IAB Seminar Series – Re-Imagining 3rd Party Cookies
February 28, 2020
Road Map to a Trusted Supply Chain
This week we attended the IAB Seminar Series event in Toronto. It spoke about the road map to a trusted supply chain – re-imagining digital media. We’ve entitled this post ‘Re-Imagining 3rd Party Cookies,’ as we believe this to be more concise per the content theme of the session. Packed with industry participants, everyone seems eager to gain information about the way forward. The major issue facing the industry is the disappearance of 3rd party cookies and the democratization of data.
In case you missed it, we’ve recapped some of the key points for you. We’ll also provide our perspective on the changing tides in digital media.
Top Challenges Facing Buyers of Digital Media
The IAB presented results from its quarterly survey of members. The first results were the top challenges facing buyers of digital media. Here are 2 of the top challenges we would like to share with you:
Fee Transparency
An incredible 15% of ad buyers referenced ‘fee transparency’ as a top challenge to digital media buying. What does ‘fee transparency’ mean when discussing the purchase of digital media?
To someone relatively new to the purchase of digital media, the assumption may be that media has a standard cost (usually sold by the thousand impressions or CPM). Then there is a fee for technology, which is either built directly into that CPM or charged as a flat fee on top. Media costs are becoming increasingly complex and therefore increasingly difficult to understand. This is a result of a variety of technology providers who work together to offer a digital media solution, for more efficient, relevant digital advertising. The IAB published a programmatic fee transparency calculator, which you can view here. This is a great article and tool, which breaks down the various buyer technology layers.
Data Integrity
The number 1 issue sourced by ad buyers was ‘data integrity’. Data integrity is the maintenance of the accuracy and consistency of data over its entire lifecycle. It is a critical aspect to the design, implementation and usage of any system which stores, processes, or retrieves data.
It is quite obvious that this would be top of mind to ad buyers since, where data comes from in the media buying process is precisely the source of challenge that is causing the industry issues today. This includes the use of 3rd party cookies for data collection, and privacy concerns around the collection of consumer data for use.
A Deep Dive into the Current and Future State of Affairs of 3rd Party Cookies
The closing panel hosted heavy hitters from Google, Rogers Media, Points and Loblaw Media. It was reassuring to hear one resounding message: the change that will come to the use of 3rd party cookies will be necessary and an improvement to the current landscape. The 3rd party cookie is a digital tracking mechanism that was originally developed in the 1990’s, specifically in 1994! In an industry that changes so rapidly, it is hard to believe that we have relied on such an important piece of the puzzle being unchanged in 25 years.
Here are few key messages: The first is that we are actively participating with the industry in its efforts to find alternatives to 3rd party cookies. In a later post, we will dive deeper into the 2 major avenues that are being explored, shared identifiers and alternative IDs. The second is that the hysteria over the death of 3rd party cookies came when Google made an announcement regarding a 2-year plan to discontinue their use. Google’s contribution on the session panel was very clear. It communicated that Google is looking to help the industry move forward and would not necessarily turn the lights off completely on January 1st, 2022, but rather that it was invested in the search for alternatives. As an industry we will participate in a shift that will naturally result in the end of 3rd party cookie use for user tracking online.
To chat with us about our fee transparency, or approach to data usage, we encourage you to get in touch.
