Data-Driven Thinking

While the seemingly relentless passage of state data privacy legislation may seem daunting, most of these laws follow patterns. In short, if you’re gearing up for compliance with the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act, the Colorado Privacy Act or the California Privacy Rights Act, you’ll be well-positioned for the new Utah and Connecticut laws, too, according to Davis+Gilbert lawyers Richard Eisert and Zachary Klein.

Personalization – paired with effective measurement – has enabled marketers to see and understand results, ultimately driving them to spend more. Madan Sundararaju, vice president of the M&E sector at Capgemini Americas, writes on how traditional media platforms can adapt to these trends and increase their share of ad revenue.

The advertising industry is taking a few hits these days. Legislators are looking hard at treating ad platforms like utilities. Nefarious state actors have hacked our political discourse and even our understanding of facts. But this isn’t the first time the ad industry is facing choppy waters. The ad world is in desperate need of a new position: the Chief Morality Officer, writes Marilois Snowman, CEO and founder of Mediastruction.

Taking the “room” metaphor literally, the current clean room system is akin to a collection of stand-alone rooms existing outside the form and function of a house. That’s why the next level must look beyond clean rooms. It’s time to build a clean house using a method called distributed analytics, writes Marc Rossen, SVP investment and activation analytics at Omnicom Media Group.

You get what you pay for. This adage is considered way too infrequently in the world of digital advertising, especially programmatic. There is so much pressure placed on gaining efficiency, both in execution and cost, that marketers have begun to prioritize “added value” impressions over meaningful business results, writes Elise Stieferman, director of marketing and business strategy at Coegi.

The potential of data-driven marketing is entering a brave new world. But as complexity increases, marketers must look toward a solution that simplifies data-driven marketing: agile intelligence, writes Neej Gore, chief data officer of Zeta Global.

As brands build out their first-party data strategies and work to assemble post-cookie capabilities, many are “in-housing” to remain in control of their data. But to ensure success, they need to accomplish a few important tasks, writes Nancy Marzouk, CEO of MediaWallah.

We need to find a balance between privacy and sustaining an ad-supported digital media ecosystem, writes Anthony Katsur, CEO of the IAB Tech Lab. But no one will tolerate half measures going forward. To that end, IAB Tech Lab and its members are developing a portfolio of practical technical standards meant to help the ad industry adapt to evolving consumer expectations, regulations and related browser and OS changes.

The moment you entrust some or all of your digital advertising strategy to an agency is the moment you make yourself vulnerable to the pains of “red tape.” Simple tasks take too long, and you’re beholden to a third party’s business priorities in order to execute on your business objectives, says Rob Beeler, founder of Beeler.Tech.

Elon Musk has expressed that his goal for Twitter is to create a safe platform for free speech that supports a democratic civilization. However, what does that really mean for Twitter’s advertisers and users, and how do we get there? It comes down to two factors, writes Sarah Rose, the SVP of international digital advertising at IPG’s Kinesso.

Having one model for assigning credit to outside marketing partners and a separate model for earning credit within your organization is a no-win for marketers and their enterprises – you need a single attribution and measurement strategy. The key is to deploy a unified strategy that works both within your organization and across your mix of media partners, says Rudy Grahn, attribution and measurement global strategy lead at Prohaska Consulting.

Many businesses seek to use trends as springboards to meaningful connections with consumers. This sounds logical in our trend-driven world, but the danger of chasing a fad by mistake looms large. And it threatens to reduce a brand’s hard work to rubble, says Paige Leidig, CMO, NetBase Quid.

In today’s world, it’s almost impossible for global brands to craft an effective development strategy without China. The Chinese digital advertising market is undoubtedly different and perhaps daunting to those unfamiliar with it, but the opportunity is unprecedented, writes Alex Deats, EVP for China at MiQ.

TikTok doesn’t compete with Facebook or Instagram. Neither does Twitter, Pinterest or LinkedIn. Really. At least not according to the Federal Trade Commission in its antitrust complaint against Meta. But excluding TikTok is like a gift for Meta’s lawyers.

Knowing which partners and platforms have access to your data – and how they’re using it – isn’t always obvious. But understanding what makes you vulnerable is half the battle. David Blaszkowsky, head of strategy and development at Helios Data, details three hidden data risks every marketer needs to know – and what you can do about them.

Digital media buyers and planners don’t always understand why an ad works. The key to this critical missing information lies in the simplest of places: naming conventions and tagging, says Jackie Saplicki, global senior director of tech consulting and architecture at Media.Monks.

Thanks to the internet and its resulting innovations, international markets are within reach for most businesses.  However, with easy access comes great responsibility. Before you advertise on a global scale, here are some hard-earned lessons for avoiding common pitfalls from Jason Johnson, CMO of Cupid Media.

When it comes to privacy legislation, denial often comes before compliance. When GDPR went into effect back in 2018, some companies in the US simply ignored it, opting to shut down or limit operations in the EU instead of adjusting their data privacy practices. But with privacy legislation in California (CPRA), Colorado (CPA) and Virginia (VCDPA) set to go into effect 2023, American businesses will have no choice but to accept and act, says Ines Henrich, VP of sales planning and media strategy at Aki Technologies.

Machine learning and statistical models have evolved to provide an extremely sophisticated understanding of the contribution of each marketing investment and the interactions between them. But models can leave marketers vulnerable to misguided decisions and the underutilization of data and analytics, which inhibits them from realizing the full value of the insights the model can provide, says Alice K. Sylvester, Partner at Sequent Partners. 

Moments of connection that provide holistic experiences are on a journey to replace data-based advertising. And with the rise of technologies like blockchain and the metaverse that make consumers more connected than ever, it’s time for brands to accelerate that journey, says Azlan Raj, chief marketing officer of Merkle EMEA.

Patients are wielding their power as consumers, and the healthcare industry needs to adapt to address their needs and expectations. Artificial intelligence might just be the key for healthcare marketers to unlock the new patient economy, says Stefanos Kapetanakis, GVP, Data and Technology, at Publicis Health Media. 

In January, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) updated its guidance pertaining to the Health Breach Notification Rule, making changes that are significant for any company using health-related data. The new FTC guidance greatly increases the likelihood of enforcement actions against companies sharing health data for advertising purposes. David LeDuc, VP for public policy at the Network Advertising Initiative, breaks down the FTC’s new policy.

Marketers have recognized a 360-degree view of a customer isn’t the promised land it used to be. Rather than focusing on data volume, it’s more valuable for companies to ensure that whatever data they do possess is the correct data, says AJ Brown, CEO and co-founder of LeadsRx.

As ecommerce continues to boom, AI technology promises to revolutionize nearly every aspect of a retailer’s operations. Yet, the human aspect of tastemaking has never had more influence, says Catherine Leung, managing executive director, head of activation, Hearts & Science.

When brands need to better position their products and services, they turn to the advertising industry. So how did the advertising industry allow the term “surveillance advertising” to gain a foothold, not just with aggressive privacy advocates but with lawmakers and regulators, asks Davis+Gilbert’s Gary Kibel.

For all Android 12 users, regardless of their opt-in status, advertising IDs will be zeroed if developers have not integrated new permission levels into their apps. In other words, writes Chris Farm, CEO of Tenjin, advertisers won’t know the advertising IDs of Android 12 users after April 1 if certain SDK changes haven’t been implemented at the app level.

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Erik Matlick, CEO and founder of Bombora. Marketers around the world are struggling with two competing truths. First, audience data has never been more important for delivering successful campaigns. At […]

As an industry, we’re guilty of procrastination. With just months until third-party cookies are deprecated, so many advertisers are still twiddling their thumbs. But procrastinating is a curious and dangerous approach, writes Nitin Rabadia, commercial director of Kepler Group.

Google’s communications on the Topics API in the Chrome Privacy Sandbox suggest a broad, coarse-grained approach to targeting. But the limited information shared to date leaves many questions unanswered, writes Eric Schmitt, research director at Gartner.

While marketers have spent years perfecting their attribution models, once cookies are gone – and it’s coming sooner than you think – multitouch attribution (MTA) models will be obsolete, says Jason Wulfsohn, CEO and co-founder of AUDIENCEX.