From ad personalization vs. privacy
to ad personalization with privacy

This article was originally featured in AdAge.

Google has abandoned its plan to phase out third-party cookies for Chrome, and the company indicated its approach moving forward is user choice. This decision has led some auto marketers to breathe a sigh of relief. We get it. Third-party cookies are at the center of the process you and your clients know and using them doesn’t require taking risks and upending decades of business processes. While keeping a strategy centered around third-party cookies may be an easy choice, it is not the time for auto marketers to stay complacent.

Issues around accuracy, efficacy and reliability of data from third-party cookies remain a question. At the same time, consumers and regulators have a decreasing appetite for third-party cookies. Firefox, Safari and other browsers have phased out third-party cookies, and many Chrome users enable privacy extensions to render third-party cookies useless. While third-party cookies may live to see another day, they are not here to stay.

The rise of Universal IDs

How can auto advertisers benefit from Universal IDs?

Auto advertisers using UIDs will benefit because they can more precisely identify and reach consumers with a more personalized ad experience. For example, serving a truck ad to someone predicted to purchase a truck and then following that up with a service ad after the consumer has made the purchase. Furthermore, UIDs enable privacy-first measurement – including omni-channel measurement of offline sales and service – when media and conversions are resolved to a common ID. All of which leads to a more holistic view of the customer, a more personalized ad experience, more sales conversions for the advertiser, all without compromising user privacy.

As the landscape continues to evolve, there have been questions among marketers about whether privacy-centric universal IDs will scale to reach a critical mass. Jeff Green, CEO of The Trade Desk, said that Unified ID 2.0 has “reached a critical mass of adoption.” He added that UID2 is “addressing much bigger issues and is expected to have more ubiquity than cookies ever did or do.”

The marketplace for advertisers using UIDs is becoming more robust, too. More premium inventory is available within the ad tech supply chain connected to UIDs, allowing auto advertisers to reach consumers with personalized ad experiences in premium environments. For example, when paired with Urban Science’s sales data and algorithmic capabilities, auto advertisers can precisely target an in-market intender within a connected TV environment and then measure if doing so resulted in more sales. For publishers and media owners, universal IDs allow them to provide more personalized content and ad experiences. For demand-side platforms, better match rates, omni-channel targeting and measurement. In short, using UIDs can help maximize revenue by creating an advertising ecosystem that delivers more precise and efficient ads on both the demand and supply side, all to the benefit of auto advertisers and without sacrificing consumer privacy.

For automotive advertisers looking to harness the power and capabilities of UIDs, Urban Science is the trusted data partner that will help you take the guesswork out of planning, deploying and optimizing your automotive media in a world beyond third-party cookies.

What should auto marketers do next?