In an increasingly fragmented landscape, cross-device technology stands to enable marketers to reach consumers whether they’re using a mobile phone, tablet or laptop. There’s the obvious benefit to marketers of better and more accurate targeting. But consumers also win, as they get more relevant, personalized ad experiences because marketers can better identify a single user across devices so they aren’t delivering duplicative or disruptive ads on multiple screens to the same user. However, the market for identity solutions is still emerging and can be complex to navigate for marketers. What are common terminology, definitions and standards for cross-device? What’s the best protocol for choosing a solution and a provider?
MediaMath has joined the effort to reduce complexity around identity by partnering with the DMA on an RFI guide that will define terms and a set of standards to help marketers vet vendors. The effort was discussed at last week’s Advertising Week event held in New York City in the panel “Three Keys to Choosing your Identity Solutions Partners.” MediaMath’s Philipp Tsipman, VP of product for identity management, participated in the panel with David Kohl CEO, Morgan Digital Ventures, Kate Clough VP, Engagement Planning Director, MRM//McCANN, Jeff Smith CMO, LiveRamp, and Julian Zilberbrand EVP of Audience Science, Viacom. Some highlights from the panel:
- Zilberbrand of Viacom: “It’s unique because you have to understand the questions that you have to ask. Which I don’t think a lot of people do know the questions they have to ask. How to evaluate different data partners, deterministic, probablisitic, how am I looking at that, how am I determining what makes sense. We are at a point of time where more and more people have to get educated on data.”
- Clough of McCann: “I didn’t feel like banner ads were really impacting me until the past year…I just didn’t feel like banner ads attracted my attention or my interest. In the past couple months, they definitely have. They spoke to me…they don’t feel creepy. You don’t want to see your name in a banner ad.”
- Smith of LiveRamp: “It isn’t really just about the classic clip, getting the right message in front of the right person at the right time. It’s really understanding every touchpoint you have with a consumer with your brand at any point you have it. To do that, you need to be able to understand who that person is in any channel you find them.”
- Zilberbrand: “Data’s ability to shift and enhance the creative story which I think is oftentimes missed when we talk about device graphs…there is something there that ultimately fed the message that made it more relevant.”
- Tsipman: Discussed with the DMA group that there were “challenges in actually having folks measure accuracy across the board and the fact that there is no standard like that in the industry. We can’t necessaruly solve that all together in the next few months or as we looked at it over the last few months. But we can certainly start with really drilling down to some of the questions that people have to ask and also some the information they need to bring as buyers to actually make this data and these solutions relevant to them as far as their use cases are concerned.”
Watch the full segment on identity, “TRUTHS and LIES with Cross-Device ID,” here. The “Three Keys” panel starts at 1:40:25. To read more about the RFI guide, read the coverage in Ad Age here.