Walls Are Not the Only Solution to Addressability

As the digital economy prepares for the third-party cookie-pocalypse, with addressability driving everything we do, more and more walls are being placed in front of digital content. What is walled content, and how does it create addressability? Are there avenues brands and publishers can take to authenticate audiences without putting up walls? These are the questions all major players in the programmatic space are grappling with, and there is no one right answer—the addressability solution is a multifaceted one. The strongest form of addressability, authenticated traffic, is sometimes accompanied by either a paywall or “freewall”—the same concept, only with no credit card required. In both cases, “authenticated” means readers have created an account with a username and a password on a brand’s website to directly log in and access content. Brands Are Overconfident With Their Privacy Approach Authenticated traffic is often conflated with first-party data, but a login alone is not first-party data. This piece of the addressability equation doesn’t actually inform a brand about its users; however, it’s the direct path to getting there. After authentication, brands get to know consumers by gathering first-party data (with users’ consent) in lieu of relying on third-party cookies for addressability. Household names like Amazon and The New York Times lean heavily on their respective walls. The Times requires users to not only log in but to pay for access. The value exchange is access to the bulk of its award-winning reporting (and Wordle, in a few months… enjoy it free while you still can). In Amazon’s case, there is a freewall tier (a regular account) and a paywall tier (an Amazon Prime membership). The value exchange for the free account is being able to conveniently shop thousands of products; Prime gets you free shipping, a streaming service and more. Of course, these well-known companies don’t have to work hard to prove the value of what’s behind their walls. This is not the case for the majority of digital businesses. If you’re not a brand name with that kind of differentiator, building a wall and getting users to authenticate may be a heavier lift and may not be the most suitable approach. The good news is, there are other innovative, scalable strategies for incentivizing and addressing users, particularly for independent web properties. One strategy is offering users exclusive engagement tools and features that enhance their experience. Pinterest, which doesn’t offer breaking news like the Times or unlimited shopping like Amazon, does this well with an array of insightful and interesting content and ideas. By allowing users to curate the content they liking through tools like creating vision boards, pinning, sharing and downloads, Pinterest incentivizes users to make personal accounts and log in. Another approach is a single sign-on (SSO) solution, streamlining the login process by allowing users to authenticate and access content behind a wall with a simple click. Pinterest is an example of this as well: Its users can log in without having to create a brand new account but instead can use existing Google or Facebook accounts. To add another layer of complexity, while paywalls and freewalls require authentication, authentication doesn't always accompany a wall. They’re commonly conflated, but not always one and the same. Take Mediavine’s Grow, an SSO that prompts authentication but with content not currently walled off. In this case, authentication isn't needed for content that is already accessible. Exclusive tools and features like the ability to save, share, favorite, download and subscribe encourage users to authenticate, a value exchange similar to Pinterest. There are many more approaches, to be sure. Though walls can be an effective and long-lasting method of addressability, they’re not the only way. The most widely anticipated wall-free solution is Google’s Privacy Sandbox. Still in development, the Privacy Sandbox proposal consists of Topics API, which recently replaced Google’s FLoC solution. Topics API categorizes users by general topics like Fitness or Travel, gleaned from their search history. Topics are refreshed every three weeks as web surfing habits tend to change. Though Google’s solution may seem generic to some, independent and niche publishers can actually benefit from Topics because their audiences will be accurately categorized. Larger, general interest-based publishers like the Times may not receive the same benefit, as all of their content may be lumped into just one category like Lifestyle. Another surface-level solution along these lines is contextual advertising. A much more lightweight user experience than authenticating via a personal account, contextual advertising relies heavily on artificial intelligence and machine learning to serve effective advertising. Contextual insights about audiences can be leveraged to generate first-party data for new standards like the IAB Tech Lab’s Seller Defined Audience (SDA). By understanding the context of a webpage and understanding the pages users visit, publishers can consolidate those users into SDAs that either match IAB audience taxonomies or map to an alternative, bespoke defined audience. Lastly, a solution that requires a bit of legwork from users but not to the full extent of authentication: newsletters. By providing a publisher with some personal details—name, email, perhaps even their birthday—a user receives exclusive content, tips, event access or special offerings in exchange for allowing the publisher to learn more about, and address, them. So what's the most effective method for building relationships with audiences to best serve them? That depends on the individual entity. As you can see, there are various paths that all lead to the same mountaintop. And many of them can converge. Maybe a paywall is the answer for a large company. Maybe a digital newsletter is enough for a big publisher. Maybe a smaller, independent publisher chooses the Topics route. The value in this transitional time for the advertising ecosystem is the ability to test different methods in cookieless browsers like Safari and Firefox to determine what works best for you. How Publishers Can Lessen Their Dependence on FAANG