Founder & CEO at Kochava, the leading mobile attribution platform and mobile data marketplace. 20+ yrs as a technology innovator and leader.
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As we all know, 2020 has been an unprecedented year. The global pandemic has forced a "new normal" on us and its impact has been felt in the global economy. Businesses that relied on foot traffic and local advertising have been hit hard, forcing closures across many industries, and those with a virtual presence must now make that channel work for them, especially as the holiday season nears. It goes without saying that with the upcoming holiday season, there will be no "business as usual."
Because of the pandemic, several major retailers have canceled or modified their traditional brick-and-mortar Black Friday sales, and as a result, e-commerce is expected to explode even more than it has been these past few months. To best take advantage and make the most of advertising budgets, I recommend marketers target wisely using audience data.
Yet, on top of the current environment, marketers are facing multiple hurdles in effectively reaching their audiences. Increased data privacy regulations, the deprecation of third-party cookies as a default on iOS web browsers, and Apple’s upcoming changes to its device IDFA (identifier for advertisers) are each shifting the industry in major ways.
What's a marketer to do?
The Consumer Identity Problem Of 2020
The number of ways to reach consumers has grown, and understanding which channels work best has long been a challenge. There are more channels than ever where consumers can consume content on various connected devices.
However, increased data privacy regulations, such as GDPR and CCPA, are changing how businesses collect consumer data. And this year, asides from the current situation forcing life online, Google and Apple are changing their policies, which will further impact how marketers reach their intended audiences.
In January, Google "changed the rules" by which companies collect consumer information on the web by announcing the removal of the third-party cookie by 2022 while providing access to certain data in their "privacy sandbox."
In a similar move, in June, Apple announced its AppTrackingTransparency framework on iOS 14, which requires that users consent to tracking. Although it's too early to see the impact of opt-in trends, it's likely that the device ID (the IDFA) used for personalized ads will be unavailable for targeting most iOS users.
What all this means is that the advertising ecosystem (which includes display, mobile, OOH, and TV) as a projected $600 billion-dollar industry by 2021, lacks a certain amount of insight into consumer identity.
How will today's marketer effectively reach its audience while adhering to privacy regulations and the eventual loss of third-party cookies and the IDFA? How will marketers understand reach via TV and conversion activity via mobile — or the effectiveness of physical attribution from mobile ad placement? It's all connected, but without a clear understanding of a privacy-first solution for identity, marketers are in the dark.
Solving For Identity With First-Party Data
When mobile marketing was in its infancy (circa 2011), marketers needed to understand its effectiveness and how to buy on it. Since then, mobile has often been considered a separate channel, but in my experience, it is the tether that ties consumers to brands — irrespective of channels. The consumer journey for products or content may begin on mobile and continue on desktop or connected TV and vice versa, but mobile will almost always be a part of the experience.
On the back end, marketers can understand their marketing effectiveness through a combination of attribution and identity tools — specifically leveraging first-party identity graphs and data. This usually comes from a combination of mobile measurement and internal data from CRM tools — linked via common registration data. It is likely going to become even more commonplace for any marketer as they face the "new normal" of omnichannel measurement.
Apple's changes on iOS 14, while a progressive step toward greater privacy, means that many marketers are likely going to increase their spend in other channels (not iOS in-app media) — but measuring the impact of their connected audiences leveraging the identity graph. In short, Apple's changes have increased the focus on comprehensive, first-party, omnichannel data for marketers to cross-compare, analyze and visualize campaign results without the use of device identifiers and instead of using household graphs and first-party identity graph data.
Courting Consumers In The New Normal
The basis for these changes is data privacy. While it's unclear if users are demanding privacy or if instead, Apple is instituting the changes to leverage its position as the platform owner, the changes are happening, and it impacts brands and consumers alike.
Privacy frameworks either for the platform (iOS) or for government bodies (GDPR or CCPA) now must be at the forefront of marketing with clear and concise language to educate coupled with technology strategies to enable compliance.
With all the monumental changes happening on the data side of marketing, marketers shouldn't lose focus on the customer experience. With the coming holiday season, make sure you understand your audience as best as possible. Here are a few options to consider:
• Ensure you're complying with all data privacy regulations.
• Consider using first-party analytics to see where consumers are in the funnel and segment your audience accordingly.
• Leverage tools that enable measurement on platform-specific frameworks (like SKAdNetwork for iOS) in-line with probabilistic approaches (like household graphs and first-party identity graph data) to give a complete, synthesized picture.
• Enrich your existing user data (eg, point of sale data, hashed emails or CRM data).
Prepare And Conquer
The B2C world is extremely competitive, and the rules are constantly changing. Staying on top of changes and looking for opportunities to scale will not only lead to survival but healthy, long-term growth. Tapping into first-party consumer identity data and linking it to omnichannel exposure data will help paint the picture while keeping you compliant in tomorrow's marketing mix.
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