‘In Conversations With…’ is a LiveRamp series where we bring together leading voices in the industry and ask them to share their thoughts on the constantly evolving realm of marketing, advertising, media, and tech.
In this edition of ‘In Conversations With…’ Louise Exton, Director, Addressability ANZ at LiveRamp, speaks with Mitch Greenway, Director ANZ at OpenX, about the adoption of identity solutions across the open web and what the expansion of their US partnership into Australia means for local marketers.
Both Mitch and Louise spent time working for some of the world’s largest publishers, giving them an insider’s understanding of what publishers need to be successful.
Currently, Mitch is working with several industry colleagues to revamp the IAB Australia’s Auction Mechanics playbook, which aims to simplify the complexities of programmatic auctions and ad technology available for publishers.
Louise and Mitch are passionate about the importance of transparency with consumers, and both are spearheading change for the industry by leveraging new solutions to bridge the gap between media buying of the past and more performative media buying of the future.
In this blog, Louise and Mitch share how the LiveRamp and OpenX partnership expansion will help Australian marketers reduce their reliance on the walled gardens while increasing their addressable reach with their audiences across the inventory from thousands of publishers.
Talk to us about the adoption of identity solutions across all publishers on the open web. What does this mean for the industry and consumers?
There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to identity on the open web. Some publishers have a ton of first-party data while others have none. Some have great insights about their users, others do not. The opportunity for businesses like OpenX and LiveRamp is to create solutions that can work for publishers of all different flavours and help them navigate the changing digital media landscape in the way that makes the most sense for them.
How do you foresee the Open X and LiveRamp partnership impacting marketers, publishers, and consumers in Australia?
For marketers, we are providing a new way to reach their audience segments on a people-based level across the open web—without a reliance on third-party cookies or device identifiers. LiveRamp has done a great job of working with marketers and building a really powerful and effective Authenticated Identity Infrastructure, but that is only half the battle, and the marketer also needs to be able to reach this audience at scale. That’s where we come in. Our partnership enables marketers to reach their audiences across the authenticated inventory of thousands of publishers over web, in-app, and connected TV (CTV).
For publishers, we are enabling them to better understand when users of their site fall into an existing audience segment and leverage their first-party data, so they can capitalise on the interest marketers have in reaching these audiences.
And finally, for consumers, we are making sure that the open web that they know and love will continue to thrive while engaging with them in a privacy-conscious way. Publishers create great content that consumers love, but the publisher needs to be able to run their business, and if we can help support this through advertising, consumers will benefit in the long run.
What is OpenX focused on 2021, particularly in Australia?
We’ve had a growing presence in Australia for many years now, but have only had feet on the ground for the past few. That said, we are at the point where we have built an established business here, and when we look at the companies we work with, from publishers, to DSPs to brands and agencies, the goal now is to go even deeper in terms of being a strategic partner that can help them execute their goals.
This could be becoming a preferred PMP partner for a publisher or signing an SPO deal with a brand or agency, but it goes beyond that too—and the work we’re doing with LiveRamp is a great example. At the highest level, we know that marketers want to be able to reach their audience segments across the open web, and we have some unique assets that enable us to help them do that, so we’re very excited about partnerships like the one we have with LiveRamp.
Can you talk to us about the future of people-based marketing? Where do you see this heading and what impacts will it have?
When thinking about the future of people-based marketing and audience targeting, I think it’s going to take a lot of collaboration. With all of the changes happening in digital media, from the death of the third-party cookie to the decrease in availability of IDFAs, there are some questions about how we’ll operate going forward, and the only thing I can say for certain is that we’re going to need to work together. There are different types of audience targeting, and different players on the buy- or sell-side will develop a preferred method of authenticating and reaching users. Our goal is to be able to support them at scale, no matter what their preferred method is.
What is the role of the industry in educating consumers on privacy issues?
It is critical that we prioritise privacy as an industry, and consumer education is certainly a part of that. One of the issues the industry has run into so far is the variety of rules and regulations. It’s not easy for the average person to know where to look to understand what personal information is being collected and how it is being used, what is changing and what choices they have. We’re collectively working on this though, and as an industry, we’re making progress.
To begin activating campaigns through the LiveRamp and OpenX integration, reach out to [email protected].