The future of reaching addressable audiences effectively leaves cookie-centric models in the past and will soon be anchored instead by identity solutions that work across all channels and devices. The advertising ecosystem needs to evolve to privacy-first approaches that are secure, neutral, and interoperable.
The Winterberry Group report, “Identity Outlook: 2020,” takes a look at the factors forcing innovation across marketing personalization, programmatic advertising, and advanced TV. We highlighted the six critical factors that are impacting the identity landscape based on the interviews used to generate the report.
- The explosion in the number of addressable devices at the individual and household levels. In 2018, the average number of addressable devices per person was 3.5; today, that number is predicted to be between 6 and 8. At the household level, the average number of connected devices is at least 13, but only 8 are addressable/marketable and therefore matter to advertisers and publishers.
- The continued deprecation of third-party cookies, starting initially with Safari and Firefox and finally announced by Chrome in January 2020. Without third-party cookies, the industry is racing to find alternatives to build first-party audiences and reach them.
- The significant adoption of video consumption and delivery services by consumers. Viewership change is leading to a corresponding shift of media advertising expenditures and the related advancement of programmatic buying solutions in addressable TV, OTT, and CTV (collectively referred to as advanced TV).
- The recognition of the value of identity solutions. Identity becoming an integral part of marketing strategies drives performance and consumer engagement across channels and touch points. This recognition is demonstrated by the market’s increased adoption of ad tech and Mar Tech solutions with identity at their core.
- The impending difficulty in measuring, evaluating, and providing attribution across marketing and advertising campaigns. Increasingly fragmented customer journeys and data loss due to the end of third-party cookies will severely impact the ability to improve media efficiency.
- The efforts by media owners to recover value and rebalance control of the programmatic. With many players involved with the programmatic trading system, media owners feel undervalued given their large investment in content origination.
The adoption and changes in the use and application of identity, along with an expanding number of market participants, have led to a rethinking of the current state and outlook for identity and identity solutions.