Home The Big Story The Big Story: The DTC POV On Identity Loss

The Big Story: The DTC POV On Identity Loss

SHARE:
The Big Story podcast

The direct-to-consumer cookware company Made In noticed its social media dashboards went a bit screwy after Apple tightened its privacy controls this year.

Luckily, Made In uses all of its own dashboards – which didn’t go haywire – and tracks identity changes closely, CEO Chip Malt shares as special guest on this week’s The Big Story. Made In is also the first brand to release a public case study of Unified ID 2.0, the industry identity-sharing initiative, using the IDs to solve for targeting and measurement across the web and connected TV.

Besides testing new identity approaches, this is a good time to diversify. Because of their lower costs, non-addressable formats like radio can have some appeal for marketers trying to achieve “brand surround sound” without cookie-based tracking. Linear TV can also be efficiently bought compared to CTV. The prospects for brands who spend more than 50% of their marketing dollars on social media are dire – in a word, yes, they’re screwed.

One additional downside of the loss of signal is the ability to sequentially message consumers and create immersive marketing, which is especially important for a brand with a longer consideration cycle, like high-end cookware. Made In wants to do its best to preserve that marketing experience:

“As signals go awry and privacy becomes a more pervasive part of advertising, what we’re going to have to rely on is the brand story and adding value to the customer’s journey,” Malt says.

Must Read

The AI Search Reckoning Is Dismantling Open Web Traffic – And Publishers May Never Recover

Publishers have been surprisingly candid about losing 20%, 30% and in some cases even as much as 90% of their traffic and revenue over the past year due to the rise of zero-click AI search.

No Waiting for May – CES Is Where The TV Upfront Season Starts 

If any single event can be considered the jumping-off point for TV upfronts, it’s the Consumer Electronics Showcase (CES), which kicks off this week in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Comic: This Is Our Year

Comic: This Is Our Year

It’s been 15 years since this comic first ran in January 2011, and there’s something both quaint and timeless about it. Here’s to more (and more) transparency in 2026, and happy New Year!

Privacy! Commerce! Connected TV! Read all about it. Subscribe to AdExchanger Newsletters

From AI To SPO: The Top 10 AdExchanger Guest Columns Of 2025

The generative AI trend generated endless hot takes this year, but the ad industry also had plenty to say about growing competition between DSPs and SSPs. Here are AdExchanger’s top 10 most popular guest columns of 2025 and why they resonated.

Comic: Season's Beatings

Enjoy this weekly comic strip from AdExchanger.com that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem … 

6 (More) AI Startups Worth Watching

The founders of six AI startups offer insights on the founding journey and what problems their companies are solving.