Warner Music Rolls Out First-Party Media Platform Named WMX
Warner Music Group (WMG) has launched a rebranded agency and ad tech company to focus on musicians and brands looking to connect with their fans.
WMX is the name of the new company. On the one hand, WMX offers musicians a revenue toolbox through its music industry and lifestyle publications such as Uproxx, HipHopDX, and concert finding service Songkick.
The second side of WMX is a direct ad sales company that bundles inventory and data from WMG’s owned-and-operated websites as well as other platforms where artists produce inventory and WMX may arrange ad sales and rev-share agreements, such as YouTube, Spotify, and TikTok.
Interesting Read: Disney Launches Clean Room For Marketers’ First-Party Data Needs
At the center of the new WMX service is a product called CONNEX, where marketers can develop a first-party asset within the Warner platform. If a brand shows up with its own first-party customer data, some customers will match to WMG’s identity data set, and the matched IDs can be used for targeting or measuring a campaign.
If a brand campaign includes sponsored content on YouTube, WMX may also collect new fans or logged-in users who’ve engaged with the brand via that sponsorship.
Also Read: The Ultimate A-Z Glossary Of Digital Advertising: Part 2
Google Introduces New Ways For Publishers To Activate First-Party Data
Google unveils a new way for publishers to utilize first-party data for targeted advertising. Digital advertising is changing rapidly, and user privacy is at the heart of this change. Publishers, advertisers, and technology providers are rethinking and reimagining how they handle and use user activation to better protect people’s privacy online.
Google’s new offering lets publishers share Publisher-provided identifiers (PPIDs) with Google’s programmatic demand to improve their ad campaigns, targeting, and advertising experiences. Steve Swan, Product Manager, Google Ad Manager said in an announcement.
“By helping publishers expand the use of their first-party identifiers to more transaction types, like the Open Auction, our partners will be able to show ads that are more relevant to their audiences, which will increase the value of their programmatic inventory,”
What Is PPID?
As defined by Google in a blog post, Publisher provided identifier (PPID) allows publishers to send Google Ad Manager an identifier for use in frequency capping, audience segmentation, and targeting, sequential ad rotation, and other audience-based ad delivery controls across devices.
Interesting Read: Impact of Delay in Deprecation Of Cookies By Google On Adtech
The New System And Its Functioning
Publishers and advertisers will benefit from the new PPID sharing option because it helps protect their privacy.
- Google Ad Manager turns PPIDs into per-publisher partitioned IDs before sharing them with Google Demand, so users cannot be identified across different publishers’ sites and apps.
- As a result, Google Ads and Display & Video 360 collate anonymized data from publishers as a way to build audience segments.
- Advertisers can programmatically deliver relevant ads to publishers’ sites and apps using these segments based on first-party data.
- Furthermore, Publishers can earn more revenue in the auction while the data allows advertisers to unlock options, such as cross-device reach, frequency management, and creative optimization, without relying on cookies or other identifiers.
Interesting Read: Relief To Advertisers As Google Postpones The Elimination Of Third-Party Cookies Till 2023.
Why Is This New Update From Google Important?
Steve Swan, Product Manager, Google Ad mentioned that Google prioritized this product area based on partner feedback. It will continue to create features that provide publishers with the data and identity tools they require to prepare and grow their businesses.
“Investing in first-party data is a privacy-forward way that publishers can increase the value of their programmatic inventory now and in the future.”
This move could help news outlets recoup some of the lost revenue from Google’s other policies in light of Google’s tumultuous relationship with publishers. This feature enables publishers to control what data is passed and to which bidders they send signals. The Ad Manager only routes signals on behalf of publishers, but it will not be able to read them. Likewise, advertisers who advertise on these publications can show a more targeted and useful inventory to readers while maintaining the privacy of users.
Interesting Read: Google To Demonetize Ads That Spread Climate Change Misinformation
Disney Launches Clean Room For Marketers’ First-Party Data Needs
With the help of first-party data service providers Snowflake, Habu, and InfoSum, the Disney Advertising Sales department has officially created its own data clean room. A ‘ clean room’ is usually leveraged to integrate client proprietary consumer information with other industry data to improve performance. Clean rooms are used to safeguard a company’s data as well as the privacy of its customers.
What makes clean room services appealing to broadcasters is that programmers have dependable linkages to viewers who are signed into OTT services or have monthly subscriptions.
Disney’s announcement is interesting in that it does not include large cloud marketing businesses like Google and AWS, instead of focusing on data and identity vendors who operate across channels.
Interesting Read: Group Nine Launches First-Party Product In Wake Of Cookie Apocalypse!
Disney Clean Room: What’s In It For Marketers?
The primary idea behind the ‘clean room’ is to help marketers with their first-party data. Through this move, marketers will be able to collaborate with 1,000 first-party sectors, according to Disney.
Furthermore, marketers can use clean rooms to match their first-party data with other industry data in a secure environment. Marketers may match and instigate their needs when it comes to buyer behavior, household features, and psychographics using its first-party segments.
That’s What They Said!
Lisa Valentino, Disney ad sales EVP gave an official statement saying –
We are building data solutions for our clients and marketers anchored in Disney Select’s unrivaled audience-based capabilities. It was important for our clean room offering to be cloud agnostic to provide brands with scale and variation
Drivetime and Omnicom Media Group (OMG) were the first clients to use Disney’s clean room for beta testing. Habu, InfoSum, and Snowflake are also among the data firms taking part in the test.
OMG chief investment officer Geoff Calabrese, said –
This partnership with Disney is about setting the standard for the future of media accountability, and a more accurate understanding of consumer engagement and outcomes – it’s where we need to go as an industry, and OMG is proud to work with Disney in leading the way forward
Also Read: The Ultimate A-Z Glossary Of Digital Advertising!
Publicis Groupe Acquires CitrusAd, An Australian-Based SaaS Provider
Publicis Groupe has bolstered its retail portfolio by obtaining the Australian-based Software as a Service (SaaS) provider CitrusAd, which will help the company improve its marketing effectiveness on retailer websites.
This has come at a time when the company has undergone rapid development of eCommerce over the last two years.
By the virtue of this agreement, CitrusAd, which was started in 2017, will continue to function as a distinct organization while working within Publicis Epsilon’s data division to build a personal identity-based solution for retailers based on Epsilon’s existing Core-ID data product.
CitrusAd is a SaaS platform that enhances brand marketing performance directly into retailer websites, with over half of its revenue based in the United States.
Kohl’s, Macy’s, Tesco, Ocado, Lowe’s, Sainsbury’s, and Woolworth’s are just a few of the companies that collaborate with the firm in 22 countries. It also boasts that its self-serve platform is being used by 4,000 brands.
The co-founder and chief executive of CitrusAd, Brad Moran said in an interview that there had been discussions with other interested parties about the acquisition’s timing, but that the transaction with Publicis looked to be the best option.
Moran threw some light on this acquisition and said that Epsilon and CitrusAd’s partnership helps retailers to increase income by marketing co-branded assets across broader publisher networks outside of their four walls.
He further commented –
The world is moving to become cookieless, the world is moving towards walled gardens, and between us and Epsilon, we want to build the biggest walled garden in the world
Epsilon’s identification layer, Code ID, stores first-party data on customers worldwide, with 200 million profiles in the United States and 50 million in Europe alone. CitrusAd will add to Epsilon’s existing insights on online shopping and buying patterns, allowing the brand to better understand its customers and increase conversion rates.
Arthur Sadoun, CEO and chairman of Publicis Groupe said :
We are delighted to welcome Brad, Nick and the CitrusAd team to Publicis. The leading technology they have developed, coupled with Epsilon’s CORE ID will enable CPG brands to grow faster and retailers to generate new sources of revenue to win in a platform world. It will also give to Publicis a strong competitive advantage in a channel that by 2025 should surpass traditional TV spend
CitrusAd will continue to be managed by Moran in his existing capacity and co-founder and CMO Nick Paech, who will supervise 130 engineers and media professionals stationed around the world when they join Publicis Groupe.
Moran will report to Thibault Hennion, Epsilon’s head of international operations, and Jay Askinasi, Publicis Groupe’s chief growth officer.
Trade Desk Allows First-Party Data Onboarding In Solimar Trading Platform
The Trade Desk has announced a new trading platform, Solimar, that will allow clients to integrate first-party data to guide media-buying strategies, eliminating the need for a separate customer-data platform (CDP) or data-management platform (DMP).
By the virtue of this move, the Trade Desk will be able to build the UID2 ecosystem while offering users identity-based targeting as the first-party data will be transformed into Unified ID 2.0 (UID2s) from e-mail addresses.
One of the most significant improvements of the new user interface, Solimar, is the inclusion of client data. To include client feedback in the launch, The Trade Desk performed two months of private beta testing with a limited group of its major clients.
Coming from the Spanish words, ‘ sol y mar’ meaning ‘ sun and sea’, Solimar, for the Trade Desk, symbolizes the “perfect moment” when the sun and the sea meet during sunrise/sunrise.
Trading specialist Dawn Chan said in a briefing call –
This is what our release represents—it’s the perfect moment in our industry as we head into a new age of advertising, one that is digital and data-driven and also moves beyond the complexities of our ecosystems around siloed data and single-channel strategies
He added that the company wants to concentrate on enhancing advertisers’ capacity to do what’s best for their business as well as for consumers.
Mitch Waters, The Trade Desk’s SVP of Southeast Asia, India, and ANZ, told Campaign Asia-Pacific in a briefing call that it has been two years approximately since the development of Solimar first began.
The Trade Desk had three important areas of attention for Solimar, in addition to easy onboarding of first-party data: strengthening the user interface, putting goals at the forefront of campaigns, and including enhanced planning and optimizations.
Koa, an artificial intelligence application that gives suggestions throughout the campaign development and while it is running, is used to optimize campaigns.
According to Waters, this combined with what the business says is a more simplified and intuitive platform design intends to free traders from the tedious work of setting up campaigns and line items, allowing them to focus more on insights. Both agency and in-house teams have been considered when developing the platform.
Solimar launched on 7th July’21, comes three years after Trade Desk released its user interface, Megagon.
Waters said –
Essentially we had to build the plane while flying it [since] we had our old platform to stand up. We have the vision of what we want to achieve…then what we do is work backwards in terms of resourcing and everything else we have to do on an everyday basis. We release product every week, and our team have requests every other week that we need to prioritise
He added –
It was about working together to keep the pace of everyday innovation, as well as building something scalable and meaningful
The Solimar Platform
To help buyers make smarter choices, the Solimar platform starts with a ‘Live flight summary,’ which displays what The Trade Desk considers to be the most significant data for growth, such as:
- Goals: Does the client have a suitable marketing mix?
- Pacing: Is the client on schedule and expected to spend the full amount?
- Channels: Is the channel mix suitable, or is there space for diversification through emerging channels such as DOOH?
- Data: Is the client successfully utilizing data? This section shows how many campaigns are based on first-party, third-party, or no data.
Advertisers may now measure against many KPIs, categorized as primary, secondary, and tertiary, using the new campaign creation tools.
Adbrain’s campaign insights, such as reach and frequency, can be examined at the household, individual, or unique-ID level.
Also, planners can use a forecasting tool to adjust targeting settings and observe how it affects the reach and frequency of a campaign.
Waters, who sees this technology as particularly useful in APAC because of the dispersion of platforms between markets, says –
One area where we have seen a lot of demand is within OTT. If you are buying individually, you don’t have complete view of what an OTT opportunity might look like. Being able to see holistically what an OTT opportunity is across major partners within Indonesia
Koa
Solimar’s performance-enhancing features are powered by the Koa AI engine. When a client develops a new campaign, Koa will recommend KPIs based on the customer’s given objectives, cross-device vendors, a budget split by channels, retargeting, lookalike audiences, and contextual techniques, among other things.
Furthermore, the Koa Identity Alliance is a cross-device graph that integrates leading and new ID solutions such as LiveRamp IdentityLink, Oracle Cross Device, Tapad Device Graph, and Adbrain Device Graph, removing clients’ “guesswork” about identity resolution.
The Trade Desk intended to make Koa’s decisions visible, so clients may see which CPMs, tactics, and data segments the AI chose, and change or disregard Koa’s suggestions as needed.
First-Party Data
One of Solimar’s main advances is incorporating the value of a client’s first-party data or third-party audiences to inform their media purchase.
Clients can identify their target consumers in the campaign setup in the form of first-party or third-party data, which will act as a seed audience for Koa to build when making suggestions.
Brands can submit first-party data such as pixels, app data, and IP addresses directly into the platform or import data from a third-party DMP or CDP via a data section.
If a client decides to import CRM data as email addresses, they will be translated to UID2s automatically. After the UID2s have been converted, the platform will scan them to see how many are ‘active UID2s,’ or how many of these users have been active in the programmatic universe in the previous week.
If the client decides to act on those UID2s, they will be transmitted into the programmatic environment to match the publisher side, resulting in a synchronized UID2 ecosystem.