On September 23rd, the IAB Programmatic+Data Center held its Q3 2020 All Committee Meeting, bringing together members of the Programmatic/Automation, Identity & Audience Data, Data Governance & Literacy, and Measurement & Attribution Committees for a series of discussions and opportunities to participate in current activities.
Flashtalking joined the discussion in the session “Measurement & Attribution: The Path to Standardization”, where Global Head of Analytics, Steve Latham, shared his thoughts on multi-touch attribution (MTA), alongside Angelina Eng, VP of Measurement & Attribution at IAB.
The session discussed how multi-touch attribution remains a key media industry issue. Many companies struggle with measuring incrementally due to faulty measurement methods, leading them to re-evaluate their current tech and approach. In particular, the loss of cookies and identifiers makes it more challenging than ever to garner proper measurement. We see this highlighted in Steve’s article in Venture Beat: “Why Apple’s anti-tracking move hurts everyone… but Apple”, which stresses that the loss of identifiers would have a major negative impact for publishers, ultimately resulting in the loss of free content.
If we want consumers to understand that tracking is pivotal to maintain free content on the web, then transparency and education are paramount. The loss of identifiers is ultimately problematic for not only publishers and advertisers, but consumers as well. In order to resolve this, Steve emphasizes that, “we need a privacy-friendly approach that balances notice choice and consumer preferences while respecting the fact that advertisers and publishers have economic models to make an informed decision.”
