If you remember the early days of digital advertising, you know that the adtech ecosystem wasn't always this complicated. Twenty years ago, buyers and sellers weren't hopelessly trying to avoid one another. Deals were made directly between advertisers and publishers, not through layers upon layers of programmatic middleware prioritizing scale over quality connections and efficiency over effectiveness. It was a simpler world.

It was also a more collaborative world. Publishers had a much better hold on their inventory, and advertisers knew more intimately what distinct qualities each publisher brought to the table. Now, of course, we can't compare today's internet to a world wide web once dominated by Yahoo, MSN, and Ask Jeeves. The online universe has expanded exponentially, consumer behavior has evolved, and the tools available to marketers have improved dramatically. However, the gap between the buy-side and the sell-side has become a chasm, and many marketers have lost sight of their target audience in the process.

If there's one redeeming value to Google's cookie deprecation saga these past four years, it's that it shone a spotlight on what advertisers lost by relying exclusively on middleware IDs (like third-party cookies and mobile ad IDs) to connect with their customers. Many finally got serious about collecting first-party data, first as a substitute for cookies but then as an opportunity to eliminate their dependence on middleware, embrace data privacy, and rebuild a more direct connection to their publishing partners.

This has all been for the better, and earlier over the last two years, Google and Meta, of all players, gave everyone one more reason to go direct.

The evolution of Walled Garden data matching

Walled gardens like Google and Meta offer customer matching solutions that enable advertisers to upload customer lists, such as email addresses, phone numbers or mailing addresses, to create targeted audience segments. These tools, such as Google Customer Match and Meta’s Custom Audiences, allow brands to leverage their CRM data to target and re-engage customers. 

Since their introductions, these data matching solutions have not only enabled advertisers to target consumers within the walled gardens but also offered enormous reach to re-engage their customers across third-party sites where either the Meta pixel was placed or where the user is logged into their Google account. 

However, in response to increased privacy regulation, both the walled gardens have made significant changes in Europe, limiting their reach to owned and operated properties. Most recently, in March 2024, Google announced that “Customer Match lists activated on Google Partner inventory or third-party exchange websites in the European Economic Area (EEA) will no longer be available for web and app.” Meta made a similar change in August 2023. The result is that these solutions now only offer targeting across owned and operated properties. For Google: Search, the Shopping tab, Gmail, YouTube, and the Google Display Network; and Meta: Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and Whatsapp.

What are the implications for advertisers and publishers?

All of a sudden, European publishers that relied on third-party exchanges to sell their inventory have found themselves cut off from the market. Advertisers that relied on the broad partners' programs offered by the walled gardens to get their message in front of customers, wherever they might be, now find themselves limited to the walled gardens and forced to deal with the rest of the online world on their own.

This is no small setback. Marketers operate in a very competitive environment these days, and brands need solutions that make it easier to use their first-party data for advertising across the ecosystem. It’s more difficult than ever for them to find the right media partners, run effective cross-channel campaigns, and maintain — let alone grow — their brand’s share of voice. They can still use Google’s Customer Match and Meta’s Custom Audiences to reach their customers on Google and Meta’s owned and operated properties (which, to be fair, cover a lot of ground), but they’ve lost the ability to use Google and Meta as middleware to reach their customers outside of these walled gardens.

What’s the solution?

Trust in direct data collaboration

It’s hard to wean ourselves off the convenience of middleware. But there’s tremendous value in looking your media partners in the eye, learning about what sets them apart, and figuring out how you both can benefit from working together.

Of course, you don’t want those discussions and mutual explorations to be bogged down by data security and privacy concerns. You’ve spent too much time and capital collecting your first-party data to have it fall into the wrong hands. But with a data collaboration platform anchored in the best data clean room technology in the business, you’re safe to explore those joint opportunities.

Every day at InfoSum, we see brands and publishers roll up their sleeves and use our clean room-based collaboration platform to hash out brilliant marketing partnerships that blow previous accomplishments out of the water: a 150% improvement in on-target reach for a beer company; a 63% boost in brand awareness for a food delivery company; a rise of 27% in brand consideration for an energy provider; 31% more account applications for a retail bank; or a sales lift of 122% for a CPG company.

Check out the case studies on our website. They really demonstrate the value of data collaboration for virtually every type of outcome. And speaking of going back to the roots of marketing, many proactive brands are now starting to use our data collaboration platform to conduct quick incrementality tests and inform their marketing campaigns before they hit the waves.

Of course, the importance of direct first-party data collaboration to the future of data-driven marketing is something that Google acknowledges and is actively participating in with Google PAIR. PAIR is a privacy-safe way for advertisers and publishers to match their first-party data for marketing use cases and activation across DV360 and SSPs using InfoSum’s data clean room technology. It’s a nod to the vital role of data collaboration to marketers and a tool that advertisers should consider adding to their first-party data strategies.

Build your own private first-party data network

If you’re trying to use your first-party data to reach your customers on Google and Meta’s owned and operated properties, Customer Match and Custom Audiences are certainly solid options - and of course, InfoSum’s data clean room is the most secure and privacy-protected way to do so. But there’s a world beyond it, which offers rich and unique opportunities for marketers to promote their brand and engage their customers.

At InfoSum, we’ve developed the largest private ecosystem of premium publishers across Europe, and it’s growing bigger every day. I’m inviting you to try it out. It’s not middleware but a direct connection to winning publishers eager to open their specialized inventory to you. Securely connect your first-party data, select your partners, set the terms of your partnerships, and plan, activate, and measure your campaigns all in one place - with complete control, transparency and protection over your valuable data assets at all times. 

Furthermore, you can be up and running within hours instead of weeks. It took all of 24 hours for a global brand to jump in, train its media, data, and creative agencies, Bunker its first-party data, and start collaborating with three separate media owners.

Don’t waste the next 24 hours grieving middleware. Get in touch with us, and you’ll never look back.