A world in constant change. Digital advertising is preparing for a new, profound transformation. It is not the first and it certainly will not be the last. Google in its Chrome browser has decided, as Safari and Firefox have already done, to block third-party cookies, the small fragments of information that are saved in the computers of navigators to trace their routes online.
From 2023 this revolution will block the possibility for all third parties other than Google (which is developing other ways to track surfers exclusively) to sell advertisements based on user navigation on various sites. It is a situation that has already caused the reaction of the associations of EU publishers (Enpa and Emma) who reiterate that Google plays this card to block competitors, because in reality for years “it has been able to make much more sophisticated use of personalized advertising than others”. A different vision, in short, from the “privacy first web“presented by Google itself.
In reality, it is not the only challenge for the open internet-based advertising industry: even so-called wallet gardens, closed platforms that do not allow third parties to sell advertising directly, such as Facebook, Twitter and Amazon (whose revenues of advertising have overtaken the golden goose of the AWS cloud), they are building a growing obstacle. To which the industry also reacts with innovation.
We asked Ilaria Zampori, General Manager Italy and Spain of Quantcast, a multinational technology company for online advertising, which has recently presented its new platform based on artificial intelligence that allows brands, agencies and publishers to know and increase their your audience, what you think is going on. Starting with Google’s move.
What impact can it have?
It’s not symbolic: Google’s Chrome browser has about 70% of the market. Before Google, Apple moved with Safari’s Intelligent tracking prevention, but the market share of the Cupertino house is much lower. Google’s move reaches many more consumers: it is truly moving towards an epochal revolution of the ecosystem.
What happens now?
There are four possible scenarios: we hand over control to closed ecosystems like Google, Facebook and Amazon, but this will impact the long tail of the Internet, because smaller publishers won’t survive; we put all the sites on payment, but we have already seen that this approach does not work and strongly decreases the visits; we put login systems to access the contents, but it becomes very uncomfortable for users; finally we work together for a better balance. Here, we work for the latter hypothesis with sector associations, consortia and trying to innovate.
What are the possible developments if you really go towards a world without third-party cookies?
There are two ways. One is the “contextual and cohorts” approach, ie targeting large groups of consumers by the type of sites they visit and by age group in a “mechanical” way. It is a step backwards, towards advertising that does not serve the user well, which is often not relevant to him. The other is the “identity” approach, which we believe is the best.
How does it work?
There are two modes: the deterministic one, which anonymously identifies consumers using data relating to their devices (operating system, a unique identifier for each user that keeps accounts of multiple devices), and the probabilistic one, which instead analyzes with intelligence artificial the anonymized behaviors of the consumer and who can scale and therefore give volumes. In our opinion they are both punishable together. And they are very important.
Why is this the best strategy for you?
We strongly believe in the identity-based approach because we believe it is very important to keep the idea of the open internet without sacrificing it together with third-party cookies. The important thing is the open internet: there are 5 billion people in the world who spend half their time on the internet and all this is possible thanks to the open internet, thanks to an open internet model based on advertising. One of the original sins of the network was not having transparently communicated to the consumer what his role is within the ecosystem and how important it is to have his consent to advertising by making sure that he decides where his data ends up. . It is the most important theme for profiled and personalized advertising. For the ecosystem to survive, the lender must be advertising.
Tracking-based advertising is not only criticized by activists but also by many governments, which are increasingly sensitive to the issue of privacy. And the large-scale diffusion of ad-blockers, the software that block the tracking, is read as a great vote of no confidence by the public of users in this model of advertising perceived as invasive. How do you respond to this criticism?
That’s where we started, analyzing what our mistake was. The internet has been brilliant in providing a multitude of free content, which was not possible in any other form. The flaw, however, was that it did not communicate transparently with the consumer. Supporting the open internet means making consumers understand that advertising is fundamental: it is what allows them to benefit from news and contents that come from different sources. If the consumer does not understand this, we have very important impacts on the long tail of the internet: small publishers do not survive. It therefore also becomes a question of diversity and plurality of information. This is why I think it is important to clearly state that the main financier of the internet is advertising. In order for the ecosystem to survive, it is necessary to communicate with the consumer and present him with the importance of his consent. It is important that you use your data anonymously so I have more profiled and relevant advertising, and then put the choice in the hands of the consumer: how to use the data online and in what way.
The European legislation of the GDPR also serves this purpose. What results per product, from your point of view?
The GDPR has complicated things too much for the consumer, who sees pop-ups for browsing with complex information, structured in a very legal way. We need to move towards a world of greater transparency, with the important role of the consumer within the ecosystem.
Finally, a comment on the news that Google has reached an agreement to pay publishers to be able to publish excerpts of articles in its search results. What do you think?
It’s good news: it’s a small revenge for publishers who have felt overwhelmed by Google’s approach, which in its world allows consumers to enjoy content that they don’t directly produce. It is a step forward that goes in the direction of copyright in Europe and the Antitrust rulings. I repeat: nothing but good news.