How to Survive Ad Budget Cuts and Lower Your Risk without Impacting Your Reach or Margins
Let’s Fix Personal Data on the Internet
August 28, 2020
UPDATE: In April, it was already clear that increasing reach and lowering risk in the marketing/advertising technology space was necessary, and we wrote a blog on it. That said, the key drivers are evolving. Given new lawsuits in Europe over GDPR, the finalization of of CCPA, the grappling with the disappearance of cookies and Mobile IDs, partners who want to collaborate over data are being given more constraints and fewer tools.
Since then, we have spoken with dozens of companies who are looking for ways to match up consumer data, but not create a new ID — that would have the impact of the old ID structure, since the matching is the thing. In response, we have added features to our software that allow for the creation of a more ephemeral version of a match key — which is visible to neither partner, and does not persist. Even the creation of the key can be accomplished under encryption.
We are trying to mediate a more elegant solution, where personalization and relevance is maintained, but there is lower risk to you and you can avoid the high costs of clean rooms and other solutions that involve humans seeing data. We are creating a truce over your data.
“Nth Party is creating a truce between businesses and individuals over personal data”
Why Ad Budgets Have Taken a Hit
A recent Reuters piece encouraged us to ‘Pity the pitchman. Ad-dependent industries in the United States will get clobbered as Covid-19 lockdowns take hold,’ noting that ‘Morgan Stanley reckons that spending on all manner of advertising, including broadcast television and newspapers, will decline 8% to $210 billion in 2020 from last year.’
The same piece indicates that internet advertising will snap back in 2021, without a commensurate bounceback in broadcast TV ads, which will only be hit harder by the Olympics being rescheduled. Even though folks are sheltering in place and starting at screens seemingly 16x7, that watch time will not drive TV ad revenue if the most popular watching is on subscription services.
In an interview with AOL’s CEO, The Information noted that Tim Armstrong, a former ad exec, ‘predicts the coronavirus will devastate ad spending more severely than either the 2008 financial crisis or the recession that followed Sept. 11.’
What You Can Do
So what is a marketing solutions provider to do with this lowered flow? Examine your costs first to improve the margin on the clients you have, to make the most of every dollar allocated — and pass this savings on to your clients as a bonus. You can do this while potentially improving your ability to manage data risk.
The second key is to look at spend on ‘walled gardens’ of your big venues — and understand how much you are spending on data clean rooms and legal contracts to keep your data safe. Consider the % of your margins that goes to these enterprises.
Lastly, focus on gathering as much 1st Party data as possible — it makes the most sense to make the most of your own information. Look for open source benchmarks for your models and keep pushing forward.
How We Can Help
Nth Party can help support your business by making it easier to combine datasets, and less risky because it will be done with all data under encryption. You can send reach out to us at info@nthparty.com or sign up for our newsletter at nthparty.com.
