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Integrating with AdTech Platforms

The digital advertising ecosystem is stacked full of platforms offering their own specialized services to enable digital advertising. When we think of the overarching process, Advertisers have a message that they want to send to a particular audience at a given time. Since Publishers are the one’s drawing in different audiences, Advertisers look for ways to get their message into the ad spaces that Publisher’s have designated for advertisements (“Ad Inventory”).

Unless you are the Advertiser or the Publisher on either end of this workflow, you play a role in the placement of the Advertiser’s intended message on the Publisher’s Inventory.

But, making this workflow come to fruition can entail numerous steps, particularly in programmatic advertising where the goal is to automate this entire workflow to happen in 100’s of milliseconds. Since AdTech platforms tend to specialize in one or a handful of these intermediary steps between the Advertiser and the Publisher, AdTech platforms tend to rely on one another to complete the chain by integrating their systems. What was a seemingly simple workflow in the previous diagram can become a bit more involved.

Identifying Users Online

Setting up an integration between adtech platforms enables the two systems to exchange online datasets with one another. An online dataset identifies the users that the advertiser wishes to target by anonymous online identifiers. Some common online identifiers include:

Browser Cookie ID’s — Represent a user using an internet browser. As many users access websites on multiple devices (desktop, tablets, phones, etc.), a cookie ID can represent a user in several facets. As cookie ID’s expire or are deleted (such as when an internet user decides to clear their cookies), a new cookie is created for subsequent online sessions. There are different methodologies in deciding how long the average cookie may be actively used by the user prior to deletion, but many major industry players believe a cookie is viable for ~60–120 days. The adtech platforms thereby set a filter for these cookies for a particular duration, called a Recency Filter.

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(example Cookie ID: 2a5e10g0850c34fc9ff21d1dc0f3dacf)

Mobile Device ID’s — Represent a user within mobile applications. The two most common Mobile Device ID’s you’ll see in the market today are iOS’s Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA’s) and Android Advertising Identifiers (AAID’s). Since it’s less common for mobile users to reset their Mobile Device ID’s, these identifiers are perceived as more persistent than cookie ID’s. Major industry players do recognize that when a user switches to a new phone, their ID can change, and therefore set the recency filter on Mobile Device ID’s for a year or less.

(example IDFA: AECE53E6–03DE-465A-B3D2-E87293876239)

(example AAID: ee2q35f1–88d8–128e-5f89-d67348784394)

There are other identifiers that are sometimes used, but the aforementioned are the common currencies leveraged in data exchanges on individuals within the adtech ecosystem. For cookie ID’s in particular, it’s important to note that a cookie ID is domain-specific, meaning that each autonomous website or platform has it’s own cookie labels for each of the users it sees. That means that Joe Smith who visits www.fictiouswebsite.com has a different cookie ID than Joe Smith who is also simultaneously browsing www.examplesite.com.

This may beg the question: “If there are multiple digital currencies in the ecosystem, how do these platforms recognize one another’s ID’s to exchange data on users?”

As Mobile Device ID’s remain the same between platforms, the obstacle of understanding the ID’s of another platform often comes about in the cookie space. These connectivity platforms have synchronized cookie ID’s with several adtech platforms, enabling the connectivity platforms to exchange data with ID’s that both parties can interpret. For more on the intracies of the cookie synching process between AdTech platforms, take a look at my article: “Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar?”

In conclusion, having an integration in place allows for the distribution and ingestion of audience data segments, whether first party or third party data. A connected digital advertising ecosystems enables marketers to move their data through different platforms that specialize in different market nichés, thereby empowering markets to make their dream campaigns come to fruition.

Sources:

SSP to DSP Cookie Syncing Explained — Ad Ops Insider