What Caught our Attention - February 2023
Big Thoughts for February 2023
People ask us what are the big topics for us and the Beeler.Tech community. Allow us to topline it for you. We also want to share some of the things we are reading/watching that interest us – the majority coming from our partners and our community members. That’s how we roll.
Last month's big topics still apply - automation, jitters, etc. The recent layoffs coupled with SSPs shutting their doors and lower ad spending aren't helping. Stop it, 2023. You still have time to be the best year in this decade (which isn't a high bar).
Some big thoughts:
RB: A finite resource under infinite pressure: email addresses
The move to replace 3rd party cookies with email addresses is fraught with danger. Sure, email addresses have some attractive features: think of a cookie with lasting power that works across devices. It makes for a pretty cool key upon which to build a marketplace. Gareth Evans from LiveIntent lays all of this out in this AdMonsters article.
But an email is not a cookie. If a person deletes 3rd party cookies, we (ad tech) can simply start all over again by setting another cookie and start associating data to that cookie. There's an infinite number of cookies because we can always create a new one.
We (again ad tech) can't reset someone's email address. Nope, we have to wait for the person to do it. That fact alone makes the collection, stewardship and usage of email addresses a privilege. Every time we ask for an email, it matters, not only because the user might opt out of giving it to you, but they can opt to give you a fake one. Apple makes this easy to do. Others will as well. Done poorly and we'll destroy this resource as well and I'm not sure what might come next.
Made-for-Advertising-Only sites are going to poison this well. Once hashed email addresses equal higher open marketplace CPMs, these sites are going to really push to get those email addresses. You, good publisher, will look guilty by association. We always do.
That is unless we start to change the conversation with our audiences and we speak differently with the people who come to our sites. We can't just ask for an email address, we have to ask for THEIR email address. Because if we get any email address, you're not building your business. More from LiveIntent on this.
Keith Petri, CEO of Loc.kr, and I spoke about this on First Impressions. Publishers are collecting bogus email addresses and counting each one as a win. Bogus email addresses won't match anything buyers have in their databases. Bogus email addresses don't open up newsletters and come back to your site. Your data clean room won't be very clean if most of the identifiers are garbage.
Here's the video:
What Caught our Attention (and why)
- RB: I just told you that email addresses are important. One thing to consider is to ensure proper usage through clean rooms as James Prudhomme, CRO, Optable explains. Interoperability matters as well.
- RB: Bitch about Apple, or do something about it. Rob Webster tells the buy side what publishers already know: you're missing out if you're not looking at what Apple is doing...
- mc: Tiffany Hsu at The New York Times is focusing on bad ads. - “Bad ads can be a sign of many things: a weakening economy, a shift in priorities for social media companies, even a bolder push by malicious actors to indoctrinate consumers.“ She is highlighting what a lot of us know, but looks like she will help put the story together for consumers, and others who are not in the weeds. I will be keeping an eye on what she has to say.