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Navigating data deprecation

(Source: Bigstock.)

New privacy laws, additional restrictions on operating systems and browsers, consumer adoption of new privacy tools, and practices introduced by Apple and Google will create new complexity in activating, optimising, and measuring marketing campaigns. The deprecation of data will, without question, be disruptive to marketers over the short term.

But these ongoing and impending changes also create a new urgency to build a stronger data ecosystem. As disruptions in the media data environment continue, marketers will need to be vigilant in testing, learning, and adapting to respond effectively. Advertisers, retailers and publishers that prepare now for this new normal will be best positioned to maintain their advertising effectiveness and outperform their competition.

So how do you stay ahead?

  • Advocate for the consumer. Putting consumer privacy at the forefront of data-driven decisions keeps brands and marketers ahead of privacy legislation. Transparency and a commitment to building trust provides the base from which you can build deeper relationships with your consumers.
  • Remain flexible during this time of transition. New products and methods will continue to emerge and evolve, causing fluctuations in data volume and accuracy. Maintaining flexibility will allow you to dynamically adapt to take advantage of new and improving tools and methods.
  • Proactively collect and curate your first-party data to increase value. The true value of your first-party data is commensurate with its coverage, depth and recency. Advertisers with access to first-party data should take this opportunity to add to and update their profiles with accurate attributes and behaviours, especially sales, to build and sustain the value of their data assets.
  • Sustain and continue to develop best-in-class aggregate data solutions. Unlike granular solutions such as multi-touch attribution and household-level lift, sales-based measurement (such as IRI Marketing Mix Modelling and IRI Market Lift) will not be affected by data deprecation. For marketers, sales-based media solutions may even become more valuable to overcome potential data blind spots. In addition, sales-based measurement can provide a stable point of comparison to understand the relative impact of data deprecation on these event-level solutions.
  • Test, learn and benchmark the performance of audience and measurement solutions over time and versus historical results. New and evolving solutions will result in varying levels of performance over time. 

Google’s announcement in June that deprecation of cookies will be pushed back to 2023 provides a wider window of opportunity to test and learn about the performance of alternative solutions in advance. Testing and benchmarking now can help prepare you for future success.

Take the guesswork out of your investments and prove they are contributing to the growth of your brand.  Now is the perfect time to test your new strategies and measure it against your actual sales, using a reliable and proven method.

Let us help you to campaign with confidence, download our latest e-guide to understand how you can quantify the impact of your marketing campaigns.