@WeAreRaptive CSO and co-founder. Talk about digital advertising, privacy, adtech, and occasionally video games. Views are mine.
Apr 4 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
Let's talk ID Bridging! A hot topic in programmatic advertising, but not that well understood outside of a small group of people. The below description is slightly simplified, but I don't think the details I've glossed over are that important - let me know if you disagree! 1/
Programmatic uses the OpenRTB protocol - a standard that defines how pubs/SSPs send data to DSPs about ads they have for sale and how the DSPs communicate bids back to SSPs/pubs. There’s a lot of data sent, like the page URL, accepted ad sizes, any blocked ad categories, etc. 2/
Jan 9 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
🚨🚨Super early Chrome deprecation data analysis! 🚨🚨 Data from tens of millions of impressions since the 1% deprecation trial came into effect on Jan 4. 1/
First, we actually aren't seeing a full 1% deprecation yet - we think part of this is just timing as well as data discrepancies on our side that we're working through, but we still have enough data to get some rough view of things. 2/
Jan 24, 2023 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
The DOJ filed its complaint against Google today around alleged monopoly practices in open web display ads. There's tons to unpack that I'll be digging through, but one of the most interesting things is imagining what the world might look like if the DOJ's remedy happens. A🧵
There are a bunch of components of the remedy that the DOJ requests, but the key component is #6: That Google divests GAM and AdX from the company, so the publisher ad tech components are separated from the rest of the company. 2/
Aug 23, 2022 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Most of adtech is heading down one of two paths to deal with ID deprecation: 1) Get users to log in and track them based on their email 2) Use technical data (fingerprinting) to track them across sites/apps
But there is a big underlying problem with both approaches... 1/
Gatekeepers (primarily Google and Apple) are building technology to block both of these things from working. The first is being blocked by things like Hide My Email, FedCM, FIDO, and other technologies. The second by user-agent freezing, Gnatcatcher, OS changes, and more. 2/
Apr 13, 2022 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
This is exciting! The new version of ads.txt will create more transparency in the digital ads ecosystem. This can give buyers more confidence in how they spend their money, and direct more of that ad spend to the best publishers and the best paths. A 🧵1/
The first addition to the ads.txt spec is the OwnerDomain variable. Each publisher can specify the corporate owner of that domain. Then buyers can tie sellers.json data to ads.txt data. This will reduce confusion with "BOTH" entities (that represent and own sites), 2/
Apr 7, 2021 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
Positive to see other publishers bringing up issues around conversion data. @dmarti and I brought these issues up against Safari's version of the Chrome feature that Robin mentions below github.com/privacycg/priv…. Let's talk about the details 1/
With the impending death of 3PC in Chrome and them already dead in Safari, both browsers are implementing conversion measurement features to allow advertising campaigns to get some level of data about their performance. 2/
Mar 3, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Here are the questions that Google needs to answer:
* Will their O&O ad systems have access to data from: Chrome log-in, Chrome sync/history, Login with Google, Login with Google history, Android history, Google Home? (I think the answer is "no" but they need to answer) 1/
* Will ADH continue to allow advertisers to upload emails for the purposes of targeting and measurement on G O&O?
(I am sure the answer is "yes" - this allows for many use cases that are literally cross-site tracking, but without cookies) 2/
Mar 3, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
So Google's announcement today that they won't support any email-based/universal IDs is quite unsurprising and very consistent with their messages to-date. What ISN'T said in their post is actually what's more interesting. blog.google/products/ads-c… 1/
One important clarification is this doesn't appear to mean that Chrome will block solutions like this, they just don't believe they will last. What isn't said is that they're already taking steps to weaken the usage of those trackers via things like github.com/WICG/WebID 2/
Jan 5, 2021 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
This interview from @OSchiffey has great quotes that directly refute the nonsense that many privacy advocates spout about how the death of cross-site tracking will help ad-supported publishers on the open web. adexchanger.com/agencies/starc… 1/
The interview is with a senior leader at a major global ad agency. Someone who actually knows what advertisers are talking about, where they are directing their spending, and what the future trends will be. Not a privacy advocate who knows nothing about the advertising market 2/
Jul 8, 2020 • 21 tweets • 4 min read
Great thread from @Myles_Younger that inspired me to start my own - what are Google's intentions and who are their internal stakeholders with respect to the deprecation of third party cookies? I have no special insight into the inner workings of Google, but here goes anyway.. 1/
The best way to walk through the "why are they doing this?" question, is to think through the stakeholder groups inside of Google. I believe there are at least four groups with somewhat overlapping and also contradictory needs/viewpoints. 2/
May 8, 2020 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
For those not following that closely, lots of discussions going on in and around the W3C privacy sandbox process. The @criteo team just submitted an excellent new proposal called SPARROW. If you guessed it was in response to TURTLEDOVE, you'd be right! 1/
The proposal is available at github.com/BasileLeparmen… and is well worth a read. It addresses a number of key missing uses cases in TURTLEDOVE (TD), while remaining privacy-centric. 2/
Feb 12, 2020 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
One of the most valuable datasets that can be used for targeting digital advertising is publisher first-party data. However, over the years it has remained a relatively unused asset for a variety of reasons. 1/
With the “death of the cookie” imminent, finding new approaches for fueling digital advertising on the web are critical to find. Creating an ecosystem around publisher first-party data (P1PD) could be one such new method. 2/
Feb 4, 2020 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
1/ Time for a Google conspiracy theory, I call it GATE - GAM At The Edge. Buried within all of their new proposals about digital advertising after cookies, is a particularly interesting one named TURTLEDOVE. Believe it or not, that actually is an acronym!
2/ Two Uncorrelated Requests, Then Locally-Executed Decision On Victory. The first part ("Two Uncorrelated Requests") is super-interesting nerd-stuff that is very privacy-first, but the second part is where you should put on your tinfoil hat.
May 30, 2019 • 19 tweets • 4 min read
First, the dataset itself is massively problematic. It's 3 years old (from May 2016), based on data from a single publisher, is data from a single week, and is referenced as "millions of transactions" repeatedly as if that's a good thing, when in reality that's a tiny dataset.
3 year old data is completely irrelevant to look at compared to today's digital ads ecosystem. Safari ITP didn't even exist until June 2017 and GDPR wasn't in effect. On the flip side, programmatic demand has increased by at least 50% in the interim.
