Ongoing signal loss is driving marketers, agencies, and platforms to turn to supply-side advertising. By using first-party data from publishers and platforms, supply-side advertising has the potential to deliver high-quality audience and context for more effective ad targeting.
The supply-side refers to the publishers and platforms that sell advertising inventory. These companies have access to first-party data about their users, which can be used to target ads more effectively. By tapping into supply-side advertising, you can overcome the challenges of signal loss and target ads more effectively.
To shed light on this topic, we hosted a panel discussion at Cannes, featuring industry leaders from Audigent, Captify, Newsweek, Pubmatic, Truthset, and Experian.
In this blog post, we’ll explore how partnerships between supply-side channels and publishers are working to enhance advertising opportunities while balancing the need for transparency and control in programmatic ad buying.
Shift toward supply-side advertising
Traditionally, the demand-side dominated the programmatic media buying chain due to an abundance of supply. However, with the emergence of finite data and its interpretation, collaboration between supply-side technology companies and publishers is required to redefine these economics.
It’s no longer sufficient for the demand-side to blindly negotiate prices based on limited knowledge. Marketers can still define their target audience, but effective communication is key. This presents an opportunity for premium journalistic outlets to guide the industry’s understanding of how data from the supply-side impacts media buying economics in the future.
“Supply-side technology partnerships with publishers are now in a position to shape the economics of programmatic media buying as there is a finite amount of data. It’s crucial for supply-side technology companies to collaborate with publishers to shape these new economics. This presents an opportunity for premium journalistic outlets to provide guidance on how data from the supply-side can affect the future of media buying.”
matthew papa, svp, business & corporate development, captify
Democratizing data from the supply-side
Cookies haven’t brought significant benefits to premium publishers. They mainly serve to retarget users from sites like The Wall Street Journal to advertising sites. This approach primarily serves the purpose of generating revenue.
The elimination of third-party cookies presents an opportunity for premium publishers to shift this dynamic. By using their knowledge of first-party audiences, and using identifiers like Experian’s LUID, publishers can own and understand their audience data, which can then be modeled.
Here’s how publishers can win
Establishing a connection with consumers and emphasizing the value exchange is essential to building trust. Determining what incentives and benefits consumers find meaningful will be crucial in gaining their opt-in.
With consumers
The Apple tracking transparency initiative, specifically the deprecation of IDFA signals, had significant implications for mobile app developers. Overnight, opt-in rates plummeted, causing a drastic decline in iOS ad monetization. To combat this, developers focused on demonstrating the value exchange to consumers—better ad experiences and personalized content.
By articulating the benefits over a couple of years, opt-in rates increased from 10-15% to 30-40%. The key takeaway is the need to effectively communicate the value exchange to consumers.
With partners
Trust plays a crucial role in planning your first-party data strategy. Publishers, advertisers, and data partners highly value their proprietary data. However, there are concerns about how it’s used, mishandled, or leaked in the ecosystem. Building trust between partners is essential. It’s important to work with trustworthy partners who are agnostic, committed to innovative solutions, and globally oriented. These partners can help navigate the complexities of laws and regulations. Choosing the right partners is crucial in a world where first-party data is a key asset.
“Power is shifting toward brands that have strong relationships with customers and possess first-party data. As the ownership of customer data becomes more important, it is crucial to establish a first-party data strategy to better serve customers and adapt to changing market dynamics.”
chip russo, president, truthset
Balance probabilistic and deterministic data
Focus on building trust with consumers and collaborating with reliable companies to share data. However, it’s important to remember that achieving a 100% opt-in rate is unlikely.
The cookie, which has become omnipresent, requires us to shift our strategic thinking. We need to consider both deterministic and probabilistic approaches instead of viewing them as mutually exclusive. The landscape will be fragmented, with some consumers opting in and others not.
“Probabilistic and predictive audience data holds immense potential. With the power of AI, we can expect enhanced performance and efficacy in media campaigns. At Audigent, we firmly believe that this data will outperform deterministic data, making it an integral part of our strategy.”
drew stein, ceo, audigent
Premium content
Trust plays a crucial role in leading to premium content. By placing trust in the best media brands, data, and technology partners, we can expect to see improvements in media, journalism, and advertising. This shift may have a direct impact on the long tail of free natural resources, making it more challenging for them to thrive. However, this change is ultimately beneficial since it promotes higher-quality media experiences overall.
“The homepage surface is making a comeback in the publishing industry, proving its value in establishing a direct connection with readers. While we acknowledge the importance of technology partnerships for addressability and identity, our core competency as a publisher remains outstanding journalism that captures and engages great audiences.”
kevin gentzel, cco, newsweek
Watch our Cannes panel for more on supply-side advertising
We hosted a panel in Cannes that covered supply-side advertising. Check out the full recording below to hear what leaders from Audigent, Captify, Newsweek, Pubmatic, Truthset, and Experian had to say.
Check out more Cannes content:
- Our key takeaways from Cannes Lions 2023
- Insights from a first-time attendee
- Four new marketing strategies for 2023
- Exploring the opportunities in streaming TV advertising
- The future of identity in cookieless advertising
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Why an identity framework matters more than any single identifier The challenge facing marketers today isn’t a single identifier on a deprecation timeline. It’s the increasing fragmentation of signals and identifiers across browsers, devices, apps, and platforms. This shift introduces complexity into how audiences are reached and measured, as signals behave differently in every environment, and it becomes more complex to piece together a complete view of the consumer. Each environment contributes to its own set of visibility gaps, making identity less predictable and more uneven. The result is a patchwork of inconsistent identity signals rather than a single, predictable decline. While you can’t control how platforms evolve, you can control how you respond to fragmentation. The future won’t be defined by the loss of any single identifier, but by your ability to unify, interpret, and activate the many signals that remain. Marketers who adopt a flexible, identity framework will be best positioned to create consistency in an otherwise fragmented landscape. At Experian, we believe flexibility starts with intelligence. For decades, we’ve used AI and machine learning to help marketers understand people’s behavior more clearly, respect their privacy, and deliver messages that drive business outcomes. Our technology brings identity, insight, and intelligence together, so even as the number of signals grows and becomes more varied across environments, marketers can reach the right people with relevance, respect, and simplicity. This intelligence acts as the connective tissue across fragmented ecosystems, ensuring marketers can recognize and reach audiences consistently wherever they appear. What forces are driving fragmentation in identity and signals? Changes to traditional IDs: Since Apple introduced ATT, access to IDFA has become inconsistent across apps and devices. Google’s evolving Android privacy roadmap adds another layer of variability, fragmenting mobile addressability. Safari and Firefox have long restricted third-party cookies, while Chrome continues to support them for now. This creates different signal availability across browsers, contributing to an uneven and increasingly fragmented identity landscape on the open web. Shifts in signals: IPv4 to IPv6 migration introduces mismatched identity structures that complicate continuity across environments. Platform-driven fragmentation: Closed ecosystems and uneven adoption of evolving RTB standards (like OpenRTB 2.6 updates designed to support new identifiers and consent signals) create differences in which identifiers and consent signals are shared in the bidstream. At the same time, the rise of alternative or “universal” IDs—often developed by individual platforms, publishers, or technology companies—means that multiple ID types can appear within the same auction, each with its own structure, rules, and level of support. These differences reduce interoperability across platforms and contribute to a more fragmented activation landscape. Each change creates an identity silo. Together, they form an ecosystem defined by fragmentation rather than absence. Without an identity framework, these environments operate as disconnected identity islands. A multi-ID world requires a unified identity framework Alternative IDs play an important role, but they also expand the number of signals marketers must reconcile. Without a consistent identity layer, more IDs often mean more complexity—not more clarity. Common alternative IDs in use today: UID2: The Trade Desk’s UID 2.0, an iteration of their original Unified ID 1.0, which was still reliant on third-party cookies, creates persistent IDs with user-provided email addresses and phone numbers. ID5: This independent identity provider builds an identity infrastructure that powers addressable advertising across channels. It can create an ID based on both deterministic and probabilistic data. Hadron ID: Hadron ID is a unique, interoperable identity system (including first-party, audience-based, contextual, deterministic, and probabilistic) developed by Audigent, now part of Experian, to drive revenue for publishers by making their audience data and inventory actionable for media buyers. Industry reports suggest roughly one-third to two-fifths of open-auction traffic carries alternative IDs, sometimes multiple per request. Among Experian clients, adoption of alternative IDs rose 50% year over year, with a 30% increase in IDs resolved to individuals via our Digital Graph. Identity isn’t disappearing; it’s multiplying. A modern identity framework resolves these identifiers into a single, privacy-safe consumer view.