Activating first-party data in the programmatic auction

Today, we are launching new functionality that enables publishers to share Publisher Provided Identifiers (PPIDs) — pseudonymized first-party identifiers that are created and controlled by publishers — with Google’s programmatic demand. By helping publishers expand the use of their first-party identifiers to more transaction types, like the Open Auction, our partners will be able to show ads that are more relevant to their audiences, which will increase the value of their programmatic inventory.

In our initial experiments, we observed that Beta partners experienced an increase of 15% or more in programmatic auction revenue when passing PPIDs in inventory without other identifiers.1

“By partnering with Google to test PPID for programmatic demand, we’ve seen significant revenue improvements in browsers where third-party cookies are not available. With the wealth of powerful first-party data Hearst Magazines generates in facilitating commerce activity from our sites, we’re excited by this progress and look forward to seeing what solutions Ad Manager builds to help publishers navigate today’s privacy environment.”

Scott Both
Vice President of Programmatic Monetization & Operations, Hearst Magazines

“At Pelmorex, finding privacy-first solutions is an important part of our long-term monetization strategy. That’s why we recently partnered with Ad Manager to test PPID for programmatic. The ability to bring our own data to the auction offers the potential to increase the value of our programmatic inventory now and in the future when third-party cookies are fully phased out.”

Darren Bulakowski
Head of Monetization & Programmatic, Pelmorex Corp, The Weather Network

Before sharing PPIDs with Google demand, Ad Manager turns them into per-publisher partitioned IDs, so users cannot be identified across other publishers’ sites and apps. Then Google Ads and Display & Video 360 aggregate the anonymized data from participating publishers to help build audience segments. Using these segments, advertisers can programmatically deliver relevant ads on publishers’ sites and apps based on first-party data. In addition to helping publishers earn more revenue in the auction, the data also unlocks core functionality for advertisers, like cross-device reach, frequency management, and creative optimization in programmatic inventory without third-party cookies or other identifiers present.

It’s important to note that advertisers using segments built with PPIDs will not have visibility into underlying user data or the IDs themselves, and because PPIDs are unique to each publisher, there is no way to match identifiers or create profiles across sites.

Audience segments created using PPIDs will only be made available in programmatic auctions when there are no other identifiers present. This means that PPIDs will have no impact on publishers’ programmatic inventory where third-party cookies or other identifiers are still provided. Additionally, PPIDs passed to Ad Manager cannot contain personal information or device IDs and Google has no visibility or access to the underlying data.

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