February 19, 2021
This week’s column was written by Manish Ahuja, head of product and identity at Adstra.
Marketers get it: third-party cookies are on the way out, and a new privacy paradigm is on the way in. The future of targeted media is all about finding secure and privacy-compliant ways to maximize the power and extensibility of first-party data and identity.
Just how to do that is still an open question. Thanks to this generational shift towards a people-based future, the digital ecosystem is transfixed by a host of new questions: How to procure permissioned first-party data, how to securely store it, manage it, enhance it, match it, and deploy it. Marketers need a way to orchestrate any form of data or identity to any endpoint, all while protecting user privacy and ensuring the proper handling of their information.
So far, answers to these questions are characterized and constrained by a set of assumptions about the portability of data. In our view, the real, enduring solutions to the first party future can only reveal themselves when those assumptions are put to the side.
Don’t take the limitations for granted
To better understand these assumptions, let’s examine the typical process for first-party data matching and activation. A brand begins by collecting first-party data and leveraging an assortment of vendors to resolve identities and store the information securely. They then take their CRM file and pay to onboard it to third-party environments, where it is matched with other ID graphs at the publisher or vendor level to uncover audiences relevant to that brand in the context of their campaign. That match is used to develop a custom audience based on various attributes and parameters, and then the brand can target those consumers with personalized messaging and creative.
Today’s ecosystem offers better mousetraps for each step in the chain: more comprehensive graphs, higher match rates, better audience segments, more addressable media environments.
But look one layer deeper, and we can see that, even with the best-in-breed solutions for each step of the way, this process takes a number of things for granted:
- The brand only matches with the portion of the ID graph that is deemed relevant to their campaign and shares attributes with their existing CRM file.
- Matching with a third-party graph takes place in a third-party environment, requiring a patchwork of tools to ensure secure transfer of sensitive PII data from one point to another.
- The match takes place once and for the narrow purposes of the campaign; the brand effectively “rents” the third-party ID graph and retains very little information from the match.
- Given this transactional approach, the brand is limited in its ability to manage its message over time with a consistent and additive approach as prospects move down the marketing funnel.
In other words, what this process reveals is that we assume that first-party identity is not portable. Few, if any, solutions tackle this fundamental question of portability. Instead, they offer brands an identity crutch designed for one-time use.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Adstra has reimagined data portability from the ground up.
A new paradigm for data portability
Adstra’s Portable Data Module is a new offering that enables brands to leverage modular data assets and first-party data orchestration capabilities safely behind their own firewall, eliminating the risks that come with sending PII to third parties. The Portable Data Module represents a new technological infrastructure for safeguarding privacy and promoting transparency without sacrificing data-driven capabilities.
With Adstra’s Portable Data Module, every operation performed on a brand’s data, including matching, can be conducted 100% in the brand’s own environment. Brands are able to access the full scope of Adstra’s capabilities, including its proprietary ID Graph, while maintaining total control of their data and complete transparency into all of its applications.
With the Portable Data Module and Adstra’s ID Graph, brands can extend the value of their first-party data much further than with other solutions.
To learn more, visit adstradata.com
