Digiday+ Research: Many publishers can’t reach most of their audience with alternate identifiers
This research is based on unique data collected from our proprietary audience of publisher, agency, brand and tech insiders. It’s available to Digiday+ members. More from the series →
When agencies and advertisers began casting about for replacements to the third-party cookie, many of them pounced on alternate identifiers.
And while publishers expect that those identifiers will play a key role in how they target and measure ads going forward, at the moment the identifiers are facing a scale issue that will have to get worked out, according to new Digiday+ research.
In November, Digiday asked 76 publisher professionals questions on a number of topics, including how they are preparing for returns to the office, how their employers are dealing with vaccination requirements and how they are adapting their businesses to the deprecation of third-party cookies. Of those 76, 54 respondents indicated they had at least direct knowledge of the company’s plans to replace third-party cookies; a majority of those 54 work directly on the plans.
A significant majority agreed that alternate identifiers will play a “key role” in their ad businesses after Google deprecates third-party cookies. Yet at the moment, the identifiers offer a limited picture of many publishers’ audiences. More than 40% said that they can reach less than half, or none of their audience using these emerging products. When subtracting the responses from panelists who said they did not know, that share rises above 60%.
This limitation is likely to get smoothed out as Google’s 2023 deadline draws closer. But it also helps explain why publishers, who have had their post-cookie game plans set for most of this year, remain worried about the effects that third-party cookie deprecation will have on their businesses.
More in Media
BuzzFeed’s sale of First We Feast seen as a ‘good sign’ for the M&A media market
Investor analysts are describing BuzzFeed’s sale of First We Feast for $82.5 million as a good sign for the media M&A market — which itself is an indication of how ugly that market had become.
Media Briefing: Efforts to diversify workforces stall for some publishers
A third of the nine publishers that have released workforce demographic reports in the past year haven’t moved the needle on the overall diversity of their companies, according to the annual reports that are tracked by Digiday.
Creators are left wanting more from Spotify’s push to video
The streaming service will have to step up certain features in order to shift people toward video podcasts on its app.