IAB Europe Survey Reveals Disconnect Between Importance of Post-Cookie Era Solutions and Business Readiness

IAB Europe, the leading European-level industry association for the digital advertising and marketing ecosystem, has today released its comprehensively updated ‘Guide to the Post-Third-Party Cookie Era’, to prepare brands, agencies, publishers and tech intermediaries for the much-anticipated post-third-party cookie advertising ecosystem.

To understand how involved stakeholders were with the different initiatives and how prepared they are for the new era, IAB Europe ran an industry poll in Q4 2020. Respondents were asked what new opportunities and challenges they foresaw, and how prepared they are for these changes. They were also asked about the impact they think it will have on targeting, measurement, verification and overall investment. Over 100 industry professionals completed the poll and topline findings showed:

• Priority in finding an alternative to the third-party cookie - nearly half of all respondents said that it was critically important to find a solution. Only 13% cited it wasn’t very important.
• Preparedness in finding a new solution - But conversely, whilst it is a high priority, the majority are not prepared.

The guide, which has been developed by experts from IAB Europe’s programmatic trading committee, updates the first edition from May 2020. It provides the latest insights into the many alternative solutions that are being developed to replace third-party cookies when they are depleted in 2022, including context, identity, the use of telco data and the Google Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) initiative. It is evident that a lot of innovation continues to take place around identity and the industry will not end up with one final solution. As a result, the Guide will help industry prepare to test, learn and collaborate on further developments throughout 2021.

Commenting on this latest work, Helen Mussard, CMO, IAB Europe said “With less than 12 months to go until third-party cookies are fully deprecated, now is the time for every company within the digital advertising ecosystem to work together to deliver the solutions that are outlined in the IAB Europe Guide. As the European voice for digital advertising and marketing, our role is to help our members navigate these changes and ensure the €23bn (£20.2bn) European programmatic industry can continue to innovate and thrive in this new era.”

The 14-000 word Guide provides a comprehensive deep-dive into the following themes:

• The three contributing factors to the depletion of third-party cookies
• The impact on stakeholder usage of proprietary platforms
• The impact on measurement and ad verification
• A detailed overview of each of the current third-party post-cookie solutions
• Information on how stakeholders can contribute to the ongoing development of these solutions

Commenting on the depth of knowledge contained within the Guide, chair of the IAB Europe programmatic trading committee and DoubleVerify senior director of business development, David Goddard, said “Consumer privacy and respect in advertising is paramount. Recent moves to ensure privacy through corporate and government initiatives – including the deprecation of third-party cookies – means that advertisers need new tools and resources to ensure efficient and effective campaign measurement and targeting. This Guide – a collective effort of the IAB Europe’s Programmatic Trading Committee – includes input from companies across the digital ad ecosystem and is meant to provide an understanding of where we are now, and what options we have to move forward. This collaborative effort exemplifies how players across the value chain can and should work together to meet the needs of advertisers and consumers alike – fostering a healthy, well-lit ad ecosystem. Today’s updated Guide contains the most up-to-date summary of the identity market today, however we know this space is constantly innovating and changing. As a result, we will continue to share the latest learnings and developments through further updates to the guide.”

IAB Europe will be hosting a webinar featuring contributors to the Guide on 23rd February, 2021 at 3pm GMT, to expand further on the themes covered. This will be a free industry event and registration is available here: Webinar Registration - Zoom