A note from IAB Europe's CEO, Townsend Feehan on her remarks for delivery at the DG Just Stakeholder Roundtable on the Initiative for a voluntary business pledge to simplify the management by consumers of cookies and personalised advertising choices.
Thank you for the invitation to attend today (Friday 28th April) and the opportunity to participate in DG JUST’s reflection over the coming months.
In my speaking time, I would like to call out two assumptions in the Discussion Note circulated in advance of today’s meeting that are worth bearing in mind, and two ways that IAB Europe can support the reflection.
First, the Discussion Note helpfully acknowledges that personalised advertising delivers benefits to both consumers and advertisers. The reality is that personalisation is attractive to advertisers because it offers the prospect of less wasted spend; the Discussion Note explicitly suggests that consumers understand and accept this fact.
Second, the Discussion Note’s focus on improving information to consumers seems to confirm DG JUST’s continuing faith in the information-and-choice paradigm for European consumers on which existing privacy and data protection law are based (as opposed to contemplating a different paradigm that would take choice and control out of consumers’ hands).
These seem to us to be important and positive foundational assumptions.
With respect to how IAB Europe can support the reflection that is being kicked off today, we believe we are well-placed to contribute to each of the two key areas of focus laid out in the Discussion Note.
First, with respect to information to be provided to consumers, IAB Europe can help give practical effect to a future DG JUST pledge by ensuring that its Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF), which is implemented on hundreds of thousands of EU websites, integrates additional information disclosures. TCF is a best-practice minimum standard that helps websites solicit, establish, record, and signal a GDPR legal basis and ePrivacy consent for data processing for advertising. The TCF dialogue box that opens when a user visits a website or app for the first time could be modified to include an explicit reference in the first layer to the site being “ad-funded”, or “partially dependent on advertising revenue”, or “ad-free and subscription-based”. The dialogue box could also explicitly state that content is offered in exchange for a willingness to receive advertising. TCF UIs already indicate what “trackers” or other personal data the website or app is asking for user agreement to process, for what purpose(s), and the legal basis/es for processing (whether consent or legitimate interests) if the user agrees.
Second, with respect to exploring “alternatives to tracking-based advertising” that are also personalised in some way, we can provide insight into the state of play on the industry’s own work to identify and further develop alternatives to third-party cookies and help the stakeholders participating today understand the implications of that work for consumers. As DG JUST and other colleagues here today will be aware, there are already alternatives (for example, personalisation based solely on context) and work to identify means of personalising advertising that do not involve the use of cookies has been accelerated in recent years by technology and business decisions taken by browser and operating system manufacturers.
It is important that this reflection be clear-eyed about there being winners and losers in any evolution of the paradigm. As an example, arguably contextual advertising works for eCommerce platforms, single-topic or ‘niche’ sites, and large news sites that have the resources to run sports and lifestyle feature sections, but less well – or not at all – for smaller news sites that do not have those resources. Even large news organisations using only contextual would need to let a great deal of content go “unmonetised” as it is difficult to match advertising content to serious news content. Similarly, certain news media platforms cannot build commercially attractive audience segments based solely on first-party data due to their content being limited to “serious” news, user engagement with which reveals nothing about a product or service that someone might be interested in buying.
And when specific categories of online actors “lose”, the consumers that have benefited from free or low-cost access to their content and services also lose.
IAB Europe would be pleased to host a workshop to which DG JUST and all attendees of today’s Roundtable would be invited to present the state of play on the development of these alternative models. I hereby formally extend that invitation.
We are looking forward to participating in this important reflection between now and the end of the year.
Thank you again,
Townsend Feehan, CEO, IAB Europe
27th April 2023. Brussels, Belgium: IAB Europe, the leading European-level association for the digital advertising and marketing ecosystem, signed today a letter to policymakers on the Data Act with fellow European-level Industry Trade Associations including the Advertising Information Group (AIG), the Federation of European Data and Marketing (FEDMA), The European Confederation of Pharmaceutical Entrepreneurs (EUCOPE) and SMEUnited and its National Digital Advertising Association members including Alliance Digitale (IAB France), BVDW, IAB Ireland, IAB Poland, IAB Spain, and IAB Sweden.
The letter, sent to several Members of the European Parliament, the Swedish Presidency, and Commissioner Mr. Breton, warns of potential conflicts between the Data Act and the GDPR, emphasising the importance of ensuring a fair playing field. In particular, the letter expresses signatories’ concerns about the European Commission’s original proposal and the Council’s position on Article 6.2 (b) that clearly interfere with the GDPR and would lead to unintended consequences that will work against achieving a level playing field and impede innovation.
The signatories made a recommendation to policymakers involved in the trilogue negotiations to ensure that the Data Act aligns with the GDPR by supporting the text adopted by Parliament concerning article 6.2 (b). Furthermore, they urged policymakers to ensure that the provisions set out in the GDPR, including safeguards to user privacy, prevail for the processing of personal data. Granting that the current EU data protection legal framework will secure a future-proof Data Act text, welcoming competition, growth in the digital economy and future innovations instead of ruling them out from the outset.
The full letter can be viewed on IAB Europe’s website here and below.
Date: 27 April 2023
Dear MEP Ms del Castillo and MEP Mr Lagodinsky, MEP Mr Bielan, MEP Mr García del Blanco, MEP Ms Kumpula-Natri, MEP Ms de la Pisa Carrión, MEP Mr Mituța, MEP Mr Boeselager, MEP Ms Lizzi, MEP Ms Kontoura,
Dear Ms Björesten and Mr Källström,
Dear Commissioner Mr Breton,
Industry representatives warn of potential conflicts between Data Act and GDPR and emphasise the importance of ensuring a fair playing field ahead of the trilogue negotiations.
We are a group of diverse stakeholders, including SMEs, representing different industries within the business community, including digital advertising and marketing. As the institutions enter trilogue negotiations on the proposal for a regulation on the harmonised rules on fair access to and use of data (the “Data Act”), we would like to reiterate our concerns about the potential unintended consequences of Article 6.2 (b). These concerns apply to the wording in the European Commission’s original proposal and the Council’s position that clearly interfere with the GDPR and work against achieving a level playing field and impede innovation.
Regarding the Council’s changes to Article 6.2. (b), we fear that the scope of action for third parties is unjustifiably restricted by adding ambiguity to what constitutes an “objectively necessary” service and allowing profiling solely for the purpose of service delivery. Lack of legal certainty in the already complex digital world will trigger reticence to innovate for fear of a sanction.
While we support the changes proposed by the European Parliament for Articles 6. 2 (b) and 6.2 (c), we point out that the current wording of Article 5 (1) contradicts Article 6.2 (b) by adding an indicative list of limited purposes for data processing. On the contrary, we believe that the Data Act should be flexible and future-proof, welcoming future innovations instead of ruling them out from the outset.
The Data Act interferes with the GDPR and eliminates the legal basis of processing for third parties
By effectively prohibiting practices that are fully compliant with the GDPR in Article 6.2 (b), the Data Act substantially undermines the existing data protection framework (GDPR) and its core principle that processing of personal data is permitted so long as it relies on one of the six legal bases.
Germany’s statement on 12 January 2023 proposed to remove Article 6.2 (b) from the Data Act, arguing that “the GDPR and the sector-specific data protection law must not be circumvented and their level of protection must be maintained”. We agree that the Data Act should establish norms for a coherent legal framework and should align with the GDPR's legal basis, as stated also in Article 1.3 of the Data Act, to ensure that the European data protection legal framework, especially the GDPR, remains applicable.
Circumventing the GDPR with a set of contradicting provisions would create commercial and legal uncertainty for entities that have adapted to its rules and strip them of the possibility to legally process personal data for profiling purposes. Additionally, due to a very broad definition of profiling that is still being interpreted by Data Protection Authorities and Courts, the magnitude of such prohibition is well underestimated and will outlaw longstanding and widely accepted processing activities in all industry sectors.
This can be also illustrated by the following example in the energy sector:
A connected product, such as an electricity meter, collects data through the use of its product. The data is then made available to the user through a third-party user-facing interface. Such an interface assists the user and facilitates his/her decision-making, for example by answering questions, such as “How much energy am I consuming per month?”. The possibility to answer this question relies on profiling operations related to the user’s activities and the use of the electricity meter. The prohibition of profiling would ultimately prevent device manufacturers from exploring lawful partnerships with
trusted third parties. The possibilities to enhance their products by offering customised, value-added services to consumers by handling personal and non-personal data would be significantly curtailed.
Current provisions of the Data Act fail to ensure a level playing field and are in contrast with the regulation’s aim to foster innovation and economic growth
The main issue lies in the differential treatment of the “data holder” who is allowed to carry out profiling activities, compared to the “data recipient”, who is prohibited from doing so under Article 6.2 (b) of the Data Act.
This discrepancy could favour vertically integrated enterprises that already hold large amounts of data, aggravating data concentration, and enabling such enterprises to leverage further their integration and their data, including for profiling purposes.
The Data Act aims to facilitate new and innovative uses of existing data. However, some businesses, which rely on the lawful processing of data for profiling , could be affected by Article 6.2 (b) of the Data Act. This could limit their ability to use data, create and train algorithms, which could have negative consequences not only for incubators of high-end digital skills but also SMEs that support the wider EU economy. Widespread data sharing allows SMEs to leverage customer data and provide efficient services and goods tailored to customer’s needs. Hence, the Data Act is crucial for SMEs’ willingness to access and process data and to allow new, innovative SMEs to emerge, grow and scale up. As highlighted above, such developments cannot be in line with EU’s competition goals and threaten the diversity of the digital economy.
Concluding remarks
Given the potential impact of the Data Act on the digital economy and data-driven innovation, we believe it is crucial for policymakers to support the text adopted by Parliament regarding article 6.2 (b). Specifically, we recommend that policymakers ensure that the Data Act aligns with the GDPR and that it enables, rather than undermines, new data-driven business models and supply chains. In order to deliver pro-competitive outcomes, it is important for service providers, including commercial partnerships acting as third parties, to be able to continue to rely on the relevant GDPR legal bases when processing personal data for the purposes of profiling. Only these prerequisites will ensure that the EU's regulatory framework promotes innovation, competition, and growth in the digital economy while maintaining user privacy and data protection. We therefore urge co-legislators to take these considerations during the trilogue negotiations on the Data Act.
Signatories
Press contact: Helen Mussard, IAB Europe - mussard@iabeurope.eu
Footnotes:
On the 18th of April, IAB Europe hosted its first hybrid Great Debate event of 2023 to discuss and debate Retail Media.
This event brought industry experts together to discuss how the Retail Media market in Europe is developing, how a Retail Media solution can be developed, key measurement principles to consider, and how Retail Media investment can provide effective closed-loop measurement.
In this post, you will find an overview of each of the sessions as well as links to the video recordings for you to view in your own time. Enjoy!
Keynote Presentation: The Retail Media Landscape in Europe with IAB Europe’s Chief Economist Daniel Knapp
In this keynote presentation, Daniel shared the latest stats and facts on the Retail Media landscape and the opportunities available in Europe today. He shared why he feels too many marketers are still seeing retail media as nothing more than a dedicated channel and instead that it is “an infrastructure that will bring about great change in digital advertising”.
If you’re a member of IAB Europe and would like to receive the presentation deck, please email Marie-Clare (puffett@iabeurope.eu)
Watch the session recording here
Panel Discussion with Audience Q&A: The Retail Media Landscape in Europe
A panel of industry experts discussed the key trends and developments happening in the Retail Media market across Europe. They shared how Retail Media is brand safe and a win win win for advertisers, and how it is a good way to reach engaged audiences. They also addressed key challenges around transparency and technical implementations that still need to be overcome.
Giles Longhurst, Managing Director, EMEA & APAC, Connexity (e-commerce division of Taboola) moderated this session and was joined by:
Watch the session recording here
Panel Discussion with Audience Q&A: Retailer 101 – What You Need to Know
In this session, a panel of retail media experts came together to share insights and best practices from their own businesses. They discussed the need to be bold to monetise the retail media space, as there is such high demand for it, and the importance of opening up the opportunity to purchase and creating standardisaton to establish a successful retail media solution.
Babs Kehinde, Senior Director, Commerce Media at PubMatic moderated this session and was joined by:
Watch the session recording here
Panel Discussion with Audience Q&A – Closing the Loop – Retail Media Measurement
Our final panel of industry experts rounded up the above-mentioned conversations to discuss how Retail Media offers the promise of closed-loop measurement. They discussed the importance of first-party data for measurement, the advantages for advertisers being able to optimise in real-time - “By directly matching customer ID data with impressions, it is transforming how we are optimising our advertising budgets.” Laura Badea, Partner eCommerce at Wavemaker - and the value of data clean rooms in this process.
Salvatore Cospito, CEO, Reetmo & Head of Retail Media Group, IAB Spain moderated this session and was joined by:
Watch the session recording here
If you’d like to find out more about our Retail Media event and access other available materials on the topic, please follow the links below:
In order to respond to the changes and needs of the market, while continuing to help players in the online ecosystem comply with certain requirements of the ePrivacy Directive and the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), the Transparency and Consent Framework needs to be updated on a regular basis. In particular, constant evolutions in case law as well as in guidelines of Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) place ever higher demands on market participants in terms of data protection requirements. The TCF instances have therefore drawn inspiration from them to bring some new iterations to the Framework, including some changes related to the Action Plan that was submitted to and validated by the Belgian Data Protection Authority (more information here).
These new iterations will be released as part of the Transparency & Consent Framework v2.2 in the next few weeks, and TCF participants will have until the end of Q3 2023 to make the necessary changes to their respective implementations. All iterations have been developed to avoid breaking changes to the existing v2.1 Technical Specifications and facilitate adoption in a timely manner by CMPs and Vendors.
In the run up to the launch of TCF v2.2, IAB Europe will publish background material and host a series of webinars to offer full support and guidance to CMPs, Vendors and Publishers. Registration links can be found below.
Session 1: Overview of the main differences between the TCF policy 3.5 & 4.0
Thursday 20th April| 15:00 CET – Register here
An overview of the main differences in policies between v2.1 & v2.2. This session is for all TCF stakeholders.
Speakers
Session 2: Overview of the changes to the TCF technical specifications between v2.1 & v2.2
Thursday 20th April| 16:00 CET – Register here
An overview of the changes to the TCF technical specifications between v2.1 & v2.2. This session is to help CMPs and Vendors navigate the different technical resources.
Speakers
We’re teaming up with GroupM Nexus to invite you to participate in an exclusive survey that aims to understand consumption habits and the development of Digital Audio Advertising in Europe.
Have your say before 12th May and be in with a chance of winning a €200 Euro Voucher!
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The survey will take less than ten minutes to complete and all responses will be treated with the strictest confidence. All respondents will receive the research results directly to their email if provided.
The results will be used to showcase the audio opportunity and how audio can be used to enrich media strategies. Take part in the survey here today.
We will be selecting a participant, at random, to win a €200 Amazon voucher. So what are you waiting for? Share your expertise and enter for your chance to win.
The impending termination of support for third-party cookies on Google Chrome means that many of the metrics that marketers use today to measure their digital media performance will soon become obsolete. So how will we measure in a cookie-less future?
Josephine Howe, Sr. Marketing Manager, MSA, Daniel Godoy, Microsoft Global Programmatic Evangelist, MSA: There is no silver bullet solution for measuring programmatic outcomes. However, industry ID solutions will add a valuable layer to measurement of digital campaigns with authenticated IDs. Advertisers will also need to rely on non-addressable signals, for example how website visits changed during the campaign, and metrics like attention measurement.
Raman Sidhu, SVP at Verve Group: The objective of third-party cookies was to enable cross-channel (multi-touch) tracking and measurement. However, they have not been perfect for a while as the environment in which they run is already limited, most notably for Apple users. So we need to remember that cookies are already not doing what they were designed to accomplish.
As a result, new models must be considered:
When we’re talking about conversions, we need to think about the type of conversion and where it’s taking place. Whether it be ecommerce, leads, sales, app downloads, etc. All of these have alternatives without cookies, IDs or PII which are proven & measurable. One of the main differences is that it’s focused on the last touch or via a data-driven model.
Alex Berger, Senior Product Marketing Director, Adform: The third-party cookie is already a shadow of what it once was. New solutions have been introduced and scaled that are ready to cover the majority of targeting and measurement use cases. At times they’re more precise; in other situations, more complex. But, the key is that advertisers retain the ability to be strategic. Today, they have to navigate a more complex and strategic technology landscape to do that while the industry goes through a period of unbundling. As the third-party cookie further erodes, and technologies continue to come online I think we will see the trendline bottom out and reverse towards a re-bundling which will translate into significant scale 2–5 years from now. Ad performance for branding doesn't really change radically from third-party cookies. Measurement for Branding campaigns is a matter of quality of exposure with the right reach and frequency. Quality of exposure doesn't need third-party cookies. To measure reach and frequency, you need cross-identity measurement to unpack the effectiveness of your strategies. But this is generally the same regardless of if they are based on contextual, cohorts, first- or third-party IDs. For Performance you need an approach that still relies on real-time decisioning, but further validates that against longer-term, deeper reference and additional data.
Louise Mbugua, Sr. Product Manager & Go-To-Market Lead, Teads: We must first acknowledge two realities. The first being that with over 50% of web supply today missing 3P cookies (3PCs), cookieless is not near, it’s here. Secondly, not all cookies are equal, with 1st Party cookies (1PCs - created and stored by the website a user visits) surviving into the “post-cookie” future. So how do we define whether ads are working in a post-cookie world? Let’s first define success. The success of an ad can be viewed through two lenses: “engagement” (user interaction with the ad) and “outcomes” (post ad engagement value such as brand uplift & sales). Ad engagement, as measured with traditional media metrics including ad viewability, completion rate and clicks, is minimally impacted by the deprecation of 3PCs. As an aside, however, with up to 20% of programmatic ad spend distributed to Made For Advertising (MFA) supply, it’s increasingly vital for marketers to evolve these metrics to include attention-based measurement - e.g., ‘dwell time’, ‘attentive seconds’, ‘attention CPM’ - with studies proving attention to be strongly correlated to outcomes and 3x more effective than viewability as a predictor of consumer behaviour. Unlike ad engagement, outcome measurement, specifically attribution measurement that relies on 3P consumer-level data, will be challenged by the deprecation of 3PCs. Here the industry is still in an experimentation phase and there is no single replacement solution, but key options marketers are likely to explore include:
With a broad range of post-cookie measurement initiatives - complexified by nuances in the way different types of media and devices are measured - it will be key for the industry to collaborate to facilitate cohesive, effective and efficient measurement in a post-cookie world.
How do we think about using post-cookie solutions for campaign targeting and optimisation and looking across the consumer journey? Not just display, but mobile + CTV as well?
Josephine Howe, Sr. Marketing Manager, MSA, Daniel Godoy, Microsoft Global Programmatic Evangelist, MSA: In the post-cookie world, there will be two groups of users on the internet: identifiable and unidentifiable. For identifiable users, first-party data combined with consent is key to precise measurement and modeling. For unidentifiable, or anonymous users, contextual targeting through keywords, topics, and moments is optimal. Curated deals are a powerful way for buyers to benefit from these solutions at scale. With the population of identifiable users shrinking, there will be more emphasis on first-party data, especially in channels like Connected TV. There are innovative tools to address this shift, for example advanced frequency management. It is crucial for marketers to balance identifiable and unidentifiable groups and understand the opportunity to target and optimize towards each.
Raman Sidhu, SVP at Verve Group: At Verve Group, we often talk about how moments are the new cookies. Brands know the moments that matter to them, especially those which drive interest, intent and sales. We help brands deliver omnichannel campaigns which include web, app, CTV and DooH in meaningful moments across the consumer journey. Furthermore, through a real-time feedback loop we can optimise performance towards specific outcome goals. That forms the basis of our strategy. With the availability of first- party data or cohort data, we can further improve performance.
Alex Berger, Senior Product Marketing Director, Adform: Marketers need to embrace dual thought streams; real-time and long-term. Nothing new here, but the focus and importance has been amplified by third-party cookie deprecation. Real-time decisioning and strong algos don’t replace the need for a robust planning phase or deep post-campaign effectiveness analysis. You’ll still need strong media mix modeling to study the effects of omnichannel advertising. This hasn’t been replaced - quite the contrary, a hybrid approach is now more important than ever. Skip the real-time and you miss out on the value of programmatic. Skip the analysis, and you break the flywheel, which is driving incremental value creation.
Louise Mbugua, Sr. Product Manager & Go-To-Market Lead, Teads: There are many ways to answer this question and they are timing dependent. Any targeting powered by addressable identity will extend targeting reach capabilities across multiple mediums (web, CTV etc). Some of these solutions, however, will take a long time to create significant scale. As an alternative, there are other forms of targeting using contextual and panel based intelligence and those solutions will perform across several mediums.
Other alternatives include:
Digital advertising campaigns in environments devoid of third-party cookies will run on a mix of emerging alternatives, including first-party data, consent, contextual approaches, cohorts, identifiers, and more. How can we ensure that these solutions still align with user preferences and future regulations? With data privacy legislation becoming more complex, how can we future-proof?
Josephine Howe, Sr. Marketing Manager, MSA, Daniel Godoy, Microsoft Global Programmatic Evangelist, MSA: Microsoft Advertising is focused on an audience first approach and iteratively building to prepare for the next chapter of digital advertising. Technology platforms must enable the industry to build and connect solutions in a compliant way. Looking ahead, we think that there will be a shift from client-side solutions to more server-side solutions, increased employment of data clean rooms and consolidation of Identity solutions. Multiple identity solutions will be needed as long as they are interoperable. The limited number of ID’s, based on the direct relationship with the user, means that there will be less reach but better authenticated traffic, better controls on consumer data, and maintenance of targeting and measurement use cases.
Raman Sidhu, SVP at Verve Group: As digital advertising campaigns move away from third-party cookies and towards alternative solutions using first-party data, consent, contextual approaches, and cohorts, it is important to ensure that these solutions align with user preferences and future regulations. Very often, I hear the same feedback from expert buyers, product and strategy leaders at brands and agencies. The future will be a mixture of first-party data and context. That means mapping 1st party data, for example to advertising ecosystems/walled gardens. Whilst creating audience lookalikes using contextual signals and predictive models in the instances where no identifiers exist. Consent must be explicit in all cases where any form of identifier or PII is involved. Ensuring double opt-in is imperative for brands and advertisers. For sellers, the ecosystems with the largest addressable consented audiences will benefit from buyers looking to engage with current or prospective customers.
For buyers, capturing of consent should include the channels where they want to activate.
Clean rooms aim to help here with the movement of data. However, there is still some way to go in scaling the network.
Alex Berger, Senior Product Marketing Director, Adform: While this is a major concern for the industry, it’s much less of an issue for technologies that were already thinking in a consented / localized way. We started pivoting our tech stack to support this approach as GDPR was starting to gain momentum and found that a focus on transparency, interoperability, and clear consent signals really paves the way for scaling post-cookie without major issues. At the end of the day, it’s about choosing technology that gives you a lot of transparency, ownership of your data, and that clearly supports delivering consented value to the end user. If you work back from that, you’ll consistently find these changes are more a case of fine-tuning vs ground-up reinvention with exorbitant switching costs.
Louise Mbugua, Sr. Product Manager & Go-To-Market Lead, Teads: The impending deprecation of 3P Cookies, set against a backdrop of increasing data privacy legislation, is rightfully forcing a re-examination & redress of the balance between user privacy and ad performance, which has often tilted in favour of the latter. The most important variable here is that the consumer must be involved in the consent process and permission obtained to use their personally identifiable data. Any form of identity or targeting/measurement that relies on inference of identity will be subject to scrutiny for the simple reason that consumers can’t opt-out of said mechanism.For contextual based and technographic based solutions, these have longevity as they don’t target any individual or PII. In doing so they provide a privacy safe scale that we - at Teads - have found performs as well as, if not better. The key will be the balance of finding a strong enough ‘truth set’ of known information from consumers who have opted-in to their data being used to power models and AI to find scale into identity-less environments.
Finally, what conversations are you having with media buyers and brands? What advice would you give them to get ready for programmatic outcomes without the cookie?
Josephine Howe, Sr. Marketing Manager, MSA, Daniel Godoy, Microsoft Global Programmatic Evangelist, MSA: As an end-to-end technology provider, we advise buyers and brands that relevant advertising will increasingly rely on contextual solutions for unidentifiable users. Investment in first-party data assets and partnerships will be needed. Advertisers should seek out data platforms and tech providers equipped to work with authenticated user IDs. It is important to think about how to leverage proprietary data assets while ensuring privacy compliance.
Raman Sidhu, SVP at Verve Group: We encourage brands and media buyers to consider the moments that are important to their business. We help them plan media to capture the largest share of these moments, whilst always identifying interest and intent. It is crucial for companies to comprehend their target markets and pinpoint the meaningful moments when those audiences are most likely to interact with their goods or services. Avoid focusing on cookies and instead focus on audiences and moments to drive demand to your products and services. Redesign your media planning strategy and concentrate on the moments that matter most to your business. This will support your efforts to increase sales and succeed in your marketing campaigns.
Alex Berger, Senior Product Marketing Director, Adform: What’s needed for media buyers and brands is more control, more transparency and ownership, and solutions that can bridge the gap in a consented way. Your activation on CTV or DOOH is going to be a bit different from premium display or mobile. You’re also going to have different IDs that are better suited to certain geographies or channel types. We’re already seeing and working with 40+ IDs on a regular basis, and I think it’s the job of the technology to create tools and solutions that really elevate and solve this complexity for buyers. Of course, the buyers also have to embrace these new approaches, and will need to re-train and re-prioritize workflows somewhat to make this happen.
Louise Mbugua, Sr. Product Manager & Go-To-Market Lead, Teads: Firstly, don’t wait to act! Delays to the deprecation of 3PCs on Chrome belie the fact that a predominantly cookieless environment is a reality today across many major markets. Secondly, understand your exposure by identifying the volume of media budgets dependent on marketing capabilities such as cross-site tracking that rely on 3P cookies. Thirdly, develop a plan to test and integrate cookieless-ready solutions into your marketing strategy.
IAB Europe have worked with the teams at CIMM, egta, EACA and WFA to curate this International Knowledge Exchange on Audience Measurement. The Exchange of knowledge will help to stimulate collaboration and better understanding in an increasingly international, interconnected marketplace.
The International Knowledge Exchange provides an opportunity for the international media and advertising industries to share insights about the latest measurement innovations, initiatives and solutions in the US and European markets. This meeting will take place on the 11th April at 15:00 CET.
In this week’s member guest blog post we caught up with Samantha Stetson, VP, Client Council and Industry Trade Relations at Meta. Samantha announces Meta’s new inventory filters and discusses how AI can give advertisers more control, Third-party brand suitability, and how to remain committed to transparency and accountability. For a great piece with great insight into new developments at Meta and how they can help you, keep reading below.
We’re proud to announce that Meta’s new inventory filters for Facebook and Instagram Feeds are now rolling out to advertisers in English- and Spanish-speaking markets. Our third-party verification solution for Facebook Feed is also now available through Zefr and additional Meta Business Partners will onboard in the coming months. These developments highlight our ongoing collaboration with industry partners and the critical work we’re doing to meet the needs of advertisers today. Please see video here.
Using AI to give advertisers more control
We previously announced our commitment to building tools that give advertisers more control over the proximity of their ads to suitable content. AI is one of the driving forces behind these industry-leading solutions. We built a multi-stage AI review system to classify content for advertisers to ensure brand suitability controls are in place. These models will complement our existing technology, which already identifies content that violates or potentially violates our Community Standards and Guidelines. This system learns to classify content in Facebook and Instagram Feeds – not only text but also video and images – to determine if it meets our monetisation policies; if it does not, the content is not eligible to have ads appear above or below it. When content is found to be eligible for ad adjacency, the models assign it to a suitability category.
We’ve spent many years working closely with partners in the industry, including the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), an industry trade organisation created to ensure that harmful content is not monetised. We’ve developed controls that align with GARM’s Suitability Framework, which defines high, medium, and low-risk content. Advertisers can now choose from the following three settings to control the type of monetisable content that can appear above and below an ad:
Later this year, we’ll expand these controls to support additional languages and make them available to advertisers in more countries. We’ll also start testing them on additional placements including Reels, Stories, Video Feeds and other surfaces across Facebook and Instagram as we learn more about advertiser preferences to improve and enhance this technology.
Third-party brand suitability verification is available for Facebook Feed
We’ve also been working with Zefr to test and build an independent AI-powered solution to report the context in which ads appear on Facebook Feed. In early testing, we found through third-party verification with Zefr, that less than one percent of content on Facebook Feed falls into the high-risk GARM suitability category.
Zefr’s AI product assesses video, image, text, and audio to label Feed content based on the GARM suitability standards. The solution allows advertisers to measure, verify and understand the suitability of content near their ads to help them make informed decisions in order to reach their marketing goals.
Meta will be rolling out this verification and measurement solution to additional badged Meta Business Partners this year.
Remaining committed to transparency and accountability
Beyond our suitability controls, we take action on content that violates our Community Standards and Guidelines. Each quarter, we publish the Community Standards Enforcement Report, which shows how we’re doing at enforcing our policies. This report was independently assessed by EY last year and we’re proud to be the first social platform to have our metrics assessed by a third party, demonstrating our commitment to transparency and accountability.
Last November, we received accreditation from the Media Ratings Council (MRC) for our Partner Monetisation Policies, Content Monetisation Policies, and associated content-level brand safety and suitability controls applied to Facebook In-Stream Video. We will be expanding the scope of MRC’s audit to include additional advertiser-facing controls (like the inventory filters for Facebook and Instagram Feeds) as we make them more widely available.
These solutions are important milestones in our ongoing brand safety and suitability efforts. We are committed to giving advertisers more control and transparency and will continue ensuring our work has independent oversight.
For more detail on Meta’s brand safety and suitability methodology, please visit our brand safety and suitability hub.
IAB Europe is pleased to announce the launch of its new Research & Insights Forum, which is an evolution of its long-standing Research Committee. The group will meet once per quarter and will comprise of research, insights and measurement experts from across the Digital Advertising and Marketing industry.
The Forum’s core focus will be to receive and share key industry stats and insights and provide strategic oversight and direction on all of IAB Europe’s research activities. Each meeting will feature insights updates from the IAB Europe team, member-led discussions on key industry trends, plus a roundtable discussion on IAB Europe’s research agenda and calendar.
The group is currently Chaired by Mike Mullholland, Partner Measurement & reporting at Mindshare Worldwide who is supported by the Vice-Chair Gilles Giudicelli, representing IAB France and Head of Customer Experience at Criteo.
The Forum is open to all IAB Europe members.If you are interested in joining then please contact Marie-Clare Puffett, Marketing & Insights Director.
