Monthly brandtech blend – February 2020

Home Blends & Trends 31 January 2020

Every month, the fifty-five team features a selection of worth reading news and trends for you. So what’s been going on in the brandtech ecosystem recently?

Google’s Privacy Sandbox, California’s CCPA, the major trends of CES 2020 and LUMA Partners’ annual digital marketing report… Discover our February selection!

Privacy Sandbox: Google’s plan to bury third-party cookies

In the midst of browsers’ multiple anti- tracking measures,such as Safari’s constant ITP updates and Firefox’s more recent ETP measure, Google has announced its goal to eliminate third-party cookies within two years. To do so, the web giant launched Privacy Sandbox, a program designed to foster open source privacy standards, in order to “create a thriving web ecosystem that is respectful of users and private by default”. Third-party cookies will be replaced by five APIs acting as an alternative path to collecting data for advertising purposes, while respecting privacy.

Read more in AdExchanger, and dig deeper on Privacy Sandbox in Digiday.

CCPA cheat sheet: what you need to know

The CCPA came into effect on January 1st, 2020. Much like Europe’s GDPR, the CCPA’s dual goal is to raise awareness among California residents about the user data companies are collecting, and to better protect residents’ rights. Organizations have six months to comply with the new regulation, which requires full transparency regarding the collection of users’ Personally Identifiable Information ( PII ). Although the CCPA may appear less restrictive than its European counterpart (as it does not require companies to have a clearly stated legal basis for collection of personal data, for instance), its definition of PII is more extensive than GDPR’s. The CCPA considers location-based data to be PII, as well as data about products that users purchase or consider purchasing. The law will likely be updated over time, considering how quickly it was written and passed.

CES 2020: could the most talked-about trend simply be… privacy?

The annual Las Vegas rendez-vous for tech professionals set aside its usual agenda of tech innovations and futuristic gadgets to make room for what seems to be the trendiest topic at the moment: privacy. Top stories included: Google adding an “undo” command to its Assistant to delete the recording if turned on accidentally, Facebook announcing a new version of its “Privacy Checkup” tool, and Apple coming back to the conference after a 28-yearabsence. But that’s not all. Two guests of note were present at a roundtable about user privacy: Facebook’s Chief Privacy Officer Rebecca Slaughter, and Apple’s Senior Director of Global Privacy Jan Horvath. One thing is certain, everyone wants to show that they’re taking the matter seriously.

LUMA Partners’ annual report: the State of Digital Marketing

Each year, investment bank LUMA Partners delivers its State of Digital Marketing, covering the latest in M&A in the Adtech and Martech ecosystems, as well as presenting its views on digital marketing and major industry trends. Among these trends, digital advertising’s transition from a duopoly to a triopoly is to be noted, with Google, Facebook and Amazon now accounting for over two-thirds of all digital advertising spending in the U.S. Additionally, the report shows how every major digital platform has made moves in the TV market – valued at $70 billion, it is the largest remaining channel ready for disruption.

Download the full report here.

Location-based data is the first casualty of Apple’s new privacy measures

Adtech players are suffering from browsers’ constant anti-tracking updates such as Apple’s ITP and Firefox’s ETP. With privacy being a major concern for both platforms and users, less location data is being collected, particularly from apps. For example, Apple’s recent iOS 13 update features a pop-up that regularly reminds users that their geolocation information is collected on a given app. As a result, within six weeks after the release of the update, 80% of users disabled location data tracking when apps are not used. However, more positively, the location data that remains is more reliable than ever, which is certainly a good thing considering that 80% of location data could actually be fake.

Too much of a good thing: brand safety hurting publisher sites?

Brand safety in digital advertising is no longer optional, but it does come with a cost. Indeed, publisher web pages are experiencing massive slowdowns due to brand safety tools, which ultimately hurts their revenue – not surprising, if you consider that 53% of people leave a mobile page if it takes more than three seconds to load, according to Google. This also leads to a growing discrepancy between ad sellers and buyers regarding the amount of ads actually displayed. The industry seems to be making progress, but rather slowly.