“I think a big challenge that everybody knows about is signal loss.” 

OMD Worldwide Chief Media Officer Ben Hovaness, quoted in AdExchanger 

 

Cookie coverage will plateau at 13% worldwide. Replacement signals from IP addresses, to link decoration, to mobile SDKs are on borrowed time – or so the press keeps telling us.  

Even if they remain unaffected by rising pressure from the public, tech giants and legislators alike – cookie alternatives which rely on comparable people-based profiling approaches suffer high opt out rates – around 70% according to multiple different sources.  

The good news is there are already multiple examples of robust solutions, already in market, and in many cases even improving on how things were done before. 

With the added benefit that these solutions side-step inevitable further disruption down the line. 

What else do they have in common? 

As it turns out, they all incorporate something old, trusted and established in media circles… with something new, innovative and cutting edge.  

Here are just a few examples: 

 

1. From Viewability to Attention

First, see the rise of attention as an example of consumer-centric advertising’s potential rebirth. Emerging as an evolution of viewability, attention takes in a combination of newer, more sophisticated measures – from time spent, to ad volume, ad to content ratio and other page quality features. Again, all of which add value for advertisers, and none of which surveil the individual consumer.

 

2. Rebirth of Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM)

Quoting ControlvExposed, “Multi-touch attribution (MTA) will soon be redundant due to its reliance on the cookie and inability to provide the accuracy it once did”.

This is where multi-touch attribution (MMM) comes in – its renaissance comes once again in response to signal loss, of which cookie chaos is just the latest example. And with people-based signals on the wane, there is a necessary shift from individual and seemingly deterministic data to more predictive models – especially since machine learning and AI is more than ever accessible to all.

 

3. Performance Measurement without IDs, Cookies or Profiling

Delving further into campaign measurement specifically – it is often said performance measurement is most seriously disrupted by signal loss. Versus brand uplift, this is certainly the case.

However, here as elsewhere, there are innovations combining old and new, which are helping advertisers see in the dark. Using Circana’s point of sale data, for example, which is untethered from any individual or user profiling, Nano was able to successfully measure direct sales results for Heineken around a new launch in the UK.

 

4. Lantern: Online Performance Panel for TV

There are parallels between the above and Lantern – a collaboration between UK broadcasters ITV, Channel4 and Sky. Still in the process of being built, what is again interesting here is the use of a panel – essentially probabilistic – as seemingly the most accurate, trustworthy way of measuring the online performance impact of TV ad campaigns. Lantern will measure “search queries, web traffic, social media engagement, and conversion.” With proof of concept results to be released at Christmas, Marketing Week reports.

 

5. Intent Personas: Audience Targeting, Tracking-Free

Finally, there are yet more approaches that have emerged, marrying the latest technology with traditional techniques. Somewhat like the above, Nano’s own Intent Personas product uses trusted, tried and tested panel data – in this case, to keep AI honest.

Intent Personas’ aim is to provide targeted scale, with greater accuracy than dwindling cookies, or other cookie-like alternatives such as IP addresses or certain IDs which either lack scale, pose privacy risks – or both.

These Personas may be either be off the shelf – representing interests or demographics – or unique, custom-built in collaboration with specific brands.

Put differently, the aim is bringing together intent targeting and context with classic media research methods to verify audiences and manually vet machine learning models for accuracy.

It is our belief that here for targeting, as elsewhere solving other challenges posed by signal loss, old plus new is the smart formula for future-proofing advertising.

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Interested in finding out more about Nano and Intent Personas? Get in touch.