Marketers Get More Access to Publisher First-Party Data

Publisher data platform Permutive is making its stores of first-party data available to the buy-side for the first time, via a partnership with Microsoft-owned ad-tech firm Xandr. The integration comes as publishers search for ways to continue to earn revenue amid cookie deprecation, and buyers are increasingly interested in buying against publishers’ first-party data. The common complaint from agencies about publishers' first-party data plays has always been scale. For ad buyers, transacting via direct deals with individual publishers, regardless of how effective a campaign may be, undermines the content-owner agnostic, audience-first promise of programmatic. The integration between Permutive and Xandr, which has a demand-side platform, is pitched as a solution to this problem. “It allows a buyer to activate a singular audience definition uniformly across publishers as opposed to going publisher by publisher individually,” said Danner Close, senior director of strategic demand partnerships at Permutive. “It’s a common language … so that buyers can buy the exact same audience regardless of who the publisher may be.” A majority of Permutive’s publisher partners, which include News Corp, Hearst, Vox Media and Penske Media, have already carried out or expressed interest in the integration, Close said. The partnership is in its initial launch phase and will be fully operational before the end of the first quarter, he added. Programmatic Ad Spend Is Getting Less Murky Xandr becomes the first buy- and sell-side platform to let buyers activate against Permutive standard cohorts, interest-based audience segments that are generated automatically based on publishers’ first-party data. This will make 200 standardized behavioral audiences available to advertisers. Permutive isn’t the only solution in the market trying to help scale first-party data. The Trade Desk last month debuted Galileo and Google’s demand-side platform DV360 launched Publisher Advertiser Identity Reconciliation (PAIR) in October last year. Both solutions place more of an emphasis on publisher email addresses, while Permutive's integration trades in contextual and behavioral signals. And these types of solutions are only one corner of the very crowded cookie replacement marketplace, meaning that no matter how useful, adoption for budget-squeezed marketers can be a tough sell. “While we find their solution compelling on paper, we also need to appreciate that economic headwinds can sometimes slow down test and learn agendas,” said Delphine Hernoux, chief data & analytics officer, North America at WPP-owned Wavemaker. Offering contextual at scale The companies tout this lets marketers have all the benefits of publisher first-party data without the inefficiencies of building up bespoke data packages with each publisher. “Through the Xandr platform, buyers can forecast, target, optimize, report against segments, and change strategy mid-campaign within seconds," said Colette Munnelly, solutions engineer at Xandr, "rather than having to renegotiate access to targeted inventory with multiple publisher partners." The partnership follows deals struck between Permutive and supply-side platforms OpenX and PubMatic, respectively, late last year. While these also are attempts to scale publisher first-party data, they do not directly interface with the buy-side like the Xandr integration. Identifiers that attempt to replicate the functionality of a cookie will quickly fall prey to the same problems we’re facing today.Danner Close, senior director, strategic demand partnerships at Permutive One way for brands to transmit contextual data in the open exchange without third-party cookies is seller-defined audiences, a protocol developed by IAB Tech Lab, which lets publishers categorize their audiences around a standardized taxonomy. But some marketers have expressed that the solution lacks sufficient transparency for buyers, according to previous Adweek reporting. Permutive recognizes those concerns, so while its cohorts are based on the IAB taxonomy, they also are based on an extra layer of common definitions shared by publishers. “Publisher A may define a pet lover as someone who visits pages on pet toy reviews and ratings twice in a 60-day period. Meanwhile, publisher B may instead only require users to visit content related to pet food and veterinarians once over 90 days to be defined as a pet lover,” Close said, describing the problem of solely relying on the IAB taxonomy without relying on Permutive-style definitions. “This lack of consistency creates a meaningful challenge for buyers.” Still, industry sources note Permutive's approach has limitations. While a firm like Permutive may offer unique groupings, it might not be agencies first choice to turn to a third party to define contextual segments, said Geoff Litwer, vp of programmatic and display media at performance marketing agency Tinuiti. Permutive Teams Up With PubMatic to Solve Ad Tech Addressability Crisis Another limitation is that it doesn't allow off-site retargeting, nor is it paired with its own identity graph, said a publisher source who requested anonymity to discuss industry relationships freely. The source ultimately chose a different data platform over Permutive to access these features. But Permutive isn't aiming to offer all features of competitor cookie replacements, especially if it entails potential publisher data leakage, which is a risk of off-site retargeting, Close said. “Identifiers that attempt to replicate the functionality of a cookie will quickly fall prey to the same problems we’re facing today, including privacy concerns, high opt-out rates, reduced scale and constricting regulations,” he said.

Programmatic

Marketers Get More Access to Publisher First-Party Data With Permutive-Xandr Tie Up

The integration solves the problems of scale

Catherine Perloff

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Catherine Perloff