Finally, publishers have the opportunity to monetise their user data at a premium, but will they be able to protect one of their greatest assets, the user ID?

It’s common knowledge that knowing your user has, for a long time, been key to driving advertising revenue, just looking at companies where data is at the core, Amazon, Google and Facebook will give you an indication of its value. But for years, the ongoing tug of war between agencies and publishers has been prevalent. Agencies are felt to have the upper hand as sell-side data was not considered as being that valuable by buyers who would prefer to use their own data, however this is all set to change!

With the demise of 3rd party cookies, the search for the next big thing is on!

A few make the case for emails or phone numbers to identify across domains, others for publisher first party data and many believe a combination of first party cookies and probabilistic methods (example: ID5) will be the way forward.

Which raises the question, what should publishers do? Putting aside the pressure from the buy-side, we argue that publishers need to stop and think especially as buy-side data is in danger. To realise the true value of the data, publishers need to stay in control of the user ID.

It is easy to forget that 1st Party cookies are a strategy to maintain the advertising eco-system and not a strategy that places a value on publisher data.

External pressures from the buy-side cannot be overlooked, but publishers need to put serious emphasis into protecting the value of their ID’s now!