Main Highlights:
- Advertisers have relied on cross-app tracking for years to reach customers. Still, with Google’s decision to outlaw cross-app monitoring on Android and remove the Android tracking ID, they will need to develop new data collection tactics.
- Due to the Android platform’s restriction on cross-app tracking, marketers’ cost of user acquisition will increase as they create new, less effective targeting strategies for mobile users.
- Tapestri Inc. aims to solve the issue of first-party data collecting by developing a mobile application that rewards users for sharing their anonymized location data with third-party organizations.
Advertisers have depended on cross-app tracking to reach consumers for years. Still, with Google’s decision to prohibit cross-app monitoring on Android and to remove the Android tracking ID, they’ll need to devise new data collecting strategies.
The Android platform’s limitation on cross-app monitoring means that marketers’ user acquisition costs will rise as they develop new, less effective targeting tactics to attract people on mobile devices. Additionally, this means that businesses and decision-makers will need to reconsider their approach to data collection from their target population.
Google’s decision comes more than a year after Apple revealed that app developers would be required to request permission to monitor a user’s IDFA identifier on iOS and months after Google Chrome stated that it will phase out third-party cookies in 2023.
Across the board, there is a rising struggle against cross-app tracking and third-party advertising, as providers such as Google and Apple aim to prevent marketers from gathering data about individual users.
What is the answer? Data provided by other parties
As ISPs tighten down on third-party advertising, it’s becoming increasingly evident that organizations’ only future-proof option for collecting insights on consumers without relying on another entity is first-party data acquisition.
A wave of providers such as Perion and Tapestri is developing solutions to collect first-party data consistently. The former offers a platform called Intelligent HUB designed to gather signals from users across all channels and helped the company generate up to $158.0 million last year.
Doron Gerstel, CEO of Perion, stated that user behavior tracking has long been the lifeblood of digital advertising. Even though Google has stated that complete deployment will take two years, that is a relatively short time frame for technology businesses that rely on tracking and monetizing user behavior. He continued, there is little question that we are on the verge of a privacy revolution that will upend the digital ecosystem’s underpinnings.
According to Gerstel, there will undoubtedly be a need to identify adequate traffic sources on the open web and elsewhere. Data from first- and zero-party sources will become increasingly more critical. Coinbase’s Super Bowl ad highlights how the once-ignored QR code can provide 1P data without the need for Google or Apple.
While the move from third-party to first-party data may be challenging for companies that rely on third-party data collection, it will significantly improve the quality of the data collected and enable decision-makers to produce more complex insights in the long run.
Obstacles on the horizon
Until organizations develop a method for collecting first-party data from their consumers, whatever tailored experiences they have produced will be at risk, at least momentarily. With 75% of customers preferring businesses that provide a personalized online experience and 62% of enterprises personalizing experiences using cookies, many organizations will need to reconsider how they give personalized experiences to users.
According to Tapestri’s CRO, Tom Bullock, the Apple and projected Google modifications significantly influence customization, which portends a worse user experience. Users are becoming more fickle and have developed an expectation of a smooth experience. They should unquestionably learn from firms like Netflix, Tik Tok, Amazon, and Facebook, who have mastered the art of user experience optimization.
Tapestri Inc. Inc. sought to address the dilemma of first-party data collection by inventing a mobile application that compensates users for sharing their anonymized location data with other companies. According to Bullock, the next stage for firms interested in selling advertising tailored to individual users’ interests is to adopt a “walled garden strategy” and expand their first-party data collecting.
This entails establishing a commercially viable alternative ID, designing privacy-sensitive platforms that incentivize users for giving data, and utilizing blockchain technology to govern what data is gathered and who has access to it.
