Google Repeated postponements The end of the cookie means many companies are forced to make major changes to how they operate, and CTOs have a primary responsibility to support these changes because new media strategies require innovative technical approaches.
As digital transformation projects continue to move forward, technology options are in the spotlight (starting with generative AI, large-scale language models, and automation), but CTOs charged with guiding their organizations through the new world of advertising should put the phrase “become more configurable” at the top of their to-do lists for 2024. But why is this new industry mantra so important?
Advertisers need to develop new media strategies
A changing advertising environment shaped by Google’s plans to phase out third-party cookies, growing consumer awareness of privacy issues, and an ever-changing regulatory landscape means brands need to create new media strategies.
Although Google has repeatedly postponed the elimination of cookies, continuing to use third-party identifiers is no longer a realistic or sustainable option. They will eventually be phased out, and they have never been perfect in terms of accuracy and performance. Consumers are increasingly Decline tracking cookiesLikewise, continuing to use them will damage your brand’s reputation.
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The question businesses face today is how to reach their target audience in the future. Other identity-based solutions have limitations: multiple identity options inevitably create a fragmented landscape, complicating operations and support for media owners.
Targeting methods like geolocation and context struggle to deliver the precision and performance advertisers need, and Google's Privacy Sandbox is limited to the Chrome browser.
But with smart use of first-party data, advertising strategies built around these alternatives could deliver better results for brands moving forward, so many businesses will want to test out some of these options to find what works best for them.
Complex Technology Requires Frameworks
Although the CTO doesn't dictate the marketing strategy, they need to encourage experimentation with cookie-free alternatives, which demands flexibility on the backend. While a digital business's tech stack is rarely static over time, implementing additional solutions and supporting new platforms is not trivial, so it makes sense to adopt the principles of composable architecture.
Simply put, composable architecture is the principle of breaking down a company's technology assets into small, simple components that can be easily interconnected, combined, and reused to build systems that support any kind of business process.
Because it's built in the cloud, components like customer databases, ad servers, etc. can be connected via APIs with minimal technical skills, and replacing or changing individual components is a quick and easy process. Compared to traditional infrastructure built on a monolithic architecture, it provides a much better foundation for trying out new marketing tools.
The composable architecture gives companies a flexible and adaptable way to work directly with partners in the advertising ecosystem, including publishers, retail media networks, identity providers, measurement providers, SSPs, DSPs, and more.
APIs, microservices, and containers provide the building blocks that enable companies to rapidly build, test, and deploy composable solutions that enable these collaborations. These building blocks can be reused and rebuilt multiple times for each new collaboration.
The technical challenge of a composable architecture is ensuring all the connected components can effectively communicate with each other. Fortunately, as more software solutions become available for each element of a composable system, CTOs can choose the solution that best suits their organization's objectives and developer-friendly APIs.
The Challenges of First-Party Data Protection
Marketing efforts based on first-party data depend on consent and consumer trust. While collecting consent, opt-out notices, and clarifying the value exchange to customers are the responsibility of marketers and legal counsel, it is the job of the CTO to ensure this sensitive data is protected at all costs.
This is another area where composable architectures offer clear advantages: Privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) must be used to give companies full control over their data while facilitating direct collaboration with partners such as brands, publishers and retail media networks.
For example, to enable more precise targeting, Secure Multi-Party Computing (SMPC) is a PET that allows multiple parties to analyze each other’s data sets and extract insights, while maintaining the confidentiality of their respective data.
Differential privacy, another PET, allows organizations to share insights with others without exposing any personally identifiable information (PII), while synthetic data allows for the generation of versions of datasets that are statistically similar to real data but do not contain any identifiable or actual personal data.
The composable architecture allows these PETs to be quickly and easily connected wherever they are needed and can be reused in each subsequent collaboration as needed.
Summary: Composable architecture is the foundation for the future of advertising
The end of third-party cookies presents a unique opportunity for brands to design and implement new media strategies that respect consumer privacy and improve advertising performance. CTOs must consider how to most effectively support these methodologies to help marketing teams achieve their KPIs, and ultimately the entire organization, achieve their business goals.
For businesses looking for an agile, flexible, and scalable platform for advertising collaboration, following the principles of composable architecture is key. Composable solutions help build sustainable, future-proof advertising processes that can be customized for any use case.
It also allows businesses to build multiple layers of protection into consumer data, ensuring they can maintain trust with their customers.
Alastair Bastian is CTO at InfoSum, a leading UK-based data collaboration technology provider.
