacy-safe addressability and scale is necessary for consumers and advertisers to thrive in a vibrant cookieless ecosystem. We call this approach distributed identity, and it combines several tools: first-party ID clustering, a universal ID, an ID switchboard, and bid-stream data enrichment. Let’s review them.
Meet first-party ID clustering, IIQ ID and the universal switchboard
First-party ID clustering uses deep-learning algorithms to safely recognize that distinct browser and device signals can be assembled into meaningful clusters. Here’s how:
● Partnering with sites, apps and ad-space sellers and buyers, we collect billions of first-party cookies and identifiers for vendors (IDFVs). Taken separately, they are unrecognizable signals.
● We run multiple specialized deep-learning algorithms that each tackle a clustering challenge: identifying a browser-level cluster of sites, device-level cluster of browsers and apps, a person-level cluster of devices or a home-level cluster of persons.
● These algorithms are trained on truth sets of billions of deterministic signals that are constantly updated. The clustering processes are evaluated and reevaluated at least every 48 hours.
● Consent management is an integral part of the process, ensuring that privacy requirements are met and opt-outs are respected.
● Finally, deterministic tests are performed daily on millions of randomly selected clusters to validate that the matching accuracy consistently exceeds 90%.
We created a multilayer universal identifier to represent each of these meaningful clusters: a unique ID for a device and its associated browsers, another for a person and its associated devices and another for a household and its associated persons. We call it “IIQ ID,” and it is our foundation for real-time, privacy-safe, precise and accurate cookieless addressability at scale.
Identity resolution is not a one-company solution. Many IDs exist across SSPs and DSPs, some cookied and others cookieless. To ensure maximum addressability for advertisers and the best ad experience for consumers, we synchronize IIQ ID with as many IDs of SSP and DSP partners of our ad-space-selling clients as possible.
The result is a real-time “multilingual” switchboard that can deliver to media buyers the person-level IDs or household-level IDs they are familiar with, regardless of the device or browser that a user or household is enjoying.
The bid enrichment puzzle: Buyer IDs, EIDs and APIs for ad buyers and sellers
The open web’s programmatic landscape is fragmented across marketplaces, header-bidding solutions, buyer-seller transactional models and activation platforms.
But our universal ID and switchboard, augmented with a set of real-time bid-stream enrichment techniques, integrations and guidelines, can maximize an advertiser’s addressability and a consumer’s ad experience.
Here is how:
● Prebid Extended IDs (EIDs) – This data array is used to insert a range of bidder IDs in the bid stream. On behalf of our ad-space-selling partners, we facilitate the insertion of matched person-level Chrome cookie IDs in Safari and other cookieless bid requests.
● Buyer ID – We recommend our partners to further use the Buyer ID to pass along a bidder’s Chrome cookie ID for a matching Safari bid request. Top DSPs that did not bid on cookieless devices at all or at scale are bidding on cookieless now, using their ID sent via Buyer ID following discussions they had with us. It not only enables the targeting of cookieless ad space but, equally important, enables them to control ad frequency across cookied and cookieless browsers and devices so users don’t get exposed to irritating ad repetition and advertisers avoid wasting precious ad campaign budgets by delivering the same ads to the same person too many times. We are already seeing in CTV what a big problem unsolved frequency capping is for both advertisers and consumers. This makes addressing frequency capping via Buyer ID very important for both the advertiser and the consumer. Having said that, as is true for any bid request, it is up to the DSP whether to respond to a cookieless bid request, regardless of the presence of a cookied Buyer ID.
● Wrappers, adapters, identity modules and RTB APIs: These tools are deployed by publishers, ad platforms and SSPs to give them access to cookieless monetization, no matter their identity stack.
● DMPs and CDPs: Data providers and systems use our APIs to make their first-party and third-party data sets cookie-free and enable advertisers to reach their desired audiences.
Intent IQ’s Distributed Identity Technology
Time for advertisers and consumers to regain the cookieless upper hand
Since IIQ ID-powered technologies were introduced, billions of IIQ ID-powered ad impressions have been delivered every day. And, already, the entire ecosystem has experienced the benefits.
DSPs have started bidding on cookieless Safari audiences at scale, publishers have started monetizing their cookieless inventory, SSPs have expanded their cookieless buy-side and sell-side offerings, advertisers have expanded reach and performance among iPhone users and consumers have enjoyed privacy-safe ad experiences and free ad-supported content in cookieless environments.
The web is full of cookieless traffic representing users who are eager to access free, privacy-safe and ad-supported content, services and entertainment that aren’t barred by subscriptions or paywalls. These users are in Safari, Firefox, Edge and CTV environments today. In seven months, they will be in Chrome as well.
Not taking an action to close the gap means missing out on reaching your target audience at scale outside of a few walled gardens and large sites where users log in. Almost everyone will lose: consumers, advertisers, publishers and the ad tech ecosystem.
Now is the time for you to regain the upper hand!
For more articles featuring Fabrice Beer-Gabel, click here.
