Q&A with Travis Clinger, Chief Connectivity and Ecosystem Officer at LiveRamp, who shares on the latest trends, insights, and strategies in the worlds of data and data-driven marketing in 2024.
How are companies adapting their data collection strategies in response to the phase-out of third-party cookies?
Third-party cookies helped the ecosystem to scale by providing a common infrastructure for digital advertising and enabling different parts of the ecosystem to work with each other. Any company that does not find a new infrastructure to replace how third-party cookies were used will lack the ability to leverage data-driven marketing tactics that deliver better consumer experiences and greater effectiveness – not just from an addressability standpoint, but from a measurability standpoint as well.
No matter when the ecosystem finally crosses the 100% deprecation mark for third-party cookies, cookieless solutions perform significantly better than cookies already. Companies that have made the cookieless jump, or are making the transition now, are not only setting themselves up better for the future, but also taking advantage of significant gains today.
What alternative methods are emerging for tracking user behavior and gathering data in a privacy-compliant manner?
First-party data is collected from a company’s customers with their explicit permission, making it the richest source of customer insights. It creates a unified customer record that can be used to activate across the ecosystem and help to understand every touchpoint you have with a customer. Because this data is collected with customers’ permission, it is privacy-centered.
Implementing a solution that helps to unify customers’ identities and break down data silos, while also activating first-party data across the ecosystem, is a key first step to creating a robust first-party data strategy. From there, companies should continue delivering valuable experiences to their customers across all interactions, not just conversions, which leads to deepened relationships and increasing amounts of first-party data that companies can leverage to provide value for all sides.
Why are first-party data strategies critical?
Third-party cookie deprecation is just one form of what the ecosystem is calling “signal loss” – that is, losing the various signals that help to enable effective, data-driven marketing. Some of the other forms of signal loss that have been in the spotlight include the loss of mobile identifiers, as well as browser changes that remove the IP address as an identifier for marketing. As mentioned, this signal loss will lead to a decrease in effective, data-driven marketing for any unprepared companies, but critically, signal loss should actually be viewed as an opportunity for signal gain.
While the ecosystem has been using third-party cookies and other signals for some time, in actuality these signals are imperfect and leave room for considerable improvement at every stage of the process, from targeting all the way to measurement. First-party data is a critical means to seize upon the opportunity for signal gain, by enabling people-based marketing that is more addressable and more measurable than cookie-based marketing and anything else that came before it. In addition, because first-party data is obtained through customers sharing their information, it adheres not just to the letter of regulations but the spirit as well, and can be a sustainable pillar of companies’ marketing strategies moving into the future.
Are there emerging trends or innovations in data analytics and privacy-enhancing technologies that are reshaping the industry’s approach to data collection and utilization?
Data collaboration, the act of gathering and connecting data from various sources to unlock new insights, is a key innovation that companies are turning to across the ecosystem. Data collaboration brings considerable benefits to every corner of the ecosystem, allowing companies to enrich their first-party data and gain new customer insights in a privacy-centric way.
For example, brand marketers can use data collaboration to better understand how their brand and products are searched, reached, and purchased on retail websites; better benchmark performance against competitors and categories; and develop more complete audience profiles by filling in customer details that were held by other partners and other parts of the ecosystem.
There’s a number of new, buzzworthy types of advertising from CTV to in-game – what benefits does a first-party data strategy have for advertising platforms like these?
Paired with an connectivity solution that enables marketers to activate on their first-party data anywhere their customers are spending their time, first-party data can be used to personalize every touchpoint with consumers, including CTV, in-game, and anywhere else. An identity solution will help marketers visualize every step of a customer’s journey and develop an omnichannel experience for them, as well as help marketers to quickly understand which strategies and campaigns are performing best and maximize their investments.
Combined with trends like premium CTV with logged-in customers, marketers can engage in people-based marketing and understand with 100% confidence who they are marketing to, as well as track each step of the journey, all the way through conversions.
