Ad Tech's Targeting Revolution Will Be Televised

Unified ID 2.0, a new-age digital advertising identifier, is coming to television, a medium that’s searching for new ways to win advertisers and viewers. The $70 billion TV industry has been steadily losing share to digital platforms like YouTube and streaming services like Netflix. As viewers flee cable for digital alternatives, so too are advertisers. To fight back, networks and distributors are borrowing tactics from their digital rivals and firing up data-driven ad offerings, especially within connected TV environments, a medium that’s expected to hit $13 billion in ad spend by the end of 2021. Unified ID 2.0, initially developed by The Trade Desk, came about as a third-party cookie replacer following Google’s announcement to rid its Chrome browser of the trackers by 2022 (though that’s since been delayed by a year). But CTV never supported third-party cookies and has largely been without a standard identifier. Plus the medium has given networks a way to forge direct-to-consumer relationships with viewers. All of this has created an identity vacuum on the big screen. With the burgeoning proliferation of Unified ID 2.0 in digital TV environments, the idea is to bring impression-level, programmatic targeting to TV ad buying. A universal identifier that isn’t based on third-party cookies would allow marketers to reach that viewer and then track them across their other digital devices, too. FuboTV, a virtual subscription TV provider, announced support of Unified ID 2.0 in February, allowing it to buy its inventory against the identifier. On June 22, Fox-owned ad-supported streaming service Tubi said it would also support Unified ID 2.0. And then later that week, AMC Networks became the first traditional linear network to publicly adopt the targeting tool. “It is our goal to make 100% of our digital inventory available to buy programmatically,” Evan Adlman, svp of advanced advertising and digital partnership for AMC Networks, said in a statement. “Joining the Unified ID 2.0 initiative made perfect sense.” Further large TV networks are expected to follow suit, according to sources with knowledge of the developments. Unified ID 2.0 is also interoperable with Blockgraph, an identity operating system that’s owned by Comcast, Charter and ViacomCBS. It will also be interoperable with OpenAP’s identifier, OpenID, when it rolls out later this year. More than just a third-party cookie replacement Dave Morgan, CEO of Simulmedia, told Adweek that it’s “a smart move on anyone selling connected TV advertising” to support an independent, universal identifier like Unified ID 2.0. For one, it makes their inventory available for audience-based buying within The Trade Desk, a large demand-side platform that many big agencies use to buy CTV. Also, because Unified ID 2.0 is interoperable with other identity players like LiveRamp and Neustar, it opens up media owners to more demand sources. “Because [Unified ID 2.0 is] not exclusive, in most cases you benefit from … touching as many network nodes as possible so that you don't exclude advertisers that want to use the flavor they like to use,” Morgan said. The Trade Desk is in the process of ceding control of Unified ID 2.0 to ensure it remains a non-proprietary piece of technology. It named Prebid the operator in February and handed over code for the identifier to the Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media in May. Unified ID 2.0 relies on login information, like email addresses, media owners gather from consenting users. But in many cases, the media owners in CTV don't have a direct relationship with the consumer. Networks would likely have no problem selling against Unified ID 2.0 within their direct-to-consumer apps, like AMC+, where they have a one-to-one relationship with their viewers. But networks are also distributed through virtual bundles like Philo, Sling TV and Hulu Live TV. Viewers can also stream a network’s content online while signed in through their traditional cable provider. Morgan and other experts told Adweek that networks would have to strike deals with individual distributors to access and ultimately pass along the subscriber data that’s behind the distributor’s walls. Those deals typically involve revenue or inventory sharing, and they’d also require the use of a clean room environment to securely share the data. “If you don't have the capacity for advertisers and agencies to leverage first-party data for connected TV and data-driven linear, you are going to limit, to some degree, the amount of advertisers you can work with, so it's just smart to do it because you support more potential customers,” said Morgan. Connected TV Ad Spend Set to Accelerate as US Continues to Adapt to Covid-19