Industry Research & Insights

As the digital ad industry continues to suffer from signal loss and the evolution of state-level privacy legislation, the demand for privacy-preserving technology that enables critical, data-driven advertising has never been greater.
As part of our sixth annual State of Data initiative, IAB has commissioned Ipsos to examine how data clean rooms (DCRs) and other privacy-preserving technology, including customer data platforms (CDPs), consent management platforms (CMPs), data management platforms (DMPs), and identity solutions are being managed and activated.

A survey of 200 data decision-makers at brands, agencies and publishers, and 20 in-depth interviews reveals that although some companies leverage the capabilities that DCRs offer beyond privacy, most are not using the advanced measurement capabilities. In fact, most data leaders are only scratching the surface with their current use of DCRs.

This report provides ad buyers and sellers, as well as providers of privacy-preserving technology, actionable insights regarding onboarding and adoption, use cases, challenges, and opportunities moving forward with DCRs and other privacy-preserving technology. For key findings – including a list of five things you need to know – and detailed insights, download the report.

This 2023 Outlook Survey was conducted by IAB to provide the digital ad-supported ecosystem with a forward-looking view into the 2023 ad spending marketplace (including both spend levels and strategies) being projected by buy-side ad investment decision-makers, primarily at brands and agencies.

This study provides:

• A view into overall spend as well as at the channel and category levels
• A perspective on opportunities and strategies for growth
• Insights into two key, growing spaces: retail media networks (RMNs) and emerging technology (e.g., metaverse, NFTs, AR, etc.)

As the media landscape continues to change, purchasing behaviors are becoming increasingly complex, but advertisers still need a holistic view of the consumer across their entire journey. To enable advertisers to gain this holistic view of the customer journey in an agile, privacy-safe way and figure out if (and how) their strategies are actually working, Meta, in collaboration with Deloitte, developed a measurement framework called Measurement 360. Measurement 360 helps advertisers utilize multiple measurement solutions in a connected framework to track all components of a brand’s marketing strategy. Download the full report to explore Measurement 360 in-depth and understand the 6 steps organization can take to implement the framework.

The State of Data 2022 Part II: Preparing for the New Addressability Landscape report marks the fifth year and sixth installment of IAB’s State of Data research, which examines how changes in privacy legislation, the deprecation of third-party cookies and identifiers, and platform policies are affecting data collection, addressability, measurement, and optimization. For this installment, IAB commissioned MediaScience to conduct a qualitative research study on how brands, agencies, and publishers are evolving their approach to consumer privacy, as well as working with their internal and external partners to meet consumer privacy expectations. Key insights include:

• The New Privacy Landscape: Interviewee perceptions of the landscape along with a self-assessment of preparedness, financial impact, and changes in privacy legislation
• Current Approaches: How interviewees are navigating the landscape, i.e., what can and is being done in terms of data collection, enrichment, addressability, and more
• Recommendations: Consumer trust & value exchange

The IAB State of Data 2021 report revealed industry leaders believed they were infinitely more prepared for the deprecation of third-party cookies and identifiers than their organizational readiness demonstrated. This lack of preparedness should have served as a call to action for industry leaders to both educate themselves and implement these imminent and ever-evolving standards, caused by updates to privacy and compliance regulations, the emergence of new business and technical requirements, platform upgrades, and the evolution of rules and mandates by technology companies such as Apple, Facebook, and Google. While the industry’s sense of preparedness grows, actual implementation has made little progress.

This report contains initial research findings from IBM Watson Advertising on using artificial intelligence to detect and mitigate unwanted bias in advertising technology, a research initiative they began in Summer 2021. For this initial study, IBM Watson Advertising partnered with The Ad Council to understand the possible presence of unintended bias in algorithms and data from a creative message testing effort in their COVID-19 awareness campaign, “It’s Up to You,” the largest U.S. vaccination education effort to date. The campaign ran in late spring 2021 and focused on helping drive awareness of the available vaccine options.

The work so far has revealed several learnings and opportunities about the presence of bias in advertising and led to additional paths for exploration. One of the most significant observations is: bias can exist in the data and algorithms that are employed for digital advertising, and that bias is not always immediately observable to the human eye.

With the depreciation of third-party cookies, increased concern about the provenance of third-party data, and evolving privacy regulations, digital marketers are looking at both familiar and evolving collaborative data solutions to compete in a rapidly-changing data landscape. This white paper from Winterberry Group explores a variety of ways for brands, agencies, publishers, and data providers to collaborate in the areas of sharing, protecting, activating, and monetizing privacy-compliant data assets.

As a Premier Sponsor of this paper, Wiland worked with Winterberry Group to offer their perspective. Curated from interviews with their executives and other data industry experts, this white paper analyzes:

• The market drivers making collaborative data solutions necessary
• How collaboration and the future of the market rely on permission
• The leading collaborative data solutions and their outlook
• Collaboration’s impact on the advertising and marketing ecosystems