Control, alt, delete

Quantcast’s global boss has suggested marketers banking on alternative IDs that require log-ins to replace cookies may be disappointed. Konrad Feldman thinks open web match rates will struggle to get beyond low double-digits while digital ad prices in the medium term will rise as the biddable cookie pool shrinks.

Yahoo has made similar statements, with local data boss Dan Richardson urging marketers to experiment far more urgently with contextual and cookieless methods. Brands and publishers are trying post-cookie approaches, both contextual and via alternative identifiers. Some, such as Steggles owner Baida Poultry report massive engagement gains – but Google’s latest delay to the third party cookie cull has removed the sense of urgency that once gripped the digital supply chain.

Feldman thinks complacency will prove costly and the demand-side platform provider is pushing ‘probabilistic’ cookieless alternatives, i.e identifiers built up using lots of different information such as browser, device and location data rather than explicitly personal data such as an email address. While some call that approach fingerprinting, Feldman claims probabilistic IDs can deliver equal results at lower cost, but advises a “blended approach” while cookies are still available to “maximise scale”.

“We're not at the point yet where on a per impression basis cookieless is as effective, but the prices are lower,” said Feldman, meaning marketers can get the same or better net result.

“Where deterministic IDs are available, great. But they are at limited scale. That might change depending on consumer behaviour as cookies go away completely. But right now, there are so few of them that the media prices go up, costs are higher. Using probabilistic approaches combined with contextual you can actually get really good scale.”

Where does he think deterministic IDs, those that rely largely rely on email addresses and people signing in to websites and platforms, will end up?

“Fewer solutions than there are today. The big question is what scale will they achieve? Log-in levels today are really small. Do we get to a double-digit percentage? Maybe I could see that. That gives you a good sample for measurement. But deterministic won’t be enough for activation,” said Feldman.

Cookies, economy, crunched

Feldman thinks advertisers will likely experiment more with cookieless approaches if the economic pressure increases and they need to cut cost while maintaining demand.

“Inevitably in that sort of environment, there's a greater focus on proving return,” said Feldman. “But cookies are already disappearing. In Australia, you are already missing more than half the market you want to reach – given that maybe a third of Chrome and Edge browsers don’t have cookies [and given Apple’s relatively high market share]. So to a large degree, they have already gone away, which means if marketers today are not already in cookieless environments they are already losing share.”

Yes means yes?

As Australia works to overhaul data privacy laws, the outcome may be a framework that lifts from the EU’s GDPR and California’s CCPA. In those jurisdictions, publishers and service providers are required to gain consent to collect, process and sell personal data. That has led to the rise of consent management platforms (CMPs) in a bid to prove consumers have knowingly consented to their data being used by third parties, i.e. for targeted advertising.

Feldman claims Quantcast’s CMP is notching “ anything from 50-90 per cent” consent rates, depending on site and country, with some EU member states states interpreting GDPR more strictly than others.

While consent rates since Apple updated its operating system last year have remained below 25 per cent in most markets, Feldman thinks that is “because Apple controls the language” used to seek consent.

“That’s the challenge – and I think that will always be the challenge [as regulation tightens locally]. It's hard to describe all the different use cases – measurement, personalisation, frequency capping. It's quite hard to fit all of that into a nice single sentence that people can actually understand.”

There are fears locally that the privacy review could end up taking a scorched earth approach, with all identifiers deeper than postcode at risk of being classified as personally identifiable information. That could create significant challenges for Quantcast and pretty much the entire digital advertising supply chain. Feldman is not worried. He doesn’t think regulators will go nuclear.

“I think, inevitably, there will be some middle ground.”