Mobile retargeting is an integral ingredient in the CTV performance formula.
And while streaming campaigns don’t use third-party cookies – there are no cookies in CTV media – the IP address, email or household data that anchors CTV campaigns must match to a smartphone or mobile user for retargeting to work.
On Monday, Intent IQ, Strategus and PubMatic announced a partnership to help advertisers retarget iOS device owners after they’ve seen an ad on a smart TV. Strategus advertisers will get access to audience segments from Intent IQ, and the campaign execution happens through PubMatic.
Some CTV advertisers are trying to connect CTV ads themselves to points of sale, but the best way to maximize the impact of a CTV ad campaign is by retargeting exposed viewers on mobile, not necessarily by slapping a bunch of QR codes onto CTV ad creative, said Joel Cox, Strategus co-founder and SVP of strategy and innovation.
The challenge is to make the CTV-to-mobile retargeting process work when Apple’s IDFA requires opted-in consent (many people don’t consent) and third-party cookies are disappearing. The system requires a scaled number of trackable users. And for iOS, at least, the scale is no longer what it was.
Balancing the scales
For Strategus, CTV-to-mobile retargeting used to be pretty straightforward, Cox said.
But after Apple rolled out its AppTrackingTransparency framework, it got a lot harder to find and track iOS users. Post-ATT, Strategus realized hardly a quarter of its retargeting impressions were going to iOS devices, rather than the intended 50-50 split between iOS and Android devices.
Strategus especially wants to retarget iOS users because they tend to be younger and higher income, Cox said.
Strategus began working with Intent IQ, an identity provider. Publishers and sell-side monetization platforms (such as Taboola, Primis and Mediavine) tap Intent IQ to drop first-party cookies on publisher sites to secure site visitor info, such as IP address and the type of browser and device, said Fabrice Beer-Gabel, the company’s VP of strategy and partnerships.
Intent IQ also has a data management platform (DMP) partner, Datonics, that aggregates audience and purchase data from publishers and sell-side platforms.
In the case of this integration, Strategus creates audience segments by matching a brand’s first-party data to Intent IQ’s DMP. A Strategus buyer could choose to target iOS users in a particular age range with specific interests, such as, say, those who are into cooking or golf.
Intent IQ also uses an identity graph within its DMP to group individuals by household. So, while there’s always a level of guesswork in determining which household members saw a CTV ad, advertisers can still retarget the ones who fall under certain target audience segments (like people in market for a car) after a CTV ad exposure happens, Beer-Gabel said.
Although it’s still too early to pinpoint trends in performance – campaigns are still within their attribution windows – Cox said Strategus has been able to been able to target roughly the same percentage of impressions to iPhone users since testing the new Intent IQ integration as it had before ATT took effect.
