Amidst the vast halls, hundreds of exhibitors and long lines for food and restrooms, DMEXCO’s underlying theme, “Trust in You,” resonated in all the conversations and content. True to the theme, identity and privacy were top of mind for marketing and advertising companies trying to assuage marketer concerns about the future of data aggregation and activation.
Opportunities in Consumer Privacy and Addressability
During a panel hosted by IAB Tech Lab, LiveRamp’s Vice President of Strategic Partnerships Travis Clinger discussed the importance of helping consumers understand the advertising value exchange for maintaining a free internet with free content, in the session titled, “Consumer Identity and Privacy: Our Industry’s Biggest Challenge or Biggest Opportunity?”
With the influx of changes in browsers and policy regulations, it is more critical than ever that organizations educate consumers on the advertising infrastructure, and how the sausage (or perhaps, wurst, in this case) is made. Providing transparency and choice gives consumers more options to opt out and control their data. These choices not only protect our industry, but all the business models, especially for publishers that rely on advertising dollars.
For advertisers, recent announcements that suggest the inevitable demise of third-party cookies imply that consumer privacy requires a complete annihilation of audience recognition. But there is still hope. LiveRamp’s Authenticated Traffic Solution provides an alternative approach, with a people-based graph that connects consumers with marketers through publishers in a privacy-conscious manner. Over time, solutions that facilitate the value exchange between consumers, brands, and publishers will continue to gain traction and rebuild trust between them. By focusing on reinforcing these direct relationships, marketers will be able to maintain reach and addressability into high-value, consented audiences.
Transparency in Consumer Consent
In the session titled “Innovation and Regulation: the Road to Cultivating Harmony,” Tim Geenen, General Manager of Faktor, a LiveRamp company, addressed the reality that not everyone treats consent in a way that respects the consumer. With information that is difficult for the average consumer to understand, or buried where they aren’t able to find, it makes it difficult for consumers to make selections about their consent choices and may deliver a bad signal to consumers about the organization.
The panel called out that it is imperative for organizations to know their visitors and whether or not they are familiar with their rights. Bombarding consumers with consent messaging can affect the consumer’s perception. Additionally, providing clear and transparent means to properly capture consent not only builds consumer trust, but is crucial for publishers to be competitive in the future.
One theme certainly rang true throughout these sessions: new regulations are needed to address consumer concerns and, paradoxically, privacy legislations will lead to better data. Consumers with more visibility and transparency into how their data is being used will be more willing to share it, thereby providing better reach and conversion rates to brands. IAB Tech Lab’s Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF), where we played a key role in helping define data transparency standards, is a step in the right direction.
If you’re interested in hearing more of our thoughts on consumer consent, transparency, and data privacy, subscribe to this blog to keep up-to-date on the latest from LiveRamp. We’ll also be at Advertising Week from September 23-26, in New York. Check out what we’re up to there and see our speaking sessions.