A packed house greeted Andrew Casale, CEO & President of Index Exchange; Brian O’Kelley, CEO & Co-Founder of AppNexus; and Thibaut Munier, CEO of Numberly, who spoke on the RampUp18 panel, A Collaborative Look into the Future: the Advertising ID Consortium.
The Advertising ID Consortium is made up of a group of marketing tech platforms committed to providing an open identity solution for privacy-conscious, people-based interoperability in the advertising ecosystem.
Attendees were curious to discover how the Consortium has progressed since its inception last fall, and how a neutral identity framework will benefit all in the ecosystem, from publishers to platforms and marketers across industries.
We’re here to satiate that curiosity with answers to some of the key questions about the Consortium’s foundation and the direction it’s headed.
How will the Advertising ID Consortium help solve cookie syncing challenges?
The Consortium will help consolidate many hundreds of cookies to a small group, and as a result, fewer cookie syncs will need to occur. This creates benefits across the spectrum from consumers who will see faster and smoother page loads to technology companies who will need to perform far fewer syncs (saving time and compute power) to publishers who will have more of their inventory recognized, which should all increase CPMs.
How will data sharing work in the Advertising ID Consortium world? How do I control use and competition concerns?
As such, only identity data—hashed email and phone numbers that can be matched to cookies and/or mobile devices—is gathered and used in the Consortium, and no profile-level data is collected. All identity shared with the Consortium will get added to the Consortium’s identity graph, will be maintained by LiveRamp, and will be available for all to use.
After all, the intent of the Consortium is to ‘democratize’ identity and level the playing field for platforms and publishers. It’s no longer effective for individual companies to attempt to compete on the size of their cookie or device pool. The Consortium offers a better choice by enabling the ability for companies that compete on other dimensions to join forces and access an identity pool of a size on par with the largest advertising technology companies.
Why would LiveRamp want to get rid of identity space fragmentation when that’s a big part of their business?
We believe that fewer cookie syncs and more personalized brand engagement will significantly improve overall consumer experiences—and this is core to LiveRamp’s overall mission.
LiveRamp helps advertisers deliver better digital experiences through identity resolution that enables people-based marketing. We want this to be as streamlined and efficient as possible, so that marketers can provide seamless customer experiences.
Ultimately, when our clients’ customers are happy, we’re happy.
Is there a cost to participate? Will start-ups face barriers to entry in the Consortium?
The cost to be a member is minimal. Associate members (publishers and marketers) have no cost to participate in the Consortium and technology members (platforms) will pay very low annual dues to cover the Consortium’s operating costs.
These small costs are intended to fund the Consortium’s basic expenses such as legal, accounting, the neutral domain, and make the Consortium accessible to as many members who wish to participate. Only by working together can we achieve our goal of democratizing identity and improving the overall industry.