Programmatic Advertising - How It's Shifting for Privacy Changes & a Cookie-Less Future

Programmatic advertising is dominating the digital advertising landscape. McKinsey says it cornered 78.4% of the U.S. advertising market in 2020 and it’s grown significantly in use since then. Why is it on fire? Because it offers an affordable way to execute advertising campaigns while also reaching target audiences with accuracy and scale.

Unlike more traditional digital approaches, which are implemented using outdated manual methods, programmatic advertising leverages automated technology for media buying. The programmatic eco-system involves three main components:

• Demand-Side Platform (DSP)
• Supply-Side Platform (SSP)
• Ad Exchange

The most common method of implementing programmatic buying is through real-time bidding (RTB), which is the practice of buying and selling ads in real time on a per-impression basis in an instant auction. This is typically facilitated by a supply-side platform (SSP) or an ad exchange. A demand-side platform (DSP) is a programmatic advertising platform that allows advertisers and media buying agencies to bid automatically on display, video, mobile and search ad inventory from a wide range of publishers.

A New Era in Digital Advertising

As McKinsey says, the demise of third-party cookies and big privacy shifts, such as Apple’s recent user preference changes, are creating a new era of transformation in digital advertising. Brands need to stay ahead of these changes to ensure their campaigns remain in compliance.

Programmatic advertising is evolving with these shifts, according to Forrester, and offers a compelling answer. The key is for brands to “diversify their data sources to ensure viable alternatives to cookies over the long haul.” It’s no wonder people-based identity solutions are gaining traction for their ability to connect online and offline data while maintaining consumer privacy and transparency.

Identity graphs represent an innovative example of these solutions: they pull data from multiple sources—some that have profiles in the hundreds of millions. They include multiple identifiers per person, such as name, address, email address, phone numbers and devices, for a full picture of the prospect. As an example, OMI’s specialized SMB and medical market database of 50 million-plus records is available in the LiveRamp Data Marketplace.

To ensure data privacy, anonymized IDs are then built within the identity graph and securely taken to a DSP to deliver the ads. Combined with intent insights matched to contact data, advertisers can build even more custom audiences that are in-market for their offers. Intent insights are obtained when buyers’ online activities are anonymously monitored, captured and analyzed based on website visits, content downloads, product reviews, registration for webinars, etc., to uncover purchase intent signals that can be used to improve and tailor email campaigns, content marketing, programmatic advertising, account-based marketing and more. These insights not only empower marketers to identify buyer interest at the corporate level, but to also augment lead scoring, account prioritization and the process of analyzing and retaining customers.  

When it comes to diversifying data sources, OMI’s high-quality digital and intent audience data is available to drive your programmatic initiatives so you can reach the right decision-makers, while you remain in compliance with emerging requirements.

Outward Media’s proven data cleansing services and targeted, accurate B2B data can enable you to achieve better digital marketing ROI and, ultimately, convert more prospects into customers. Go here to find out about leveraging our SMB and medical market data on the LiveRamp Data Marketplace, where 95% of our email data matches the identity graph for use with display ad marketing.