What you need to know:

• Chaos is on the cards as the industry stares down signal loss through the demise of third party cookies and sweeping Privacy Act legislation changes that will transform the way data is used and targeting is conducted, per a panel of marketing, media, agency and tech executives at News Corp’s D_Coded.
• ‘Fair and reasonable’ are about to become the most used terms in the marketing and media vernacular thanks to Australia’s rapidly accelerating privacy reform, Omnicom Media Group’s Chief Investment Officer, Kristiaan Kroon believes.
• LiveRamp Senior Vice President Daniella Harkins raised the broader issue of what’s considered personal identifiers, noting that IP addresses are also under threat through crackdowns on privacy. (Though that’s actually been proposed since February 2023.)
• Hence brands and publishers scrambling for first party data and consent to use it.
• For AdFixus Head of Sales Roland Irwin, a tighter relationship between brand and advertiser is a must, not just for targeting, but measurement and attribution. “Being able to have that data flow and actually measure results, be able to see whether performance is happening across the publishers you’re choosing to work with – that’s where the big shifts will be,” he said.
• Tourism operator, Journey Beyond, claims it is successfully straddling the creepy line thanks to recognition of the importance of consent-driven first-party data, the different perceptions of the value of targeting from customers, and select partnerships, per digital marketing lead, Wade Stokes.
• So far it’s working better than cookies: Journey Beyond’s tests with News Corp on matching and targeting have led to a 150 per cent uplift in performance.

‘Fair and reasonable’ are about to become the most used terms in the marketing and media vernacular thanks to Australia’s forthcoming privacy reform, Omnicom Media Group’s Chief Investment Officer, Kristiaan Kroon believes – once we get past the initial chaos of coping with sweeping regulatory changes and signal loss that are unprecedented in scope.

Because it’s not just those niggling third-party cookies brands, publishers and data brokers need to worry about: The huge canvas the Government is potentially putting across targeting in its forthcoming Privacy Act means using IP addresses and other forms of personal identifiers in marketing is very much under threat. And the new Privacy Commissioner is now talking explicitly about Australia going harder than anywhere else in the world.  

Kroon joined a group of panellists from across marketing, media, tech and agency at yesterday’s News Corp’s D_Coded event in Sydney discussing the very real implications for marketing accompanying the two horsemen on the horizon: Privacy regulation, and third-party cookie deprecation. Even with Google decision to keep third-party cookies chugging along for a little longer yet, there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that it’s when, not if, they go. And all agree, it’s high time brands and businesses upped their education, rethought partnerships and got a better handle on their data strategy if they’re to cope with both.

As reported by Mi3, the Federal Government has accelerated the timeline for presenting its reformed Privacy Act to the House of Representatives to August, well ahead of the anticipated end-of-year deadline many thought the industry would see.

With this comes very real fears around the future current and emerging marketing and customer matching processes. Website pixel tracking, hashed customer data matching between entities and the use of anything remotely resembling a personal identifier, such as IP address, could be called into question under proposed reform – with what constitutes personally identifiable data massively expanded under the Attorney General’s Privacy Act overhaul. (As IAG analytics and AI chief Willem Paling last year told Mi3: “If anyone was still thinking they could use new identity platforms, clean rooms and complex hashing processes to avoid being subject to the Privacy Act, they’ll need a new approach very soon.”)

“Whether we like it or not, we all need to start thinking differently about how we obtain customer insights and how we use them,” News Corp Managing Director Client Product, Pippa Leary, told D_Coded attendees.

However, Leary’s panel wasn’t about frightening the pants off the industry. Instead, the discussion was couched within an event aimed at spurring more businesses to test and adopt new data and technologies, as well as strike new partnerships with publishers investing in targeting solutions across audiences. Of course News is hoping its own evolving, increasingly sophisticated data-driven advertising solutions and advancements, several of which were revealed during the upfront-style event and are based on 17.2 million unique visitors per month to its platforms, will be options marketers take up as signal loss inevitably occurs elsewhere.

Chaos incoming

Asked whether the industry is facing sheer chaos, a shift of those last surviving dollars outside the walled gardens going into the platforms, a renewed interest in contextual targeting, or something else entirely, Omnicom’s Kroon saw chaos to start with.

He last week told Mi3 that privacy reform will take the industry a decade to get to grips with.  

“We don’t know what we’re facing, apart from the Government’s intent, which is that ‘data sharing is bad’. It’s already become difficult. Mid-term, it will then become about what is fair and reasonable – that will become the most used term in our industry,” Kroon told attendees. “It’s the one the ACCC and AG [Attorney-General] are really focusing in on; what’s reasonable to do with data. And it will be not just if I can do it, but how I feel about my customer or a regulator deciding whether I should have done it. That’s a real upgrade for us as an industry. That’s about engaging with legal, IT. That’s the conversation we are having today with a lot of our major clients.”

LiveRamp Senior Vice President Daniella Harkins also forecast chaos, the precise level depending on the mix and maturity of brands as well as their accessibility to data. She spied some leaning towards more contextual targeting too, plus continued spend in walled gardens.

“But more and more, what we’re seeing is customers are trying to lean into this and trying to figure out how to better use their data and unlock new opportunities to use data,” Harkins said. “Regardless of whether the cookie goes away or not, there’s a better way of transacting and there’s a better way to drive results. Sometimes that messaging gets lost in all of this, but I think it’s incredibly exciting.”

Group Manager Digital and Loyalty for Australian tourism operator Journey Beyond, Wade Stokes, subscribed to the rise of “the haves and the have nots” based on level of investment into first-party data strategies.

“You’re going to see a mix of hyper-personalised advertising versus some really random ads for products where you don’t know what it is. It’ll be the best of both and the worst of both,” he predicted.

For AdFixus Head of Sales Roland Irwin, a tighter data-based relationship between brand and advertiser is a must, not just for targeting, but measurement and attribution.

“Being able to have that data flow and actually measure results, be able to see whether performance is happening across the publishers you’re choosing to work with – that’s where the big shifts will be,” he said.

IP issues

What’s causing issues is a lack of knowledge around what is going to change once Google switches off third-party cookies and privacy reforms are enacted, panellists agreed. As was pointed out repeatedly, brands are already living in a world of signal loss, with all browsers bar Google Chrome blocking third-party cookies.

But signal loss is much bigger than cookies and it’s vital the industry actually starts to take note that IP addresses and pretty much every other identifier are also under threat, LiveRamp’s Harkins said.

“We believe we are going to continually see pressure across the board on multiple different signals, IP being one of them. You can’t just look at like the continually evolving regulatory landscape and not think more is under threat,” Harkins commented. “Is it gone today? No. But this is more about how we prepare ourselves so whatever happens, you’re not overly reliant on one signal or identifier, and you now can still run your business and still generate the insights you need.”

LiveRamp’s solution is to provide an interoperable identifier that translates across every partner in the industry. To this end, it’s been building out relationships with walled gardens to brands and publishers including News Corp – and claiming some big wins over cookies.

Irwin saw two big misconceptions. The first is that all cookies are going and are bad. “Third-party cookies are the ones that are dying. First-party cookies are fine, they’re durable. The cookies you deploy are the cookies you can run and operate and collect the data back into your own ecosystem,” he reminded the audience.

Deploying your own first-party cookies also lasts up to 12 months, rather than the more limited lifespan of third-party cookies. “We will provide the opportunity for people to deploy their own ID on their own systems,” Irwin said of Adfixus’ identity solution.

“Because of that and the durability that comes with it, you do get complete addressability and measurement across any of your cues coming in all, all anonymously, without PII, without any problems going throughout the privacy side as well,” he claimed. “It’s your deployment; it’s your data.”

Creepy

Yet even when first-party data ducks are in order and consent is present, avoiding being too creepy remains a concern. So where’s the line?

Journey Beyond is of Australia’s largest experiential tourism businesses with 13 brands across the country including the Ghan, Indian Pacific and Cruise Whitsundays. With that comes different audiences, Stokes said – and different appetites for targeting.

“The line is interesting because the line is different for every individual,” Stokes said. “I was talking to my 16-year-old stepdaughter, the other day, and she’s more than willing to give her information out as she knows what she’s getting out of it. So that education piece on the customer side is part of this. She knows she’s going to be able to access content, get a discount code or a loyalty program out of it, and she’ll be willing to give that information.

“On the flip side, I’ve got parents who literally send me every text message, and every email it to validate it, because apparently that’s what I do for a job.”

Ultimately, getting targeting right comes back to consent, understanding what that customer signs up to, and delivering just that. But informed consent in its own right is a challenge – because under AG proposals brands, publishers and the supply chain have to be able to explain in very simple terms what they will do with customer data. If they cannot explain it to someone of below average literacy and intelligence, they effectively can’t do it without risking breaching the Act and opening themselves up to massive fines and the prospect of class actions.

“We also have to work with our partners on this, and that comes back to trust, keeping that relationship strong also being really robust about the why behind it. Why are we trying to do this? And what is the risk appetite?” Stokes said.

Journey Beyond has not only become adept at using its own first-party data, but enriching this with other sources such as News Corp. Stokes admitted “robust conversations” ensued with the legal team to make a trial with News happen, but the “juice was worth the squeeze” with its niche brand, Outback Spirit.

“This is a 20-day $15,000-$20,000 trip. It’s a high yield, repeat traveller rate, but low volume. You understand straight away customer targeting is super important as it’s not for everyone. We needed to understand exactly who we are talking to from a retargeting perspective,” Stokes explained.

“We tested the waters, put our data in [with News] and saw a 60 per cent match rate straight away. When we compared this to a typical purchase of display advertising, we saw 150 per cent performance lift.

“But for me, what was really interesting was we also tested those against our owned persona-based audiences we use internally… The tests smashed them out the ballpark of every other audience we built out. This match alone beat that by another 40 per cent.

“I’m not going to put all our eggs in one basket … But I think [this approach] is really important particularly from a performance perspective – when you’re looking to charge conversion and drive that right message, right person, right time.”