Index Exchange Is Taking LiveRamp’s Cookie-less Identity Product Global

The expansion builds on last year’s partnership that saw LiveRamp integrate its IdentityLink (IDL) product with the supply-side platform’s IX Wrapper product as part of an effort to connect publisher and advertiser audiences without having to rely on a third-party cookie.

“Marketers can start to look at identity as a global solution,” said Travis Clinger, svp of addressability and ecosystem at LiveRamp.

Identity is one of the fastest-changing and most competitive spaces in digital advertising. The move to find an alternative to the third-party cookie, the backbone of online advertising, comes after Google said it would rid its Chrome browser of the web tracker by 2022.

Mike O’Sullivan, vp of product at Index Exchange, said LiveRamp is one of the leaders in data onboarding, and the SSP partners with ID providers largely based on buy- and sell-side adoption.

“We really pivot off of trust. Who are publishers and marketers trusting with their data?” said O’Sullivan.

Index Exchange has integrations with other identity solutions, such as Merkle’s M1, LiveIntent and The Trade Desk’s Unified ID offering.

LiveRamp’s IDL product also has relatively wide adoption. As of the company’s May earnings report, it has either live or pending integrations with 18 SSPs and 35 DSPs to use IDL.

“I would say by end of the month, Index [Exchange] will not be the only SSP live internationally,” said Clinger.

Publishers use IDL to enrich their inventory, and advertisers use it to learn more about their audiences. Publishers pass the encrypted ID to an SSP, which then matches that ID with buy-side data in order to target individual users.

O’Sullivan said Index Exchange is seeing an uptick in deals done against post-third-party cookie IDs.

“In Q4 last year we saw some publishers had up to 35% of their deal revenue … powered by these post-cookie types of buying,” said O’Sullivan.

Investors are also eyeing the identity space. In the last two weeks, Permutive and Zeotap raised over $60 million combined as they develop alternatives to the third-party cookie.

Meanwhile, LiveRamp also acquired Acuity Data on Thursday to build out its Safe Haven product, which works on connecting publisher and advertiser data in a privacy-safe way.

Earlier this year, Adweek reported on a legal dispute between LiveRamp and Kochava over the trademark of “IdentityLink;” the case is ongoing.