| | AUGUST 20239CIOReviewDCRs is not entirely new, but the current industry transformation has created the ideal environment for it to emerge as a key addition to the digital marketer toolkit. While DCRs are best known for this activation use case, their potential value does not end there. They can improve campaign reporting, both upstream (media planning) and downstream (campaign effectiveness and ROI). Although no sensitive data is shared between the respective DCRs of the publisher and the advertiser, both partners can still benefit from the aggregated data insights. For instance, in order to explore the composition of their overlap audience, analyze campaign attribution across different platforms, or to measure the reach of targeted campaigns accurately. Another benefit of DCRs is the possibility to use them as a springboard and channel for brand collaborations. Unfortunately, in my opinion, too little attention is paid to this benefit. Under the standard, cookie-based digital marketing framework, brands can address blind spots in their first-party data by developing second-party `deals' with other brands having particularly rich datasets in the underserved category. For example, a grocery chain with little finance-related data could enter into a second-party data deal with a credit card company and thereby leverage the latter's cookies to target users in a certain income bracket. This whole arrangement, however, is based on signals, which are cookies, fading out and flawed because short-lived, and tied to a browsing session rather than an actual person. DCRs offer a new platform for such data partnerships. This platform can not only survive what is often called the coming cookie apocalypse, but improve the privacy and quality of the data exchange. The ability to use persistent identifiers will improve the accuracy of targeted campaigns, and the ability to leverage this data for campaigns without actually seeing it will improve user privacy. Data clean rooms are not a mere marketing buzzword, but they offer a silver bullet to all our privacy and addressability needs. There is no doubt that all brands engaged in digital marketing will need to adapt to DCRs with some urgency to become more privacy-compliant and less cookie-dependent. I strongly believe that DCRs will play a key role to face these challenges, but the problem is complex and digital marketers will need to keep abreast of a wide range of emerging resources beyond DCRs, from universal identifiers to consent management platforms and contextual targeting. DCRs should therefore be regarded as an important, though not exclusive, resource in the new data-driven marketing toolbox. There is no doubt that all brands engaged in digital marketing will need to adapt to DCRs with some urgency to become more privacy-compliant and less cookie-dependent
< Page 8 | Page 10 >