2023-07-20 | Article | Insights
Why privacy is important A good privacy policy builds trust between brands and consumers. For example, in a Google study, 49% of participants in the Americas were willing to switch brands if their non-preferred brand gave them a better privacy experience.1 On the other hand, not taking privacy seriously can have negative perceptions of your brand that can be difficult to remedy. Another Google survey found that a bad privacy experience was almost equivalent to a data breach.1 Additionally, 59% of people won’t buy from a brand that they don’t trust 7 This is only scratching the surface, as some privacy policies can result in account suspension on Google 3 or violate laws and result in hefty fines of up to 10 million Euros! 2
User consent around personalized web browsing is key to a privacy policy. If you haven’t already, using GA4's Consent Mode can help with managing and separating consented users from non-consented users and avoid accidental targeting of non-consented users.
On DV360 you will want to do three things:
Enabling Online Behavioral Advertising (OBA) will insert an Ad Choices Icon into your ad, allowing users to no longer see this type of ad and select from their behavioral targeting preferences.
This is very simple to do in DV360. Simply navigate to the Advertiser level and go to Advertiser Settings > Basic Details, and select “OBA Compliance” under the Authorizations settings.
In case there is any issue or misunderstanding, make sure to have contact details to avoid account freezing/suspension. To do this, navigate to the Partner level and go to Partner Settings > Basic Details, and scroll down to Data protection.
Customer Match can be a powerful tool. Whether the file that you upload is hashed or not, Google can automatically hash the file to ensure that no PII (Personally Identifiable Information) remains. However, it is not always clearly stated that you should upload only those users who have explicitly consented. The aforementioned Consent Mode feature in GA4 can help you ensure that those users are kept separately
Within the European Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA) new regulations will affect online advertising, especially when it comes to using platforms such as Google or Facebook. These platforms have been identified by the European Parliament (EP) as “gatekeepers.” By the latest date of March 6th, 2024, all gatekeepers will have to comply. 4
One of the key changes to targeted online advertising that will change is that advertisers will no longer be able to track users outside of their core platform.5They will also be looking at advertisers more closely, as the act forces “gatekeepers” to provide tools to advertisers to carry out their own independent verification on their ads.
Google Chrome will join Opera, FireFox, and Safari as browsers who disallow 3rd party cookies by default. At the moment, they have delayed 3rd party cookie deprecation several times, but they recently announced that they will be deprecating 3rd party cookies for 1% of users in H1 of 2024 and the other 99% in H2.6
A big concern for marketers everywhere is that these changes to privacy policies will negatively affect performance. Many businesses find that some of their best performing ad campaigns rely on 3rd party cookies, 3rd party data, or behaviorally targeted advertising in some way.
However, the picture isn’t exclusively negative. Brands can position themselves as privacy centric which can have a profound impact on gaining users’ trust. And, as we mentioned earlier, trust goes a long way in that all-important area below the lower funnel - brand loyalty and advocacy.
Leveraging your 1st party data is key to fueling your campaign’s performance in the new privacy landscape. Here at Digitl, we provide services to get your CRM or CDP deployed so that you can start leveraging your valuable 1p data. https://www.digitl.net/services/marketing-intelligence/data-integration-and-usage
"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
- Benjamin Franklin
Take control of your future by taking action now. On the macro level, it’s important to start defining task owners and stakeholders for the privacy framework, as well as partnering with legal experts who specialize in digital advertising to ensure that your privacy policy is bulletproof.
On the micro level, begin by A/B testing audiences that don’t rely on 3rd party cookies, such as contextual or keyword-based audiences. As mentioned before, Consent Mode is a feature in Google Analytics 4 that can help you prevent targeting users who have not consented to being targeted.
But what about measuring conversions?
Enhanced Conversions is a feature that uses a privacy-centric conversion algorithm. Essentially, the algorithm hashes PII data when the user is either signed in to Google products or fills out a lead form, which it then uses for conversion modeling.
Conversion modeling seems to be the future of measuring conversions in a cookieless web environment, as well as Device ID for mobile apps.
In order to use this feature for your conversions in DV360, simply apply it to your Floodlight in CM360 at the advertiser level by going to Floodlight > Configuration > Enhanced conversions, reading the Terms & Conditions, and clicking to accept. Start using this feature now and be sure to observe the difference in conversion volumes, especially against those Floodlight groups that do not have this feature enabled.
Resources:
1 Think with Google,
How to create a privacy strategy that builds brand trust
2 GDPR-info.eu, GDPR - Fines/Penalties
3 Google: Display & Video 360 Help, About Display & Video 360 policy account suspensions
4 ec.europa.eu, Digital Markets Act: rules for digital gatekeepers to ensure open markets enter into force
5 commission.europa.eu, The Digital Markets Act: ensuring fair and open digital markets
6 TechCrunch, Google will disable third-party cookies for 1% of Chrome users in
Q1 2024
7 Edelmann, Edelman trust barometer- 2022