• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, March 8, 2024

Adjusting to the loss of signals for ad targeting, app developers and publishers are seeking alternative methods to reach billions of users and deliver improved branding results for clients and partners without accessing first-party data from Google and Meta.

Supply-side platforms (SSP) are some of the companies seeking to find solutions as the advertising industry moves from tracking cookies to alternative methods of serving ads.

SSPs are one area that experts have expressed concern about -- claiming in Google’s latest documents describing Privacy Sandbox that SSPs do not have a place in the transition.

Executives at companies Brave and Direct Digital Holdings and its subsidiaries have a different perspective, and have developed technology to support the transition.

Signal loss can obscure the efficacy of digital marketing and make techniques such as conversion tracking and frequency capping more difficult.

Brave developed a tech-based method for optimizing the advertising opportunities offered to demand partners. The company’s predictive intelligence engine -- powered by what the company calls auto-throttling machine-learning technology -- reduces the volume of bid requests by only offering on-target impressions and in-bid parameters.

Offering fewer and more relevant bid requests at scale improves branding campaign performance while simultaneously making the trading process more environmentally sustainable.

The company says that the impressions it served for branding campaigns increased by 174% in 2023, compared with the previous year, and revenue more than doubled.

Audigent, an activation and identity platform, on Friday announced an integration with Direct Digital Holdings, an advertising and marketing technology platform operating through its companies Colossus Media, Huddled Masses, and Orange 142.

The move specifically brings identity and curation solutions to the supply-side platform Colossus Media to help advertisers tap into the latest developments of using data and identity — two critical changes based on the deprecation of cookies.

The combination gave Scott Ensign, CSO at Butler/Till, what it needed for its programmatic investment to support clients.

With changes implemented by Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla and, soon Google Chrome -- data for in-app campaigns outside of walled gardens like Google and Meta will face challenges without alternative solutions.