Over the last 10 years, advanced digital ad buyers have used off-the-shelf sources of data about individuals in order to better target their ads.
Lately, however, legislation and tech vendors’ own policy changes mean this super-power is diminishing. Now, it is becoming more commonplace for brands to collect, store and use their own data about their own customers and prospects.
But could that customer data start seeping back and forth between brands again? Could customers’ identities become portable again?
One of the companies that has been at the forefront of customer identity targeting seems to think so.
“One of the trends we’re seeing … is around the emergence of companies who are partners exchanging data between one another,” says David Skinner, MD of channels and alliances at Acxio, in this video interview with Beet.TV.
“An example would be, if I’m Delta Airlines and I have lots of data about folks who are travelling, whether for business or personal use, my partner Marriott might find that data very useful in its digital advertising campaigns. If I’m Instacart, my partner Kroger would be very interested in the data that I have.
“Enabling safe, secure collaboration between business partners is an area we see this customer data trend … extending out over the next five years. Today, it’s really about managing your own customer data well, towards your advertising campaigns, and then we see it increasingly being about managing that data with your business partners.”
Acxiom sold its own data warehouse business, the former LiveRamp, to InterPublic Group last year after Facebook cut ties with such data brokers. The new LiveRamp is reconstituted, however, following its acquisition of Data Plus Math.
As the privacy pendulum has swung way from data warehouses, toward marketer-owned first-party data, what could be the consumer reaction toward brands sharing that data with other companies?
In the next few years, according to Skinner’s forecast, we may be about to find out. “This trend exists, really, across the business landscape,” he says.
This video is part of a series of interviews conducted during Advertising Week New York, 2019. This series is co-production of Beet.TV and Advertising Week. The series is sponsored by Roundel, a Target company. Please see more videos from Advertising Week right here.