‍In our previous article, we explored the concept of purpose-built identity solutions and the new pivotal role of ID graphs. As we dive deeper into the nuances of identity solutions, it's crucial to understand ‘ID Bridging’ and its impact on extending both direct and programmatic revenue streams. 

As we shift away from reliance on cookies & third-party identifiers publishers need comprehensive and scalable solutions that help them link, or ‘bridge’, their first and second party data sets as well as create interoperability with their demand partners and other activation channels. The most important dynamic here is that publishers maintain control and transparency so that these practices are in line with their advertisers and demand partners standards.

"ID Bridging is an important capability in our tool set as we continue to enter a world where free & widespread identifiers are less accessible & usable across our ecosystem. Being able to bridge together IDs from our various internal datasets as well as work with second parties ultimately helps to make cookieless environments more addressable to our advertising partners." said Paul Bannister, CSO of Raptive. "Working with Optable has helped us to scale and refine this practice across our large network of sites. Their ability to work as a true SaaS provider and give us the controls we need across various sources of identity helps us to both test and optimize our addressability and work closely with our demand partners so that we are doing this in a way that is acceptable to their standards."

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Understanding Addressability Evolution and the Role of ID Bridging

The ad tech system was engineered to provide marketers with rich datasets to target audiences with paid advertising, having made ‘Identity’ and ‘Addressability' synonymous for a decade. However, trends in data privacy are moving us away from third-party cookies and app-based identifiers.

Now, publishers face a challenge with these shifts due to lack of investment in understanding their audience data. They must pivot as linking user identity and addressability becomes increasingly difficult. Many publishers find that they lack the data science and engineering expertise to build & scale high quality and reliable identity graphs without the help of specialized platforms. To keep their data-driven ad products in line with these changes publishers are reviving concepts like contextual advertising and introducing new ones like identity cohorts and enriched audiences. As a result, traditional ad products are evolving, and publishers need to reassess their Data Management platforms and tech stack to maximize growth in both direct and programmatic monetization channels.

Amid signal loss in the programmatic market, ID Bridging was introduced to maintain addressability. It is the privacy-safe process publishers use to match their first-party audience identity signals with static signals from second parties to grow their understanding of their audiences. This subset of identity resolution is key as digital advertising heavily relies on these signals. 

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How is ID Bridging used for programmatic advertising?

A major trend in the response to the aforementioned changes in addressability and the need of linking identities is the creation and adoption of Alternative IDs. In programmatic advertising, an ‘Alternative ID’ refers to any identifier other than third-party cookies that is used to track and target users across websites and devices. Many different ‘Alternative ID’ projects have come about in recent years and many of them vary greatly depending on the companies behind them and the geographical regions they operate in (due to variation in privacy laws).

Some of the major ones include The Trade Desk's UID 2.0 project, ID5, and LiveRamp's RampID, but there are many more, and they continue to pop up in new and different commercialized forms as companies respond to the changing market. As a result, publishers are finding ways to use ID Bridging to actually enrich the bid requests they are sending to programmatic advertising platforms with Alternative IDs via a process called Bid Enrichment. 

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This process helps publishers increase the chances of an ad buying platform finding their inventory to be addressable and, therefore, maximizes their “ad yields.” By working with a first party DMP, publishers can not only implement this solution, but they can also test and optimize different identifiers. Some legacy programmatic data providers have offered other methods of doing Bid Enrichment by loading all possible Alternative IDs within their tags; however, this has limitations for non-web channels, creates latency across web pages, and does not allow for insights and optimization into what Alternative IDs are providing the best yield.

It is important to note that the IAB Tech Lab is working on new standards to support these changes. These standards will help give better guidance to publishers on how to best implement ID Bridging and Bid Enrichment, as well as to Marketers on the best practices for measuring success when their Publisher partners and ad-buying platforms are using these solutions.

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How can ID Bridging help improve directly sold inventory?

Beyond programmatic advertising, ID Bridging also plays a critical role in enhancing directly sold inventory. By increasing addressability, ID Bridging helps media owners and publishers grow revenue from the inventory they directly sell to advertisers.

The addressable advertising ecosystem is likely to continue to be in flux in the near future, given ongoing regulation in the US, Canada and other markets. Going forward, it is incredibly crucial for publishers to invest in a first-party DMP that can support addressable advertising in the many forms it will take. This means investing in a DMP that natively supports first-party ID Graphing and enables Bid Enrichment via Alternative Identifiers.

Integrating second-party data providers into the data strategy can be a big leap. By working with identity and data providers, publishers and media owners can grow authenticated users and enrich the existing data with additional traits and attributes, leading to a more detailed understanding of their audience. 

Besides deeper insights, enhanced data also gives the data teams more power when it comes to creating and leveraging audience segments. As a result, publishers can boost revenue from direct-sold campaigns by offering advertisers access to more defined and valuable audiences. Ultimately, partnering with second-party data providers not only improves audience insights but also drives better ad performance.

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Optable Enables Transparent ID Bridging

The impact of linking identifiers on a publisher's ad business depends on how providers use the IDs. If handled responsibly, ID bridging can enhance ad inventory value and bring revenue. Yet, if providers prioritize short-term gains by adding undisclosed identifiers, it can lead to ID spoofing and challenges with their advertising partners. Industry standards and working groups, such as IAB Tech Lab, are continuing to give guidance on ID Bridging practices to ensure ecosystem integrity. Optable, as a member, proactively develops and complies with these standards.

At Optable we work under a SaaS model, prioritizing transparency with our clients to ensure that agreed-upon identifiers are used in ID Bridging. This approach provides publishers with visibility, control, and the ability to test & optimize different ID providers & datasets to determine the most effective solution for their inventory. On our platform, teams can complete their dataset with identifiers including Universal ID 2.0, Criteo ID and Ramp ID and leverage hashed data from providers such as Experian, True Data, and ID5.   

Reach out to us at info@optable.co to learn more about how you can increase addressability & grow revenue using Optable’s Audience Management Platform.