The digital advertising landscape is undergoing a significant transformation with the gradual deprecation of third-party cookies. This shift necessitates the adoption of new strategies for audience targeting and data management. In our next Ask the Expert segment, we explore this evolution, discussing new strategies for audience targeting and data management in a world without cookies.
We’re joined by industry leaders, Gabe Richman, Senior Director of Data Partnerships at The Trade Desk, and Chris Feo, Experian’s SVP of Sales & Partnership who spotlight The Trade Desk’s innovative approach to navigating a cookieless future. Tune in to our Q&A below to learn more about these topics and learn how the collaborative efforts of Experian and The Trade Desk offer a glimpse into the future of advertising.
Cookieless IDs are the new face of identity in advertising
Traditional tracking and targeting techniques are being replaced by more advanced and privacy-conscious methods. Unified I.D. 2.0 (UID2), led by The Trade Desk, exemplifies this shift, offering a new identifier based on encrypted email addresses or phone numbers. This approach not only caters to the evolving privacy regulations but also places greater control in the hands of consumers. UID2’s design fundamentally differs from cookies since it is rooted in transparency and consumer consent.
UID2: A catalyst for industry-wide adoption
UID2’s journey reflects a rising industry-wide recognition of its value across the industry. The adoption of UID2 by major publishers, demand-side platforms, and advertisers indicates a shift toward more sustainable and consumer-friendly approaches to identity in advertising. This is particularly evident in areas like connected TV (CTV), where UID2 is rapidly becoming a currency and standard.
“The purpose of UID2 is not only to create a better ID for advertisers and publishers to achieve their objectives, but also to benefit the consumers. Unlike cookies, UID2 provides transparency and control to the consumers for the first time.”
gabe richman, sr. director, data partnerships, the trade desk
How Experian and The Trade Desk work together
The partnership between The Trade Desk and Experian goes beyond adapting to the absence of cookies. Our joint efforts highlight a commitment to developing solutions that cater to advertiser’s needs while respecting consumer privacy, a balancing act becoming increasingly crucial in today’s digital ecosystem. The Trade Desk’s emphasis on UID2 as a foundational element in the open web, campaign design, and activation is a testament to the potential of new identifiers in enhancing advertising efficacy. Similarly, our ability to utilize these identifiers to deliver detailed audience insights offers advertisers a powerful tool to remain effective in a post-cookie world.
Experian’s role in the adoption of UID2
Experian’s integration strategies have played a critical role in diversifying the applications of UID2. By partnering with The Trade Desk, we help broaden the reach and effectiveness of UID2 across various advertising channels. In terms of reach – by incorporating a prominent cookieless ID, we further amplify the reach of UID2. The increased adoption of this new ID allows the digital ecosystem the ability to interact using an alternative identifier, thereby broadening the potential audience. In terms of effectiveness – we help advertisers serve relevant ads to the right audiences, ensuring the relevance of the ads and control over their frequency.
Targeting with Geo-Indexed audiences
The Trade Desk works with Experian to ingest and host our syndicated audiences. This partnership gives The Trade Desk’s clients access to over 2,400 syndicated audiences that span across eight verticals. This includes access to our new Geo-Indexed audiences that allow brands to reach consumers and households based on geographic regions that over-index for a common set of attributes, ultimately offering brands a targeting solution that prioritizes both consumer privacy and accuracy.
What a future beyond cookies looks like
Looking ahead, the focus in advertising is not solely on replacing cookies but on a broader evolution of the industry. This includes continuing to apply machine learning technologies, like artificial intelligence (AI), to enhance ad personalization and effectiveness. The interplay between creative content, audience insights, and privacy-compliant targeting will become increasingly important as the industry evolves. As cookies become a thing of the past, the initiatives spearheaded by The Trade Desk and Experian will likely set the tone for the next era of digital advertising, and emerging solutions like UID2 are leading the way.
Watch the full Q&A
Visit our Ask the Expert content hub to watch Gabe and Chris’ full conversation about cookieless advertising. In their conversation, Gabe and Chris share more about UID2, consumer transparency, and the importance of consumer data for targeted advertising.
About our experts
Gabe Richman, Sr. Director, Data Partnerships, The Trade Desk
Gabe Richman is the Senior Director of Data Partnerships at The Trade Desk where he focuses on global identity strategy and platform partnerships as well as driving UID2 and EUID adoption across the broader ecosystem. Prior to joining The Trade Desk in 2021, Gabe held various roles in AdTech at HealthVerity, Wunderkind and LiveRamp. For the last decade Gabe has taken pride in helping advertisers and platforms alike demystify the complex identity landscape and embrace the change needed to preserve the open internet. Gabe is a graduate of the University of Maryland and resides in Los Angeles.
Chris Feo, SVP, Sales & Partnerships, Experian
As SVP of Sales & Partnerships, Chris has over a decade of experience across identity, data, and programmatic. Chris joined Experian during the Tapad acquisition in November 2020. He joined Tapad with less than 10 employees and has been part of the executive team through both the Telenor and Experian acquisitions. He’s an active advisor, board member, and investor within the AdTech ecosystem. Outside of work, he’s a die-hard golfer, frequent traveler, and husband to his wife, two dogs, and two goats!
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With the 82nd Academy Awards® just around the corner and only days before final voting ballots are due back to accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, Experian Simmons is taking a close look at the American movie-going population. In any given month, over 56 million adults (26% of the adult population) make a trip to the cinema to take in a film. Movie-going typically reaches its peak in mid-summer, and 2009 was no exception. Experian Simmons DataStreamSM reports that in July of last year, 32% of adults went to movies, the highest level observed at any point in the year. In October of the same year, the percentage of past-month adult cinema-goers had dropped to just 19%, the lowest point observed in all of 2009. In this month’s Consumer Insights report, Experian Simmons sizes the movie-going audience, examines their receptivity to cinema ads—including pre-show commercials and product placement within films—online movie searches as well as Americans’ penchant for tuning into the Academy Awards. All data comes from the Simmons Summer 2009 National Consumer Study. Two-thirds of the adult population have gone to the movies at least once in the last 6 months. Nearly half (46%) have been in the last 90 days and a quarter (26%) have been in the last month. Young adults are, as expected, more likely to go to the movies than older adults, but adults over 50 outnumber young adults when it comes to raw number of movie-goers as you will see in the following chart. Over 147 million individuals have gone to the movies at least once in the last 6 months. With 20.8 million adults ages 18 to 24 going to the movies in the last 6 months, this age group accounts for only 14% of the movie-going population. Adults ages 50 and over, on the other hand, account for 37% of the movie-going population with over 55 million adults in this age group going to the theater at least once in the last 6 months. Among all adults who had been to the movies at least once in the last 6 months, 68% have been at least once in the last 30 days. Many movie-goers (39%) have been only once in the last month and only 7% have been four or more times. Young adults ages 18 to 24 are much more likely than the average movie-goer to have been to the theater in the last month with 75% reporting having been at least once and 10% having been 4 times or more. Experian Simmons DataStreamSM reports similar trends in past 30 day movie-going for 2008 and 2009 with the peak for this behavior occurring in both years on almost the exact same date. During the week of July 22, 2009 32% of adults reported having been to the theater during the last 30 days and during the week of July 21, 2008, 29% reported going. Cinema Blockbusters that month in ’09 included Bruno and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. In July of ’08, Mama Mia and The Dark Knight were released. When it comes to product placement in movies, frequent cinema-goers are most likely to respond. In fact, 41% of adults who went to the movies 4 or more times in the last 90 days are classified by the Simmons Movie Product Placement segmentation system as “Emulators,” those consumers who notice, remember and are driven to buy products placed into the context of a film. By comparison, only 28% of consumers who went to a movie only once in the last 90 days are Emulators. Forty-eight percent of Horror film fans say they often pay attention to commercials that show along with movie previews in movie theaters making them the most receptive to cinema advertisements followed by Romantic Comedy fans and Family movie fans. Only 39% of Foreign Language or Independent film fans say they pay attention to such ads. Nearly a quarter of all movie-goers get movie information, reviews or show times online in any given month. Aside from the obvious movie sites, you are likely to find movie information seekers on these sites: Californians like foreign language and independent films, whereas New Englanders have more of a penchant for Comedies and Southerners are among the most likely to see Horror films. Below are the top 5 metro areas for finding adults who say they usually see the three selected movie genres when they go to the theater. One-in-seven American adults tuned into the last Academy Awards® ceremony on ABC, including many non-movie-goers. Nine percent of adults who had not been to the movies even once in the past six months tuned into the last awards show and ultimately comprised 19% of all 2009 Oscar® viewers. Still, the more frequently a consumer goes to the movies, the more likely he or she is to watch the annual Academy Awards® ceremony.
The Simmons Multi-Media Engagement Study is a unique syndicated research program that measures – across multiple dimensions – the relationship between media vehicles and their audiences. This strategic tool provides measures of the cognitive and emotional engagement consumers have with major media properties, which includes broadcast, cable, and syndicated television, major magazines, and Internet sites. The Fall 2009 release of the Simmons Multi-Media Engagement Study utilizes a patented behavioral integration model to map the engagement levels of nearly 800 media vehicle users back to the respondents in the Experian Simmons National Consumer Study, allowing the analysis of media engagement to be filtered by consumer behaviors including users of over 8,000 brands in over 460 product categories. The following slides will demonstrate some powerful examples leveraging the Spring 2009 MME study. Among all U.S. adults, Consumer Reports magazine is the most Trustworthy media vehicle. In fact, 6 of the top 10 Trustworthy media vehicles are print magazines. The other top vehicles include 3 websites and 1 cable television network. When broken down by gender, there are 4 vehicles that remain consistent across the gender breaks, although their rank orders do change. Among media properties that index at 110 or higher for new car intenders*, we can determine which are best for communicating a message of trust. Below are the top vehicles ranked by the percent of new car intenders saying “I trust this to tell the truth.” When ranking print magazines by Ad Attention/Receptivity – the dimension that measures how likely consumers are to notice and pay attention to ads as well as buy advertised products – we find that the top of the list is dominated by niche publications, whose audiences are focused and whose ads are typically targeted. In a similar vein, those magazines that focus on a mass-market audience tend to have the lowest Ad Attention/Receptivity scores. Looking at the statement, “I get valuable information from the ads in this magazine,” we can see some interesting differences between consumers by region. For instance, while American Baby is tops in 3 of the 4 census regions, it is fourth in the Midwest. Smart Money magazine makes the list only in the Northeast and House Beautiful only in the West. Likewise, Family Handyman appears in both the Midwest and South, but not in the Northeast or West. Among print magazines that index at 110 or higher for readers planning to retire in the next year, we can determine which magazines would be ideal for placing ads promoting plans and hobbies for their future free time. The following magazines rank top for future retirees who say “This magazine has ads for things I care about.” The Personal Time Out dimension helps identify vehicles that people like to relax with and to spend their free time using. While there are similarities across users of all ages, these top websites for each age group show that younger users prefer social media and entertainment-oriented sites, while more mature users lean towards lifestyle sites when they just want to kick back. Of the Facebook.com users who say, “I like to kick back and wind down with Facebook.com,” we can look at what retailers they are most likely to shop compared to other online adults. Facebook.com users who like to kick back and wind down on the site are 172% more likely to shop at Express and 130% more likely to shop at Victoria’s Secret or Banana Republic. Should these retailers advertise on Facebook, they could benefit by including messages of escape and time-out. When it comes to word of mouth, synergy is a powerful tool. While 69% of all viewers of The Oprah Winfrey Show say, “This program gives me something to talk about,” this number increases to 81% among those viewers who either read O, The Oprah Magazine or visit Oprah.com. Incredibly, when looking at Oprah viewers who visit her website and also read her magazine, fully 96% say The Oprah Winfrey Show gives them something to talk about, an increase of 39% over all program viewers.