Signal loss isn’t the only reason why brands and publishers are attracted to alternative identifiers: The new IDs also represent a way to use first-party data.
Take software and device manufacturer HP, which started testing The Trade Desk’s UID2 product earlier this year to improve targeting in a way that passes the privacy sniff test. The brand mostly advertises on digital channels but decided to test on CTV first because that’s where UID2 adoption is strongest.
HP’s conversation about alt IDs was spurred by cookie deprecation, but it evolved into a search for an identity solution that might validate cross-platform reach and frequency counts “without too much modeling” (aka deterministically), Freddie Liversidge, VP of global media at HP, tells me.
Team CTV
Specifically, HP is using UID2 for streaming ad buys across Disney and Hulu inventory because Disney is the brand’s biggest CTV supplier – and also a strategic UID2 partner. Disney was the second CTV programmer to adopt the alt ID in 2022, after Fubo in 2021.
(UID2 is available in DSPs other than The Trade Desk, but HP uses The Trade Desk for the bulk of its CTV buys outside of YouTube.)
Advertisers are starting to use UID2 to “connect CTV with everything else they’re doing from an omnichannel perspective,” Jaime Nash, The Trade Desk’s director of product marketing, tells me. “And the lowest barrier to entry is targeting CTV providers that are already integrated with UID2.”
Finding a match
So, how does the targeting actually work?
HP has an in-house customer data platform (CDP) with information such as emails, which products customers own and whether they use the brand’s mobile app. HP gets this information when people register their new devices and consent to data sharing.
HP matches the data in its CDP with UID2s, which are built from hashed email addresses in The Trade Desk’s identity graph. The graph includes data from providers such as Oracle, LiveRamp and Tapad.
HP then groups those matches into audience segments, which, for the company, include freelance workers, students and IT employees, so it can target the right message. Freelancers and students are more likely to respond to an ad for a new laptop, for example, whereas IT workers are likelier in-market for a printer or scanner, Liversidge says.
Adopting UID2 is HP’s way of continuing to target audiences without wasting money, he says. Ad waste has been an issue for HP, he adds, referring to an MIT study that revealed a large percentage of HP’s digital ad spend was hitting people who were already retired.
Because of improved targeting accuracy HP saw with UID2, the brand decided to double its budget behind the ID between Q2 and Q3 this year, says Caitlin Nardi, programmatic lead at HP’s North America business.
You, me and UID
The Trade Desk anonymizes UID2s by assigning them strings of random digits so that, while deterministic, they can’t be used to reidentify a particular user – although one of the most common use cases for the ID is grouping UID2s into households with IP addresses so brands can manage reach and frequency for the big screen on the wall.
In this case, brands can use UID2s to optimize reach and frequency, Nash says.
If a customer sees a mobile video display ad for a laptop, for example, HP could count that ad exposure toward its frequency rating for a particular household. And with better frequency constraints, HP can spread its campaign budget across more households to potentially reach new customers.
HP will still need some data modeling to find lookalike audiences, but UID2 is “a really good database for us to [better] understand our audiences,” Liversidge says. The Trade Desk didn’t share the exact scale of UID2 because the ID is also available in other DSPs, but says it expects the majority of CTV ad impressions on its platform to include a UID2 by Q2 of 2024.
And doing CTV targeting through a primary DSP brings better optimization controls than a typical insertion order.
HP matches exposure data linked to a UID2 with the device registration data in its CDP to link both households and individual consumers with online conversions and sales. That measurement is proving to be more effective than the multitouch attribution model the brand was already used to, Nardi says.
In the end, she says, HP – like almost every other digital-focused marketer – wants to drive more sales from CTV ad exposures.
