RampUp, LiveRamp’s annual summit, brings together the best and brightest in marketing and technology to spark innovation, find fresh solutions to shared challenges, and discover new ways to drive the industry forward.
After two years of being exclusively virtual, we were thrilled to bring RampUp back in-person this year at the historic Fairmont San Francisco hotel and to collaborate in real time with attendees, partners, sponsors, customers, and colleagues from all over the world. Event-goers were given the chance to network and navigate through complex conversations surrounding identity and addressability, retail media networks, the significance of community, the great currency debate, and more—all while finally face-to-face.
A major theme of RampUp 2022 was a simple one—when we unify and collaborate, we all win, and when we unify to push for new industry standards and use data safely and responsibly, we’ve got the power to shape the future.
Here are three key takeaways from RampUp 2022 that showcase what’s top-of-mind for the industry right now:
1. With great data comes great responsibility
The importance (and ethical responsibility) of getting clean, accurate, and most of all, the right data came through several sessions during the summit.
“We’ve seen how data, when harnessed for good, can help shape the world for the better. And when used for good, data is public equity for us to build the world we are proud to pass on to future generations.” Those were the wise words of Eric Sapp, President and Founder of Public Democracy, who joined us for a panel discussion on how to avoid data gaps and how to turn those gaps into data for good.
A guiding industry principle is this: you need to have clarity of purpose when collecting data. To achieve that, you must have the desired end result already in mind so you’re asking all the right questions to get there.
If you don’t, the implications could be disastrous. Emilee Lord, Director of Communications at Public Democracy, warned that “the pathway to disinformation is paved with unanswered questions.”
2. The more things change, the more they stay the same
When it comes to activating and measuring on clean and accurate data, the industry (still) has a persistent problem. Despite the ecosystem’s incredible changes since our last in-person RampUp, many publishers and advertisers are still leaning heavily on third-party cookies. Given a reprieve by Google, marketers are still largely unprepared for life beyond cookies.
Right now is the time for marketers to experiment, take advantage of the window to test against cookies, look for new audiences on alternative browsers, and find solutions that work for their specific needs to overcome data deprecation. Marketers are hanging on to outdated technology as a part of their “wait-and-see” strategy. Ultimately, there are solutions proven in the marketplace right now, like LiveRamp’s Authenticated Traffic Solution, that are safe and secure to use instead.
Toward the end of the “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: Why All the Identifiers You Love Are Going Away and What You Can Do About It” panel discussion, Amanda Martin SVP, Corporate Development and Strategic Partnerships at Goodway Group, spoke about the future without cookies and having access to data not previously accessible to activate and measure on.
“I think it’s data we’re not playing with right now like retail media networks bringing in a data set that we were never touching at scale. I’m excited by it,” states Amanda. “I think it ties back to business outcomes far more than media metrics that we’re relying on right now. A cookie-based metric is not paying your bottom line. It’s not moving your business forward. So the closer we get to those true business outcomes, the better our industry will be set up for the future.”
3. Interoperability is the key to customer centricity
One word that echoed loudly throughout the Fairmont this year was “interoperability.” Conversations during RampUp have made it clear that the days of a locked-in tech stack are over. In this digital age, in order to make progress, you have to be able to work across different platforms and solutions to deliver better customer experiences.
Anil Chakravarthy, President, Digital Experience Business, Adobe, shared in his fireside chat that “customers now expect everything to be digital. But since every company is doing it, breaking through, getting your message across, and standing out has only become that much harder.”
To meet these new customer expectations, marketers absolutely need the flexibility within their tech stack and the interoperability to work with different partners. Without it, it’s impossible to get a more holistic view of the customer and personalize messages effectively. Interoperability is now the key to better customer experiences and to differentiating yourself within a competitive framework.
We’re all in this together
RampUp 2022 may be in the books, but if this year’s event conveyed anything, it’s that it’s only the beginning when it comes to what we can accomplish as an industry when we all work together.
Laura McElhinny, Chief Data Officer at Horizon Media, said it best. “When you have a brand that is willing to collaborate so that we’re operationalizing as one ecosystem, magic can truly happen.”
We couldn’t agree more.
Contact us to learn more about how LiveRamp makes data safe and easy for businesses to use.