360 views on tech #18
👋 Hi there, welcome to 360 views on tech, a weekly newsletter curating the most insightful news of the week and putting to the fore the latest trends.
The cookie crumbles — which AdTechs will pick up the crumbs?
For years, brands have been using cookies to track website visitors, improve the user experience, collect data to target ads to the right audiences and learn about what visitors are checking out cross-websites. Therefore, as the third party cookie is about to become obsolete, the ad industry has been left scrambling to adapt, while also ushering in opportunities for AdTech companies with alternative approaches.
🗞 Context:
In 2020, Google announced plans to remove third-party cookies for Chrome, which is the most common browser (63% of the market share globally). A year ago, Google confirmed the plan to remove third-party tracking data and announced it will not build alternate tracking identifiers with similar cross-site tracking technology.
The Google plan is gradual; the company has not said when its cookie replacement will be fully implemented, but rather that a beta-launch of its cookie alternative (“the “privacy sandbox”), will likely come later this year with further testing and tweaking in 2023. It’s a less abrupt schedule than a separate cookie-killing move by Apple across its products in 2021, which has made it much harder for apps to gather user data for personalizing digital ads.
Still, as the third-party cookie is the workhorse of a $400B digital advertising economy, the question remains urgent for publishers, brands and the intermediaries facilitating personalized ads: what comes after the cookie?
🍪 Cookie carve up
The phasing out of the third party cookie has put the ad industry in a spin, scrambling to provide answers — but it’s creating opportunities for new adtech startups. “We can already see some winners and losers” says Joanna Burton, chief strategy officer at ID5 (🔴🟠🟡), “The whole premise of our company is to make a better system. We’re looking for a more sustainable approach to advertising that starts with the question: what’s the minimum amount of information we can take to build an identity?”. Indeed, ID5 is building a new and more private method to capture users’ preferences, with a complex process that involves gluing together various bits of information that don’t include a person’s identity or web browsing history.
🧑💻 Times are good if you’re in the cookie-replacing business
Contextual targeting, an approach that had fallen out of fashion is now enjoying something of a comeback. Basically, it is the practice of ensuring that ads appear next to content that’s context-appropriate, so if you’re reading an article about tennis, a sports-related ad can show up on your page. Unlike cookies, this method doesn’t need any specific knowledge of the user. Some predict that every advertiser will be adding contextual tech to their media plan. Another option is finding the best ways to collect “first-party data”, or information volunteered by users to apps or websites (for example, readers of a news site may participate in surveys, which generates data to let that publisher improve its advertising).
👋 Why it matters
Already with Apple’s iOS 14 release in April 2021 (requiring apps to obtain user permission to track their behavior across apps and websites, making opt-out the default), with less data user targeting became less accurate and resulted in fewer conversions. Therefore, most companies heavily reliant on paid-social customer acquisition saw an explosion of their CAC in 2021 with a lower overall return on ad spend.
🔴🟠🟡 360 Capital invested in ID5, the company providing the advertising ecosystem with a transparent, privacy-compliant identity solution to help publishers attract advertising budgets and provide free content and services to consumers.
ID5's solution improves user recognition, match rates and provides a stable, consented and encrypted user ID to replace third-party cookies and MAIDs.
This enables publishers to better monetize their audiences, advertisers to run effective and measurable campaigns, and platforms to maximise the value of data and inventory for their customers.
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- The API-led startup boom: is the software market is evolving past SaaS
- How much founders do pay themselves?
- How French tech is supporting Ukraine 🇺🇦
New funds
- Accel announces new $650M fund to back Indian startups
- Creandum raises a $500M fund for seed and early-stage investments
- Consumer Tech VC firm M13 raises $400M for its third fund
- Serena Ventures, a VC firm founded by Serena Williams, has raised $111M
Startup fundraisings
- Tenderly, the Ethereum developer platform for monitoring, alerting, debugging, and simulating Smart Contracts raised $40M from Spark Capital, Accel and Point Nine
- Shares, the investment app where friends invest and build strategies together raised €38.5M from Valar Ventures, Singular, Rocket Internet, Global Founders Capital, Red Sea Ventures and business angels
- Synapse Medicine, the SaaS drug information platform raised €25M from Korelya Capital, XAnge, MACSF and BNP Paris Développement
- Athenian, the platform that helps engineering leaders leverage insights and align teams with company goals raised $6M from Point Nine
- Pianity, the NFT platform for musicians raised €5.9M from Digital Renaissance Foundation, Big Brain Holdings, Longhash Ventures
- Qobra, the solution for variable compensation for sales raised €5M from Breega and business angels
Check out our website for more info on 360 Capital
Any comment or feedback ? => clara@360cap.vc
