CDP Institute

Google has taken another small step on its thousand-mile journey to third party cookie deprecation, announcing that third-party cookies will be deprecated for real on 1% of Chrome browsers worldwide.  The idea is to encourage the industry to test Privacy Sandbox, Google’s collection of privacy-protecting tracking alternatives.  Meanwhile, The Trade Desk just blasted Privacy Sandbox and urged use of alternative identifiers, which of course have problems of their own.

Meanwhile, back in CDP-land, Blueshift announced a free starter tier for its product.  Users will be able to ingest data from multiple sources, build up to 10,000 profiles, extract audiences, and run triggered journeys across multiple channels.  Other limits apply as well, and users are expected to serve themselves.

BARC’s magisterial 2024 Data, BI and Analytics Trend Monitor finds security and privacy, data quality, and governance are the top 3 industry concerns, which is similar to past results.  More interesting are a slight decline in the rankings for self-service analytics (from 5th to 6th) and business user data prep (from 7th to 9th).  Lots of detail here by company size, user type, best-in-class, industry, and regions.

Are autonomous vehicles coming closer or dropping back in the rear view mirror?  It was two steps back today, with a giant Tesla recall due to its autopilot system not forcing users to pay attention and a 24% layoff at GM’s troubled Cruise subsidiary.  On the sunny side, you can now book an autonomous Waymo ride at the Phoenix airport.

Whether or not your new car drives itself, you can bet it will be collecting data about you. Sonatus has launched a Vehicle Personalization Solution which will enable auto users to personalize their experience and no doubt share their information with a large and ill-defined audience of other devices and businesses.

Have you been waiting up nights for Domo’s eleventh Data Never Sleeps report?  (See what I did there?)  Well, it’s here and the bottom line is there’s more data being generated than ever.  You’re welcome.

The days of AI developers merrily scaping web contents without concern for copyright are clearly numbered.  OpenAI just cut a deal with publishing giant Axel Springer to use its content in return for attribution, links, and some unspecified payments.  They made a similar arrangement with Associated Press earlier this year.

The advertiser trade association ANA has long been cranky about waste in the advertising supply chain.  Its latest 125-page opus lists dozens of problems and estimates that $22 billion of the $88 billion spent on programmatic ads could be saved through greater efficiency. They have lots of suggestions for how to do better, most of which seem require more work for media buyers.

Truth be told, most advertisers are aware of waste in ad buying but accept it as part of doing business.  Their bigger problem at the moment is the impending loss of third-party cookies. This eMarketer study finds that about 80% of programmatic ad buys still rely on cookied inventory (the figures vary by industry).  Lots more on AI, TV measurement, streaming media, and walled gardens.

Are you a retail media fan? Here’s an upbeat DoubleVerify report that finds 61% of retail media buyers feel retail networks perform better than other channels. They’re not entirely thrilled, though: they cite high cost per thousand rates, limited targeting options, limited on-site ad space, and the lack of ad quality verification by third parties such as, well, DoubleVerify.

Are you a retail media skeptic?  Then you’ll prefer this report from Turbyne, which aims to simplify retail media buying, which finds that 78% of brands said a complex buying process makes it difficult or very difficult to justify increasing their retail media investment.  There’s a perception gap for sure: just 6% of larger brands would give their retail media experience an A, while 65% of retailers said that thought their clients would give them an A.