“Mindfulness isn’t difficult, we just need to remember to do it.” — Sharon Salzberg
This Month’s Update:
Marketers are being thrust into a new era defined by first-party data and identity – an era that requires seamless and secure connection of data between online and offline, and known and unknown channels. This means that marketers are often trying to balance two competing incentives: on one hand, they must do more with data to stay competitive. And on the other hand, they must perform all their data operations more securely and transparently. Additionally, marketers need to perform those operations faster than ever; Manually sharing data with third parties takes time, which represents their own cost in an era of rapid changes to consumer habits and preferences.
First-party data has quickly become the “holy grail” for marketers in designing a solution that will enable their long-term ability to continue to market effectively, particularly as they face with the prospect that third-party cookies may soon vanish. The benefits of first-party data are primarily that they come with a high degree of trust and intent. The information is direct from the individual, is timely and transparent, and can be connected to an individual’s use permissions.
That being said, not all first-party data has equal value. Much of the data collected today is of little incremental value to the company itself. In many instances, companies overvalue first-party data because they know it is permissible and accessible. The security of permission compliance, however, does not generate new value in the predictive or segmentation impact of any particular piece of data. Simply owning the data and having permission to use it doesn’t make it more valuable for your marketing. That value is inherent in the data itself and in its ability to support business. It is for this reason that companies must provide an honest assessment of their first-party data at an elemental level. Having the data drives no direct value unto itself; the value of data is realized only through its application.
To better understand this, companies need to take stock of what first-party data they have accessible and what they can generate or collect on a current basis. From that list, companies must assess the true value of the data in driving business decisions and actions and what liability the ownership and handling of that data creates in terms of risking consumer perception or financial penalties. A company may know for example that a customer typically makes purchases with a Visa card. While this data may be valuable to a credit card company as third-party data, does it offer any real value as first-party data? It might if the company has worked with Visa to offer a special purchase incentive to customers that would help generate more sales. If the knowledge that the customer uses Visa does not affect any marketing or messaging activity, then it is hard to assign any value to that piece of information. It is this mindful approach to the use of data that will lead to longer term success. We all recognize the value of “data” in the generic sense, now we need to recognize it in a business specific sense.
Hold the Date:
We are excited to be able to announce our headline speakers at this fall’s AdstrAct data conference: “Exploring the Mindful Disruption of Data”. Shelly Palmer – Named LinkedIn’s Top Voice in Technology, along with Bill Livek- CEO ComScore, Stu Ingis – Chairman Venable, LLP and Tine Moffett – Principal Analyst – Forrester will be headlining our afternoon. We hope you can join us. Registration opens September 1st. Proof of vaccination will be required to attend, and we will be following all CDC and local NYC event Covid guidelines.
AdstrAct 2021
“Exploring the Mindful Disruption of Data”
October 27, 2021: 1:45-6pm
75 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY
To learn more on AdstrAct you can go to Adstradata.com/events/
Privacy highlights:
Google announced new privacy measures aimed at protecting kids and teenagers using its services, including restricting certain advertising and ad targeting to those under 18. “We’ll be expanding safeguards to prevent age-sensitive ad categories from being shown to teens, and we will block ad targeting based on the age, gender, or interests of people under 18. We’ll start rolling out these updates across our products globally over the coming months. Our goal is to ensure we’re providing additional protections and delivering age-appropriate experiences for ads on Google,” the company wrote in a blog post. The New York Times, MediaPost and other outlets covered the announcement.
Axios reviewed recent actions by tech companies related to the privacy of younger users and linked broader announcements to the forthcoming implementation of the Age Appropriate Design Code in the U.K.. The article also mentioned U.S. legislation to update COPPA requirements.
FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter explored the implication of algorithmic decision making and the path forward for the Commission in a paper published by the Information Society Project at Yale Law School and the Yale Journal of Law and Technology. Slaughter mentioned the Algorithmic Accountability Act and other federal data privacy legislation in the paper. “Effective transparency, however, must provide meaningful and intelligible information; it cannot simply overwhelm a user with information and trigger decision fatigue. The effects of extensive notice provisions in privacy laws like GDPR must be studied carefully to ensure they fall into the former and not the latter category. If the result of frequent pop-up notices is to nudge a user into simply accepting the practice about which she is being informed, with no opportunity to exercise choice, that nominal transparency may have no benefit whatsoever,” she wrote. Politico reported on the publication.
Forbes reported on a letter sent by the FTC to Facebook in response to the company taking action against academic researchers and citing the consent decree with the FTC as justification. “The FTC is committed to protecting the privacy of people, and efforts to shield targeted advertising practices from scrutiny run counter to that mission,” the letter said. “Indeed, the FTC supports efforts to shed light on opaque business practices, especially around surveillance-based advertising. While it is not our role to resolve individual disputes between Facebook and third parties, we hope that the company is not invoking privacy – much less the FTC consent order – as a pretext to advance other aims.”
As we are constantly trying to feed helpful content out to our client community, we encourage you to visit our content blog where you can get our latest thoughts on industry issues. While you are there, you can also check out the new look and feel of our website. Our goal was to provide a clearer understanding of Identity, Data, and all the services we have to offer.
Should you look for more help on these topics, please reach out and we would be happy to help. Email us at connect@adstradata.com
Our insights are again only a small fraction of what is being shared out there. Here are some other interesting articles and opinions we thought to share to both inform and inspire discussion.
Nielsen ratings once considered the standard for how advertisers and broadcasters determine success and set advertising rates may no longer fulfill that role. The company is taking a step back to assess the efficacy of its panel-based approach. Their pause shows the continued shift toward more direct individual measurement approaches.
Nielsen pauses as the TV metrics standard
Sometimes the old tried and true is still a great answer. Recent research by EmailToolTesters suggests email marketing is still a great answer for those with smaller marketing budgets. How are your emails performing? Here’s a great place to see the benchmarks.
Data supports Email marketing effectiveness
We have all seen the continued growth in overlap between technology and marketing. The challenge for marketing leaders is keeping up with the rapid tech transformation to keep their marketing programs effective and in sync with the tech teams. Tracey Welson-Rossman recently polled a cross section of female marketing leaders to get their take on what it is taking to succeed against this challenge.
Tech’s influence on marketing teams
Often challenged to show an effective impact, CDPs appear to be on the rebound as new investment and players help advance the ability to activate against brands’ customer data. Check out Dom Nicastro’s recent summary on what is going on with CDPs these days.
And you thought the transition of our work meetings to Zoom was a big step. Check out what Facebook has on the horizon for us all in the future. Get your avatar ready.
We are proud to share our Chief Privacy Officer – Jason Bier’s most recent article, picked up by Advertising Week, on his thoughts on Google getting their hands caught in the proverbial cookie jar. Check it out
The cookie isn’t going anywhere
And if you did not get a chance last month, we encourage everyone to take a look at our recent Whitepaper of the different view of the ID ecosystem. A great perspective on the different considerations you need to make when trying to understand how to manage your customer identity approach.
Adstra’s Multiple Views of the ID Ecosystem
We can all use a little positivity and fun in life. Here are some of the recent items we wanted to share with everyone:
The Spelling Bee is back… Congrats to Zaila Avant-garde for winning this years Scripps National Spelling Bee. There are many two sport players out there today, but few can match Zaila’s combination of skills. As a top ranked basketball player from Louisiana, she is now the top ranked speller in the land too.
14 year old wins Scripps Spelling Bee
How many of you saw Kevin Costner walk out of the Iowa cornfield onto the baseball diamond to play a game of catch… first in the fake world of Hollywood in 1989 and most recently to kick off MLB’s White Sox vs Yankees game. If you missed it, the game was a real classic in every way… from start to finish.
We are still waiting to see who wins the Little League Baseball Championship this year, but we have a winner in the softball side. Congrats to the team from Muskogee, Oklahoma for the 9-1 win over Virginia to capture this year’s championship in Greenville, NC.
Little League Softball Champions
As we have said before, we continue to strive to provide useful, fun, and actionable info that can help us all in some way. Feel free to share feedback and ideas and we can share them with this community. Stay happy and healthy.
If you think others may be interested in getting a copy of this newsletter, please have them email us at connect@adstradata.comand we will add them to our list. You can also find copies of this and previous newsletters at Adstra’s website: adstradata.com
