Striking the Consent Balance

Rachael Morris is an Account Analyst at Infectious Media working on campaigns for clients in the telecommunications, technology, retail and travel sectors. In her day-to-day role, Rachael analyses large amounts of data and ensures campaigns meet their targets. Here she discusses issues around data privacy, recently brought into focus by the EU ePrivacy directive.

Images of Big Brother spring easily into the minds of a generation brought up on endless dystopia novels. We feel surrounded by governments whose desire to know all about their people is exceeded only by their fiendish organisation and ability to sift through reams of data almost instantaneously. Stories of leaked data abound*, growing ever more worrying as we realise just how much information we routinely put out into the world. And, much as we might like to say otherwise, this isn’t entirely unjustified: 90% of people have shared information with at least one site**. There is a lot of information out there about all of us. On the other hand, the sheer volume of data floating around is one of the very things that makes this sort of nightmare scenario so unlikely – the difficulty already involved in getting meaningful information about any given individual is only increased by the amount of noise that is now out there. Equally important is the fact that none of the information being made available is personally identifiable. It sounds like a small point, but the difference between the knowledge that Susie Johnstone was recently looking at flights to Italy and bought a bikini and the knowledge that computer 856076815463 did the same is huge.

Interestingly, the more people know about how the information about them is collected and what it is used for, the happier they are about it – after hearing details about behavioural advertising, 74% of consumers felt more comfortable with their data being used**. This kind of data and the ability to tailor the advertising served to someone’s needs and wants is what differentiates digital advertising from other forms, so it is vital that we reach some kind of consensus on what is and isn’t acceptable. The only way to do this is going to be opening a dialogue with consumers, asking their opinions and ascertaining exactly where their limits lie as well as making as much information as possible freely and easily available. Until consumers feel comfortable with the information we hold about them and how it is used, we will not be able to move forward and exploit the full potential of online advertising.

The recent EU ePrivacy directive heralds a change in the industry’s attitude to privacy. The requirement to obtain informed consent for all non-essential cookies will force advertisers into clear disclosure of the implications of a visit to their website. The difficulty lies in striking the appropriate balance – we do not want to adhere to the regulations at the expense of user experience. Over the next year, we will all need to work to reach a consensus on acceptable forms of consent, which best achieve this balance. As members of the IAB, Infectious Media is actively involved in policy development and best practice data usage in advertising, and we see this as a real opportunity for positive change.

*http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/27/playstation-users-identity-theft-data-leak

** Statistics from IAB’s September 2009 study, in partnership with Olswang.

A Tale of Two Publishers

On a recent trip to New York, Infectious Media met with Adexchanger amongst others to chat about the exchange space.  The sector is growing rapidly in the UK at the moment, with advertisers, agencies and publishers all showing a real appetite to grow their involvement.

One of the biggest differences that surprised everyone we spoke with in the US was to hear that exchange liquidity and more specifically inventory quality was a problem in the UK.  To illustrate this, I’ll give you a tale of two premium publishers that we’ve been dealing with.

The first has gone in to the exchange space head first.  They are not someone who we would have expected to be trading on exchanges, and if they weren’t, we wouldn’t be doing business with them. They have dedicated time and resource to understanding how it works.  They have made some mistakes, undoubtedly sold some of their inventory for a much lower price than it’s probably worth, and I’m guessing it’s been a real headache for them.  But over time something magical has happened, the volume we buy from them has increased steadily as have the CPM’s that they are receiving for their inventory. From our perspective they have proven, through a strong ROI, that their inventory is good quality, and in a depressed and over supplied market, this is a great story.

The second publisher has taken a different approach to exchanges.  They constantly flirt with the idea but channel conflict and a fear of low CPM’s have dominated their thinking and hamstrung their entrance into the space.  In a same depressed market they publicly maintain their site is fully sold out every month at an astronomical CPM. We’ve yet to do any business with this publisher and I’m not sure when we will.

So as the first publisher gains learnings and future proofs their business, the second is watching the market change around them and doing little about it to protect their (extremely) short-term yield.  When you examine things more closely, there have been a number of recurring themes that emerge from publishers we have talked to that have held them back, these are in no particular order:

1)   High entry costs.  Many publishers have been put off by monthly minimum charges and long contracts
2)   Low CPM’s. There’s a perception that CPM’s on exchanges are very low, our experience is that good inventory still elicits good CPM’s
3)   Skillset.  Some publishers put their toe in the water but couldn’t make it work for them as they didn’t have the right skills in-house to build a platform trading business.
4)   Physical distance from the companies and people making this happen, predominantly the US.  Even the UK sales teams of large corporates that own exchange platforms have barely heard of them or have any awareness of the tidal wave of change that is coming.
5)   The economy.  No one wants to make a costly error for their company that could make them look bad so everyone sticks with what they know.
6)   Education, lack of.  Exchanges are creating a real buzz in the UK at the moment but there’s a chronic lack of education amongst publishers about how best to engage with them.
7)   Channel conflict.  Publishers are scared to sell their remnant direct for fear of cannibalising their premium sales.  Ironically, one of the principle roles networks are fulfilling in the UK is one of anonymity for publisher inventory.
And finally…
8)   Rumours and misinformation circulating about all of the above.

However, two big developments should change this over the coming months , accelerating adoption.  Firstly, the easy integration of DFP customers into the Google Exchange and secondly the aggressive arrival in the UK of the publisher yield optimisers. Both of these should help bridge the education and technology infrastructure challenges, bringing many more premium UK publishers up to speed.  More than this however, it is adopting a mindset of innovation and embracing change that will differentiate the winners from the losers as the new landscape emerges.