We can look forward to something special and different this year. As we bid cookies farewell, the excitement is evident in the flurry of recent media coverage. While much attention has been focused on the repercussions cookie deprecation for audience targeting, less has been discussed about the impact for publishers in India.
Estimates suggest that as much as 75 percent of journalism’s funding comes from advertising. Should advertisers abruptly lose the ability to identify the audience reading the news, the value of advertisements would decline, leading to diminished funding for our most trusted news.
Meanwhile, consumers have shifted, en masse, from traditional TV and radio to over the top (OTT), music streaming and connected TV (CTV). It is in these fast-growing digital channels that much of the foundation for creating new identity frameworks has been laid. For example, a shared feature of all streaming services is the log-in process, which sees users create online accounts in exchange for video content. Whether the service requires a subscription fee or not, the login process is consistent.
One key benefit of such log-in process is that marketers can now work with authenticated, logged-in audiences within these digital channels. Consequently, they are increasingly turning to streaming services where ample first-party data is now available for more precise audience targeting and segmentation. Now that they have a clear understanding of their target audience, marketers are placing greater value on ads in these channels. Such authentication process has therefore led to the creation of a new, premium identity fabric of the internet.
So how can traditional publishers thrive in this new digital era?
This is the time for them to redefine how they engage with their audience, mirroring the adaptability shown by their counterparts in emerging platforms like OTT, music streaming and CTV. The reality is publishers now have access to a variety of identity solutions and are not restricted to relying solely on Google’s Privacy Sandbox as a cookie replacement. Firstly, publishers should first deploy new, consumer-friendly, lightweight single-sign-on
authentication solutions such as OpenPass. In doing so, publishers can gain vital information about their users. This first-party data should be the lifeblood of any publisher, and it is this data that publishers can share with advertisers in a privacy-conscious way to preserve the value of their advertising impressions.
At the same time, publishers can enable advertisers to activate emerging identity solutions, such as Unified ID 2.0 (UID2), so they can find relevant audiences across the open internet. Across the globe, progressive publishers, leaders in streaming TV, and players in ad tech are among the early adopters of UID2. Here in India, Times Internet, one of the nation’s most digitally transformative media companies has recently announced its adoption of UID2. The publisher is embracing this new identity solution not solely because they require it for validating their own audiences to attract advertisers, but rather because they recognize the crucial role that modern identity solutions will have in omni-channel marketing campaigns.
This is the new identity fabric of the open internet. One that preserves relevance for advertisers, revenue optimization for publishers, and privacy control for consumers. Times Internet, OTT, CTV and music streaming leaders are already proving the efficacy of this two- pronged approach. Meanwhile, advertisers are shifting budgets to these fast-growing channels where they can act with precision, measure effectively, and optimize across channels — all in ways that are not possible in the murkiness of walled gardens.
The clock is ticking for traditional publishers, but the good news is that solutions exist. These solutions go beyond merely addressing the imminent threat of cookie deprecation; instead, they offer the opportunity to build something far superior that will ultimately empower publishers to take control of their own destiny.
Tejinder Gill is the General Manager of The Trade Desk, an advertising tech company.
Views expressed are personal.