A Surge in Digital Identification Solutions

Sources: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201102005296/en/The-Trade-Desk-Adds-Nielsen-to-Unified-ID-2.0-Initiative-as-Advertisers-Seek-Upgrade-to-Cookies

Ever since Google announced that it would no longer support third-party cookies in its Chrome browser by early 2022, the need to find a replacement for digital customer identification has become more urgent. Currently, companies heavily rely on these third-party cookies to identify specific customers and devices, something that is imperative for any digital advertising strategy to be successful. Without these cookies, companies would not be able to deliver targeted ads, leading to a decrease in click-through and conversion rates.

While there have been a growing number of solutions, the latest to gain some traction comes from The Trade Desk. The technology company has developed Unified ID 2.0, which aims to preserve advertising value while giving consumers more control over their privacy, a win-win. In fact, this technology claims to have developed a way that measures user activity in a more concise way than third-party cookies do through its ability to measure audiences across advertising channels.

It remains to be seen which of the many solutions will come out on top, but given Google’s global market share in internet browsers, we do know that something will have to be developed if advertisers want to continue to deliver targeted ads digitally. Big tech companies like Google, Amazon, and Facebook have so much user data that they can sell ads even without this technology, which seems like an unfair advantage, so hopefully whichever digital identification technology wins will be able to benefit small businesses.