Verified advertising IDs from telcos: what’s in it for consumers?
Imagine a world where digital advertising works for you as a consumer. Perfectly tailored advertisements that meet your needs exactly arrive at just the right moment. In the process not one byte of your personally identifiable information (PII) is exchanged with brands, publishers or anyone in the adtech industry.
This may sound too good to be true, but it is an opportunity that is now firmly within reach thanks to a shake up of the way in which the advertising industry uses third-party tracking cookies to fuel the programmatic advertising ecosystem. With these changes, a new age of consumer-first advertising it set to dawn; one where the internet is free of spam-like ads and the user experience is exceptional.
The driver for change is a raft of new emerging worldwide privacy regulations aimed at better protection and respect for consumer privacy. These regulations are causing web browser and mobile OS providers to rethink their use of third-party tracking cookies and Mobile Advertising IDs so that their advertising services are compliant and respect increasing demand from consumers for better experiences online. As a result of these shifts, brands and publishers need a new approach to ID verification.
As discussed in a previous post, telcos are well positioned to provide identity verification services for digital advertising. Not only do they have a complete view across all devices and web properties, but they can verify pseudonymised audiences in-network for a completely secure approach. What’s important here is that this approach to post-cookie audience verification will deliver a much better online experience for web users.
On a basic level telco-verified IDs will deliver personalised messaging (71% of consumers say they prefer personalised ads) in a way that respects their privacy (92% of consumers say they are concerned about privacy, and 72% fear that some companies can’t be trusted with their private information). It is this ability to meet consumer demands for better, safer and less intrusive experiences that make telco-verified IDs such a compelling proposition.
Digital advertising as a service
At Novatiq, we’re championing this approach and helping telcos create a new pseudonymised ID for reaching both anonymous and authenticated online users. The strength of this approach is that it transforms consumers’ relationships with brands and publishers for the better. Rather than being a necessary evil that consumers must tolerate to access content, with telco-verified IDs advertising becomes a service that adds real value to consumers’ lives.
For example, working with telcos, publishers can help brands understand where and when a user has seen an ad, which enables them to serve a different ad the next time the user visits – and regardless of whichever device they happen to be using at the time. Ads are transformed from being little better than spam to being a two-way dialogue that’s aligned to people’s likes and interests.
The verification ID value exchange
Even better, the approach offers a much fairer value exchange than consumers have experienced to date. The problem with current approaches to advertising is that through tracking cookies consumers are giving away too much in terms of private data in return for the tailored ads they receive. The telco-verified approach on the other hand provides a much better exchange: their consented verified IDs only go to the publishers or brands they choose to engage with and in return they receive a much richer advertising experience.
The issue of consent is important here. Today, when consumers tick away the consent management applications on publishers’ sites, they are often consenting for their private data to be used with a wide variety of third parties – that’s quite a giveaway. With telco-verified IDs the data exchange is limited to the first-party cookie, and the verification takes place behind the telco’s firewall and without the exchange of PPI. Importantly the publisher never knows who the user is – all they are asking is consent for their first-party cookie to be used to verify they are the same anonymous user.
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Convenient consent for improved customer experiences
With telco-verified IDs, consent comes from the publisher for the verification ID generation and usage, and from the publishers, brands or telcos for first party data usage only. Consumers need only give their consent to publishers for their data to be used for verification, and can easily rescind that consent at any time simply by commanding the publisher to stop verifying them in this way. For publishers, brands and telcos looking to secure consent for activation of first party-data for audience activation the approach is even easier: consent is given to each individual party and can easily be received/reactivated or deactivated at the request of consumers.
In essence, consumers are providing consent to be verified across devices and websites for a joined-up advertising experience. The result is personalised and relevant advertising and continuous engagement based on consumer preferences and delivered without impacting their privacy. Perhaps most importantly, this advanced form of programmatic advertising will mean that ad-funded digital content remains a viable prospect, giving consumers choice over how they access content online. A new consumer-first internet is emerging, and telco-verified IDs will play a central role.
For more information on the opportunity for telcos around telco-verified IDs download our white paper.
