The Privacy Playbook – Key Takeaways

by | May 19, 2022 | Marketing Strategy, Resources

Last night, Direct Agents hosted our first in-person event of the year, The Privacy Playbook: Navigating Trends, Measurement, & the New Consumer Landscape, at our NYC HQ, ‘The Acceleration Hub.’ Arielle Heyman, Head of Marketing at Bugaboo, Martha Kloko, Senior Director of Business Development at The Trade Desk, and Direct Agent executives covered ​​the industry’s latest privacy insights and predictions; below are the key takeaways from each session.

Introduction – Jackson Richards, VP of Strategy at Direct Agents

  • The outdated playbook was shaped by Facebook & Google acquisition which solved strategic shortcomings. User engagement and attention were centralized within Facebook, Instagram, and Google ecosystems. Unprecedented effectiveness, reach, and attribution meant brands consolidated investment into marketing through these platforms. 
  •  Brands should focus on defining and amplifying their purpose. Consumers have experienced a shift in mindsets and behavior indicative of a generational shift.  Holding more fragmented attention, the new consumer values privacy, flexibility,  diversity, and inclusion.
  • Winning brands going forward will increase investment and strategic playbooks across the entire customer lifecycle. 

2022’s Top 5 Trends Changing Everything in Digital – Trevor Clune, Paid Media Strategist at Direct Agents

  • Physical experiences are being replicated in a digital environment. With the continued growth of augmented and virtual reality, we predict that Live Shopping will become more popular in the US. 
  • The market for metaverse transactions is expected to reach $6.1 billion this year and nearly $42 billion globally by 2026. Direct Agents sees an opportunity in focusing on creating experiences at every stage of the funnel.

A Strategic Approach to Targeting and Measurement in a Privacy-first World with Corey Levine, VP of Integrated Media at Direct Agents, and Martha Kloko, Senior Director of Business Development at The Trade Desk

  • As we approach a new era of advertising, understanding some key themes across audience data, targeting and measurement is crucial to a foundational understanding.
    • Privacy policies and regulations like GDPR and CCPA and browsers have prompted changes in data collection and use practices.
    • To align with consumer privacy, major providers are requiring advertisers to operate within their walled gardens to access data.
  • The deprecation of the 3rd party cookie by Google in 2023 and IDFA by Apple has begun to and will inevitably impact all aspects of the media industry. Measurement has taken a hard hit to cross-platform attribution.
    • Inaccurate targeting will occur as a result of data loss from direct collection sources and online activation signals becoming increasingly unreliable. 
    • Targeting, non-contextual or 1P, will be limited, with programmatic black-box audience targeting to be particularly more challenging.
    • Attribution, reach, frequency, and view-through conversions are also more difficult and less accurate now.
  • Universal ID presents marketers with a solution to tracking and targeting limitations. UID offers:
    • Privacy-friendly security – utilizing hashed and encrypted identifiers
    • Consumer transparency and control – providing clear, universal preferences
      and opt-out
    • Open Source and Interoperability – being free and available to the entire
      ecosystem
    • Independent Governance – putting forward a strict code of conduct managed by an independent body
  • The UID2 Beta opportunity can bring forth immediate benefits, by maximizing the potential of your 1P data. Universal ID 2 proves to be incremental, non-disruptive, and exponentially impactful in providing continued access to cookies and device IDs where needed in conjunction with the ongoing wave of publisher and partner activations that deliver new benefits and testing opportunities. 
  • Going forward Direct Agents will continue to test cookie-less solutions, capture 1st Party digital data, diversify our overall social mix, develop new audience strategies, MarTech implementation, and transparent and reliable reporting. 

Trends to Tackle in 2022 – A Fireside Chat with Megan Conahan, EVP at Direct Agents, and Arielle Heyman, Head of Digital & Marketing at Bugaboo North America

  • Diversification is key when it comes to targeting your consumer, in both re-visiting 1st party data testing and your media mix. Building partnerships with companies that have robust 1st party data and relying more on contextual targeting has proven to be worthwhile. 
  • For higher price point items, it is important to have a strong Amazon strategy and capitalize on a shorter purchase journey. 
  • Have more flexibility with your KPI’s.  We can no longer hold performance marketing channels to the same ROI/ROAS goals as before.  Look to things like clicks, bounce rate, brand search volume, and other indicators to measure success.  
  • Every brand right now is facing inflation and increasing costs. To combat this, companies should focus on building up their brand so that they can better weather the current economic climate.