How to succeed in the post-cookie and post-RTB world

The changes being forced on the digital marketing industry can actually be a boon if digital advertisers successfully navigate the post-cookie and post-RTB (real-time bidding) era.

Why it matters 

Digital marketers’ overzealous focus on clicks and vanity metrics has inadvertently given rise to ad fraud – an ‘industry’ that’s costing advertisers billions of dollars annually. But new privacy regulations and the looming deprecation of third-party tracking cookies, combined with Apple’s ATT strategy, means marketers are having to change tack. 

But rather than fear privacy regulations and the death of the cookie, smart marketers are embracing them and finding better business outcomes as a result, writes an expert on ad fraud in an exclusive new article for WARC. 

Takeaways

• Savvy advertisers have already started adding “challenger” campaign lines where they target, such as iOS devices, with no other targeting parameters. This ensures their ads are shown to humans. Advertisers are already seeing dramatic upticks in business outcomes.
  
• Advertisers should beware block lists, and utilize inclusion lists instead. The campaign line that uses an inclusion list prioritizes quality inventory, and this helps advertisers avoid 90% of ad fraud.
• Mature digital advertising is efficiently investing in digital channels to drive more business outcomes. In some cases, reducing spending is the most efficient way to drive the “bottom line” upwards, because every dollar saved is a dollar that flows straight to the profit line. 
  

Key quote

“Digital advertising is not a video game where higher scores, higher numbers of impressions, and more clicks win. High clicks do not mean your ad targeting was working better; it often means that there were more bots clicking on your ads” – Dr. Augustine Fou, Marketing Science Consulting.