First ‘context’ now ‘privacy’. It seems the buzzword fest in online ad tech is always going back to the future. Which, as we’ve said before, is good news for local publishers – especially when it comes to reaping political ad dollars.
The three big platforms – Facebook, Google and Apple – are spending a fair amount of time jockeying to see who can discover and enforce the idea of user privacy. This matters to political buyers because most of their outreach uses specific kinds of targeting to speak to different kinds of voters. The foundation of that technology – cookies – is going away.
Make no mistake, some of this is posturing. Big Tech believes looking out for users will help them as they talk to Congress, the FTC, state attorneys general and a bunch of private lawyers about what they actually do. Regardless of the venue, appearing to care about users – known as consumers in the antitrust world – helps big tech companies argue that they’re not all that bad.
The lead dog here is Apple which has – on many levels – gone to war with Facebook over the manipulation of user data. With its most recent software upgrades on phones, tablets and desktop devices, Apple has dramatically reduced ad targeting ability. And there are a fair number of people who believe Apple may well be eyeing the online ad business.
Then we have Google. Google’s using privacy talk to move away from cookie tracking in ad sales. But the resulting confluence of targeting techniques is, well, mind-boggling. It will be especially difficult – maybe even impossible – for many small political buyers to navigate.
And there are lots of people who are happy to point out that Google’s ideas about privacy may be good for Google but not so much for the users from whom it profits. No news publisher needs to be reminded of that.
This is, as we used to say, breaking news. Lots more to come so we’ll point you to a source we like a lot: DigiDay’s privacy round-up of stories. It’s about as comprehensive as anyone can be right now – and it’s growing as things develop.
Digiday makes a good point in its package: Platforms, not lawmakers are leading the way on privacy. But that doesn’t mean there’s no legislative activity.
Across the country, states have teed up online privacy legislation. Oklahoma, Florida, Virginia, Washington and Connecticut all considered – or actually passed – legislation this year. That comes after California enacted and started enforcing privacy rules for its residents.
So, naturally, there’s a federal privacy bill kicking around. How that fares in the larger conversations about breaking up Big Tech, suing Big Tech, regulating Big Tech – the list goes on – is anyone’s guess. But it’s safe to say there will be something.
Okay, so what’s next. Short answer: Your guess is as good as ours. But we’re fans of the mantra that promises opportunity in chaos.
What we do know is that starting in January 2022 – right on time for the Congressional Midterm elections – the online ad world will be in a state of flux. Any publisher looking at their ad tech stack might want to take a hard look at how political ads are trafficked and sold. Publishers who are looking to capture political ad dollars could look at these market adjustments as ways to better manage political ad sales on their sites.
Spot-On’s new Pinpoint Persuasion ad buying platform makes direct selling to political ad buyers easy and clear. It points them at your sites and lets you set a rate card and inventory availability. Send us a note and we’ll show you what we can do to help navigate through the year – and beyond.