Data privacy among 2019 drivers of change. WARC reports on how
data privacy will be ever-present in marketer thinking next year. Chad Wollen, CMO of
Smartpipe Solutions, predicts a focus on around data portability and “where data protection and ethics converge”. Whatsmore -
“What is really important is trust” – but the trust brands build around their core business doesn’t necessarily transfer across to their handling of data. In a game of privacy chess, brands must learn not just to make the straightforward moves of the rook they are already equipped for, but to be a knight and also take a side step into a new area of data trust.
Rocket Fuel powered its AI by mixing client data that wasn’t meant to be mixed. Last week, AdExchanger’s Allison Schiff broke the story that Rocket Fuel had been
pooling its clients’ remarketing data, “creating segments and selling the data to others without permission” - including to competitors. Joanna O’Connell, VP and principal analyst at Forrester, commented -
Rocket Fuel was not wrong to invest in the application of AI to advertising. But they were wrong to assume that people would be okay with hearing, ‘Just trust us – just trust the machines.’
How to build a second‑party data relationship. LiveRamp’s Andrea Reichenbach provides a crash course on the
benefits of second-party data for marketers. Although US firms are due to
spend $19 billion in 2018 on third-party data despite the industry’s privacy concerns, second-party data has a certain allure “since it can unlock highly relevant and unique insights that would previously be inaccessible”, and increases marketers’ control -
Once a partnership is formed, a brand can also retain more control over its first-party data, agreeing on the data use cases in advance and ensuring that such an arrangement will deliver beneficial value to both sets of customers. Of course, additional safeguards can be taken in the form of an investment in a privacy-first, secure environment, so no data is directly, and unnecessarily, shared with a partner.
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The MadTech Podcast - S4 Capital’s strategy, transparency in Germany & the cookie’s future. Great to take part in this
week’s MadTech podcast with Ciaran O'Kane and Lindsay Rowntree discussing the top stories of the week, and how publishers can better leverage their data to compete with the walled gardens of Google and Facebook. Listen on
Spotify here.