GDPR Putting Ad Tech Firms In Jeopardy

Following the news that GDPR has put ad tech firms in jeopardy while strengthening the hand of giants such as Google and Facebook, Mayur Upadhyaya, Managing Director, EMEA at Janrain, discusses the change the regulation will have on the digital advertising industry and how firms can embrace consent to improve relationships with their audiences.

Mayur Upadhyaya, Managing Director, EMEA at Janrain:

“The consent supply chain is an inflection point for third party data brokers. For many that have collected data over the years, the ability to demonstrate that the data has been both collected and used appropriately has always been a challenge. However, this isn’t simply a concern for data brokers, but also for the entire Data Management Platform (DMP) category who have historically relied on third party cookies within their ad-networks for tracking, including being widely used by publishers for ad-delivery.

The opportunity for publishers now is to adopt this paradigm shift and begin a more direct relationship with their audience. If we look at the adoption of programmatic delivery, its adoption has really been about driving Cost Per Thousand (CPM) through tighter segmentation via demographics (e.g location, gender, etc), a change which transformed the industry. GDPR could be the next catalyst for change.

What if, instead of programmatic delivery, publishers embraced personalisation, and used declared and consented attributes to deliver a more relevant experience? Platforms that leverage declared data such as Facebook, will certainly benefit from the demise of the inferred and tracked attribute marketplace. However, publishers who invest in direct-to-consumer platforms such as customer identity access management (CIAM)/ customer data platforms (CDP) will be able to continue offering highly targeted personalised ads programmatically, and the ability to collect attributes and consent in context – (e.g “can we use your location, for more relevant content?”).”