Salesforce quietly introduced a new app in its App Exchange on Wednesday that was developed by The Trade Desk as a way to convert CDP identity data to Unified ID 2.0 (UID2) IDs.
These IDs can be used to buy programmatic ads.
“The evolution of ad tech and martech is toward more and more first-party data being stored in cloud databases and in CDPs,” said Ben Sylvan, The Trade Desk’s GM of data partnerships.
Salesforce isn’t the first CDP or cloud database to link with The Trade Desk via UID2. In March, Adobe and The Trade Desk announced a similar integration to convert emails and phone numbers stored in the Adobe CDP into targeted audience segments.
AWS joined the program this year, too. And it’s been a little more than a year since The Trade Desk’s CDP and clean room partnership campaign began in earnest with a Snowflake integration.
These integrations have their idiosyncrasies. The Adobe partnership is a managed service and operates similarly to how Adobe CDP customers share email or phone number info for targeting in the Adobe DSP. Snowflake is a cloud-based data clean room approach, and the Salesforce partnership comes via the free app listed in its marketplace.
“We’re allowing advertisers to break down the silos of all their different data repositories and bring their data into programmatic,” Sylvan said.
The UID interlocutor
UID2 has a unique role as both The Trade Desk’s go-to identity solution and as an open-source industry initiative. Although the UID2 repository is open to all, the real-world applications for audience activation built around it are mostly proprietary to The Trade Desk.
And then there’s the middleman service UID2 provides for privacy purposes.
The raw personal identifiable information in a CDP can’t leave its database, let alone (heaven forbid!) enter a DSP’s platform. The Salesforce CDP email data is sent to the UID2 repository, where it can be converted and then pumped out to The Trade Desk.
It’s kind of like how two people who aren’t talking to one another might have a conversation via a silent intermediary. (“Tell Salesforce we can mind our own business.” “Well you can tell The Trade Desk we don’t need to know.”)
The marketing clouds also aren’t exactly shouting from the rooftops about their UID2 integrations.
Adobe moved cautiously with The Trade Desk, only agreeing to a mechanism to send out UID2s after months of tinkering and sorting out potential privacy issues. When Adobe did eventually launch the partnership, the company’s director of business development, Sahil Gupta, was careful to explain that it wasn’t a sign of explicit support for the UID2 initiative.
After all, CDP data for DSP targeting had been unique to the Adobe DSP prior to The Trade Desk installing pipes for UID2.
Although Salesforce doesn’t have a DSP, it’s being even quieter.
The invisible supporters
Adobe did interviews about its UID2 partnership. Salesforce, however, which is hosting its Dreamforce conference in San Francisco this week, didn’t contribute a quote for The Trade Desk’s news release and didn’t issue a release of its own about the UID2-generating app.
It’s an awkward situation when some of the most important partnership hubs for UID2 – and by extension for The Trade Desk – are with semi-rivals or companies who don’t want an association with programmatic IDs.
What, you might ask, about the brand marketers who have agreed to alpha test the Salesforce UID2 integration? Although some have signed on, Sylvan said, they’re choosing to remain undisclosed.
But even if The Trade Desk is the only loud and proud voice talking about the UID2 program, these are still critical partnerships.
And adoption is easier on the supply side. Publishers and media companies will embrace UID2 if the demand exists. Their livelihood depends on it.
But marketers are used to their CRM systems They’re waiting (and waiting) for the third-party cookie situation to iron itself out and they’re waiting for new privacy laws or platform policies to land. And they also spend the money.
That’s why gaining buy-side adoption is the main challenge and prize for UID2. And why an integration Salesforce is so important.
“The way that you do that, instead of going one by one, is to make is as easy as possible for advertisers to adopt UID2 in the platforms where they already store and manage their first-party data,” Sylvan said. “That way, we have a one-to-many relationship, and don’t have to take a tactical approach to convince advertiser by advertiser by advertiser to adopt UID2.”
