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As with all things adtech… Seller Defined Audiences (SDA) is complicated
(Part 2 in our Seller Defined Audience briefing) See part 1 here
As always, the devil is in the details. The audiences are defined by the publisher, and the buy side doesn’t always ‘buy’ that the audience is what the publisher says it is. Further, each Data Transparency Standard (DTS) may differ if these definitions are haphazardly built – potentially creating a fragmented understanding of what an audience such as “auto intender” means.
As great as the promise is, the effort and complexity of the endeavor to create SDAs are extensive. For many large and most mid-sized or long-tail publishers, the knowledge and tech required to contextually analyze and map users into these different IAB categories, capture accurate and trustworthy demographic information, then these DTS designations (which become Data Labels) is simply too much effort while they are still “keeping the plain in the air”.
Most publishers don’t possess the level of expertise required to do this themselves and will need an adtech partner to complete this process. Theoretically, if a publisher has a DMP, the DMP should be able to provide this service, however, as of this writing, no DMPs are currently offing the creation of SDAs. Also, since DMPs are often structured to primarily support ‘direct sales” their integration into GAM does not necessarily translate into integration into the bid stream. However, there are lightweight alternatives to DMPs that can do this today so a publisher can innovate and cut costs on the myriad of DMP features they are overpaying for. Maybe, more importantly, most publishers won't have scale within an individual segment to match the reach that 3P data provides.
Let’s start by saying it is unclear still that publishers will invest in SDA. As with most adtech advances, the buyers and sellers need to both show up to make a market work, and to date, SDAs that are being leveraged are primarily for testing and proof of concept. So no one is waiving their checkbook yet.
That being said, publishers continue to struggle with diminishing CPMs. Third-party data has allowed buyers and sellers to benefit through the huge expansion of audience inventory and the low cost of programmatic execution. However, within that process, publishers often felt that they had ‘given their readers away’ by allowing Third-party data providers to disaggregate the relationship between the publisher and their audience.
But the truth is that 3P data, while still around with Chrome, continues to shrink its reach. Safari is claiming a larger and larger portion of U.S. traffic and the lack of 3P data with those impressions is crushing CPMs.
SDAs theoretically solve that problem. They make 100% of a publisher's audience “identifiable” and should allow for target audiences to be found. The challenge will again be scale. Few publishers are large enough to create their own SDA segment that has the specificity of user and reach. But, on many levels, publishers have no alternative. This downward pressure on eCPMs is due in large part to the blocking of data on IOS traffic is increasing and the Chrome cookie is going away or at least diminishing in value.
And?
So we believe SDAs will become one of the necessary publisher-controlled tools for media owners to navigate through the slow death of the 3P cookie and increase their appeal in satisfaction with the ever-present need for reach for top-of-funnel marketers. The IAB stated in their SDA announcement: “SDA makes no claims of being a silver bullet for the industry, but should be a valuable tool in our toolbox. If you want to learn more about how to lean into SDA and be up and running in Q1, please click here to sign up for a demo.