There’s never a dull moment in programmatic advertising. This week we have seen two big announcements from Google and The Trade Desk plus some other major news – all recapped in a succinct newsletter with my two cents thrown in for good measure, what’s not to love? Share this with your peers, colleagues and family members (well, maybe not family members).
Google to drop Android Advertising ID (AAID)
In a completely expected twist of fate, Google announced yesterday that they are going to drop the AAID from Android and instead will implement privacy-first proposals from The Privacy Sandbox. They expect this to take 2 years, so no need for panic stations just yet.
The good news:
This creates a consistent expectation of tracking for consumers across environments
It’s really positive that Google are working with w3c to take proposals into testing (as opposed to Apple who have rolled out their own solutions with no consultation and keep having to change them because they don’t work)
Google are working with the CMA in UK to ensure any changes don’t overly favor their already gigantic position in the industry
The industry continues to mature, and this is a good step to a scalable (scalable is absolutely critical, like the most critical thing in digital advertising of all time) and privacy first alternative to the AAID
The bad news
This is going to be slow.
Really
Really
Slow
I think we’d all want solutions quicker, but these next couple of years are going to set new foundations for which digital advertising is built upon, so we may as well take some time getting that right as opposed to rolling things out quickly and nervously waiting for regulator feedback, then making amends. That would be a pointless merry-go-round.
I’m involved in the PATCG and got to see Chromium (the open-source project which Chrome is built upon) talk about their Privacy Sandbox proposal called Attribution Reporting API recently. It’s honestly fascinating to see where the future of all digital measurement is going – well worth leaning into these updates and initiatives.
The Trade Desk launched OpenPath amongst mass confusion
On the surface OpenPath is a very simple mechanism which will be available within The Trade Desk. It’ll allow buyers to connect directly into a publisher via a Prebid integration, removing the need for an SSP or another header bidding solution. Supply chain inefficiency and lack of transparency gone in one fail swoop….
Seems legit, but once you do a bit of digging about the incentives, one of them is to remove inventory sold by Google Open Bidding (i.e an alternative to Prebid for header bidding management) and TTD will also charge a % of spend fee to the publishers who integrate directly into the platform.
Two major challenges on this announcement:
They are taking control away from their customers on how they want to buy supply (i.e now being unable to use Open Bidding publishers – which, whilst massively duplicative and gives Google an advantage, you may want to still do in some scenarios), this kneecaps some company’s ability to differentiate
There’s a clear conflict of interest – how will they allocate demand based on the level of integrations they have - particularly where they make additional margin for spending (i.e OpenPath)?
I’ve always been bullish on TTD but I have to admit, I did sigh at this announcement and even more so because it was the day before their earnings - narrative seems to be leading business direction as opposed to doing the right thing. Plus, taking on the 1,000lb gorilla that is Google is a risk…. let’s see how they use AdX (Google Ad Exchange) in retaliation.
In other news
TCF rumbles on - IAB Europe announced at the back end of last week that they are to appeal the APD ruling into TCF breaching GDPR. I recorded a podcast where we try and breakdown what this all means with Mathieu Roche from ID5 here – www.theadpod.com. As always, rock on IAB, you’re incredibly important for our industry!
How bored are you with the term ‘in-housing’? Answer = probably very. The reality is a hybrid model (a mix of in-house and agency) is most applicable for the majority of brands, but there’s a lot to consider. The TPA Digital team have pulled together a handy whitepaper outlining all you need to know on hybrid models - https://www.tpa-digital.com/considerations-of-hybrid-inhouse-model
That’s it for another Two Cents newsletter. Stay safe.