Demand-side platform (DSP) Beeswax and video ad management platform Beachfront announced today that they have both adopted LiveRamp’s ‘IdentityLink’ identifier for connected-TV advertising, a move which the two say will allow buyer to use their first-party data for CTV ad targeting in a privacy compliant manner. Beachfront and Beeswax are the first to use IdentityLink within CTV environments, and advertisers buying through Beeswax will also be able to use IdentityLink for display and mobile campaigns too.
LiveRamp’s IdentityLink is designed to help connect up disparate sources of consumer data including advertisers’ CRM-based first-party data, third-party behavioural online exposure data, and mobile app download data. It does this by tying buyers’ own data (which they onboard directly via LiveRamp) back to a unique identifier at the consumer level, which is encrypted whenever it’s sent to publishers and ad tech partners.
Daniel Church, Beachfront’s director of programmatic, explained how the process will work for CTV. “We have a connection with LiveRamp, and when we get certain IDs (which could be a device ID, as well as a first-party cookie ID or a login ID), we will send them to LiveRamp,” he said. “LiveRamp will look at their cross-device graph and find the household matched with that ID, and then they will send us a randomised identifier. We then pass that to the DSP, so in this case Beeswax. Their buyers will have a list of LiveRamp IDs that match the audience they’re looking for, and they then are able to target that randomised ID.”
Church said this allows buyers to target ads using their first-party data in a way which doesn’t expose this potentially sensitive data to the other parties involved. “We don’t need to know anything about the household, the user or their first-party data, and Beeswax doesn’t have to know anything about who the user is either,” he said. “So if a buyer like Target had a bunch of data which they didn’t want to bring into a DSP and risk spreading that data, or even worse, it’s personally identifiable information which they’re not allowed to share in that way, they can now sync that data up with LiveRamp.”
There are a few implications of the partnership. Church said it will allow advertisers and inventory owners which have previously been reluctant to use their first-party data due to privacy concerns to now leverage that data for ad targeting. He said that Beachfront works with a lot of cable companies, who have traditionally been reluctant to use their own subscriber data. Telcos depend on their direct relationships with their customers, and are wary of being seen as exploiting these relationships by sharing their user data in non-privacy compliant ways. Through the LiveRamp integration, Church said these cable companies will be able to bring their subscriber data into play without actually sharing it with their ad-tech partners.
The three partners also frame the partnership as a response to the impending death of the third-party cookie, as Google Chrome prepares to end support for third-party cookies. For CTV specifically, the solution obviously does not replace cookies, since they were never used in CTV in the first place. But as ad targeting online becomes more difficult as cookie targeting is phased out, collaborations like this one will at least provide advertisers with alternative way of reaching specific audiences.
“The cookieless future presents the ecosystem with an incredible opportunity to build a better infrastructure for the open internet, and we’re looking forward to continuing to work with partners to move beyond the cookie,” said Travis Clinger, VP of global strategy and partnerships at LiveRamp. “We’ve built a solution that helps publishers and brands transact decisively and confidently against specific audiences across screens without compromising reach, accuracy, or privacy. Now, we’re extending this value proposition to advertisers looking to maximise the value of their ad spend across digital, mobile, and CTV with our partners at Beeswax and Beachfront.”