At Optable, we understand that seamless audience activation is critical for publishers looking to maximize their data’s value. That’s why we’re thrilled to introduce Sync for Audiences, the next evolution of our audience export functionality, but designed to eliminate manual exports and ensure that your audiences remain continuously available across all key destinations.

With Sync, publishers gain full control over their first-party and third-party data distribution, allowing them to activate audiences across multiple platforms without the headache of managing expiration timelines or scheduling exports. This automation not only saves time but also enhances revenue opportunities by ensuring audiences are always primed for activation.

A Streamlined Sync Experience

• A new Sync tab provides a centralized view of all active syncs, destinations, and schedules, giving publishers full transparency and control.
• Automated audience availability means once a sync is configured, it continuously updates without requiring manual intervention.
• Batch-processed syncs with automatic retries ensure that audiences remain available even in the event of temporary failures, improving reliability.

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New Destinations to Maximize Monetization

Sync now integrates with several powerful new platforms, allowing publishers to extend audience reach and boost monetization opportunities.

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The Trade Desk (TTD) Data Provider

A major highlight of this release is our integration with The Trade Desk, a leading demand-side platform (DSP). With Sync, publishers can now package and monetize their first-party data directly in TTD’s data provider marketplace.

Why it matters:

• Publishers can license and monetize their data directly with advertisers, increasing revenue potential.
• Unlike basic data listings, Sync enables publishers to curate, structure, and segment their data before pushing it to TTD, ensuring high-value audience activation.

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PubMatic

By syncing directly with PubMatic, publishers can seamlessly register audience segments for private marketplace deals (PMPs) and direct sales opportunities.

Why it matters:

• Automates daily syncs, eliminating operational overhead.
• Supports multiple ID types, including mobile IDs and cookie IDs, ensuring flexibility in audience activation.

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Microsoft Curate

With the new Microsoft Curate integration, publishers can distribute curated audience segments for PMP deals and direct advertiser activation.

Why it matters:

• Automatically applies cross-device matching, increasing audience addressability and reach.
• Publishers can enrich audience segments with third-party data, optimizing monetization strategies beyond traditional audience syncs.

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Sync Benefits

• Set it and forget it: Configure each destination once, and Optable automates ongoing syncs; no need to manage schedules or expiration timelines.
• Batch-based reliability: Syncing is processed in bulk rather than per audience, reducing failure rates and ensuring uninterrupted activation.
• Full visibility & tracking: Optable Sync provides complete transparency, allowing publishers to monitor sync status by audience, by destination, and across sync history.

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What’s Next?

We’re not stopping here. In Q2, we’re adding integrations with Index Exchange, OpenX, Magnite, and FreeWheel, expanding the scope of seamless audience activation even further.

With Optable's audience sync, publishers can now effortlessly scale audience activation across walled gardens, DSPs, SSPs, and data storage solutions, without the risk of fragmented, manual processes. Get ready to unlock new monetization opportunities and take control of your audience strategy like never before!

Want to learn more about how Optable can support your audience activation? Get in touch with us today.

We’re excited to introduce Optable Insights, a new collection of data visualizations starting with Identity Insights and Audience Insights to provide deeper visibility into your ID graph over time and audience relationships.

Identity Insights

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Graph Overview: Real Time Intelligence on Your ID Graph

As signal-loss continues to impact addressability, maintaining a robust identity strategy is crucial as your business navigates this evolving landscape. Optable's new Graph Overview is now a centralized command center to track changes and trends in your ID Graph over time.

Benefits:

• Monitor ID Graph evolution to adapt to changing audience behaviors and data signals.
• Ensure alignment with first party data strategies by tracking shifts in ID types.
• Identify seasonal content trends, like how holiday related content drives traffic spikes across different segments.

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USE CASE SPOTLIGHT

Thanksgiving Traffic Surge for Recipe Publishers

During Thanksgiving, recipe websites experience a surge in traffic as users search for holiday meal inspiration. Graph Overview can help track and capitalize on this seasonal trend by offering insights into:

• Increased Addressable Traffic – Higher user visits lead to an expanded pool of addressable profiles.
• Growth in Identifiers – More logged in users and cross device engagement across email, mobile, and web.
• Audience Expansion Opportunities – Identify and retarget engaged holiday cooks for future campaigns.
• Monetization Insights – Leverage traffic spikes to attract food, grocery, and kitchenware advertisers.

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Graph Traits: Explore Deeper Trait Analytics

Understanding what defines your audience is key to engagement and monetization. Graph Traits provides a dedicated space to analyze the count, coverage, and index of key traits within your ID Graph over time.

Benefits:

• Gain deeper insight into audience demographics and behaviors to inform content strategies.
• Identify key attributes that correlate with higher engagement and subscription conversions.

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Audience Insights

Audience Overview: A Unified View of Audience Performance

For publishers managing multiple audience segments, the Audience Overview page simplifies insights by providing a consolidated view of your audience size and ID trends. No more toggling between audience reports, Audience Overview now delivers these valuable insights all in one place.

Audience Overlap: Unlock High Value Audience Connections

Maximizing audience monetization means identifying high value audience relationships. With Audience Overlap Insights, you can instantly discover audiences that share a 20%+ overlap, along with key metrics including total audience sizes, overlap size, and overlap percentage.

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Benefits:

• Enhance ad targeting by identifying highly correlated audiences for premium inventory.
• Boost reader retention by personalizing content recommendations based on overlapping interests.
• Maximize monetization by building composite audiences for direct sales or programmatic deals.

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Ready to unlock the insights hidden in your data? Schedule your demo today.

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Maintaining Direct Sales in the Privacy-First Era

The advertising landscape is rapidly evolving, with privacy concerns reshaping how we approach direct sales. As we navigate this new terrain, it's crucial to understand the impact of cookie deprecation and explore innovative solutions to maintain the effectiveness of direct campaigns.

At the heart of this challenge lies the critical need for a comprehensive identity solution that can bridge the gap between user privacy and effective revenue optimization. An identity graph and it's data spine serve as the cornerstone of this solution, underpinning the essential requirements for monetization across a publisher's diverse revenue channels. This powerful tool not only supports direct sales efforts but also enhances programmatic advertising, subscription models, and other revenue streams.

As we delve into the intricacies of maintaining direct sales in the age of privacy, it becomes clear that a well-implemented identity graph is not just a technological asset—it's a strategic imperative for publishers looking to thrive in an increasingly privacy-centric digital ecosystem.

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The Virtuous Cycle of Sales

Direct sales in advertising rely on a data-driven virtuous cycle that encompasses several key phases:

1. Pre-campaign: Audience insights, planning, packaging, and pricing
2. Mid-campaign: Targeting, frequency capping, optimization, and audience extension
3. Post-campaign: Measurement, attribution, and wrap reports

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These phases are interconnected, with insights from each stage informing the others and driving renewals and upsells.

The cookie collapse threatens to break the upsell cycle by hampering a publisher's ability to use audience and insights.

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We can further break down the 3 Sales Phases into several supporting tactics:

The Challenge of the Cookie Collapse

The impending loss of third-party cookies significantly impacts various tactics across all phases of direct sales. This disruption threatens to break the virtuous cycle that has long been the backbone of successful advertising campaigns.

Each Tactic of Sales Phases are uniquely challenged by cookie deprecation.

Embracing New Solutions

Buyers today have largely the same requirements, if not more stringent ones, compared to pre-cookiepocalypse when it comes to placing reservation based buys with publishers directly.

To overcome these challenges, publishers and ad tech vendors must adapt and innovate. If you want to compete for direct sales, you can no longer rely on yesterday's technology.

Here are key strategies to consider:

1. Stack your Data Stacks

The world is moving towards "composable everything," as the distinctions of SaaS tools blur amidst growth and market opportunity recalibration. The "standalones" are dead, and long live the interoperable solutions that make your stack come to life.

At the heart of this all lives a data spine.

A data spine serves as the central support structure within a larger ID graph. It provides crucial linkages between different identifiers, forming the foundation for a more comprehensive understanding of individuals.

Here we see how the Data Spine sits within the larger ID Graph. It is the supporting structure of making identity usable, but it does not carry the essential metadata that comprises the larger ID Graph or User Graph.

Here is a handy chart of why you would want an independent Data Spine. Remember that many systems include a Data Spine but the typical customer does not interact with it or support it. Having access to and controlling the data spine gives several unique advantages:

2. Leverage Your Advantages

Publishers should focus on:

• Regaining control over the three phases of direct campaigns: publishers must employ technologies that allow them to continue servicing direct clients.
• Recoupling data and media for sales: Publishers should lean into the proximity of their data and media to provide more complete solutions to buyers. Licensing standalone data is hard, but buyers can be more flexible when buying media.
• Using seed audiences to inform extrapolations and create deeper insights: upsells depend on it. To create the loop effect of the sales process (see above), you must reuse campaign insights and audiences to upsell/renew clients into the next campaign.

It is worth a read of the IAB Tech Lab 's ID-less Solutions Guidance (in Public Comment mode at time of publishing) for a deeper look at how different ID-less solutions can bolster various sales phases and tactics.

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3. Build Bridges and Trust

Reconnect the dots in the fragmented data landscape

• Develop proprietary measurement systems (h/t Brand Metrics)
• Host suitability solutions in-house (h/t WaPo, Reuters, ProNews and more)
• Find common ground with partners (IDs, CPMs, attribution and more)
• Utilize ID spines and clean rooms for secure collaboration

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3a. Explore Alternative Collaboration Methods

Many publishers think that they can't orchestrate or participate in data collaboration (clean rooms), but there are actual several ways to overcome this.

Here are the most common reasons why publishers don't, won't or can't participate in data collaboration:

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I want publishers to strongly consider the use of alternative IDs when it comes to clean rooms and data collaboration. This does not just have to be with 1:1 identifiers like email, but it is very important to consider the buyside expectations when planning for collaboration.

Yes, HEM Matching, and even probabilistic IDs, may be controversial here-- especially if you are not disclosing (or worse, misrepresenting) your methods. However, disclosure and clear communication will provide those bridges and trust that are essential.

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Conclusion

As we enter this new era of privacy-first advertising, publishers and ad tech vendors must adapt their strategies to maintain the effectiveness of direct sales. By embracing data spines, leveraging first-party data advantages, and exploring new collaboration methods, we can continue to deliver value to advertisers while respecting user privacy.

The future of direct sales lies in our ability to innovate and find common ground in a rapidly changing landscape. Let's rise to the challenge and (re)shape the future of advertising together.

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We continue to spotlight our clients, showcasing how they navigate data management and their advertising strategies. The Globe and Mail, a leading Canadian publisher, is at the forefront of adopting secure and innovative advertising practices. In this second part of our interview series, we spoke with Soleil Adler, Data Optimization Manager, about their successful campaign with VIA Rail. This conversation highlights the importance of a well-structured data strategy and the ongoing pursuit of excellence to achieve results that exceed expectations. If you missed the first interview, you can read it or watch it here.

Discover all four perspectives on the successful partnership around data collaboration between publisher the Globe and Mail, advertiser VIA Rail, agency Omnicom Media Group and tech provider Optable in the AdExchanger article.

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What were your objectives for the VIA Rail campaign, and what were your partner’s goals?

The objective was to determine if using The Globe and Mail’s data enriched with a client's first-party data would outperform solely using The Globe’s data. VIA Rail’s campaign goal was to generate awareness and encourage planning for the next trip with VIA Rail.

Could you give us an overview of the campaign: what audiences did your companies match?

We matched all the Globe and Mail readers with three separate VIA Rail audiences: Lapsed Travelers, Mid-Week Travelers, and Travelers from the Last 3 Years to gather insights and then create a look-alike.

What tactics did you use to test the Clean Room matching with the advertiser?

We conducted an ABC test. For tactic A, we targeted on-site content focused on inventory using audience insights from the match. For tactic B, we created a lookalike audience based on the last three-year Travelers audience match. Tactic C served as our control, targeting The Globe’s domestic traveler audience.

How did you use insights on audiences derived from the match with VIA Rail?

Once we identified travelers who had purchased tickets within the last three years through our platform, we matched them with all of the Globe readers and gathered insights from this match. The insights revealed that travelers were highly interested in the Personal Finance, Business Opinion, and Investing sections. Therefore, we targeted our inventory towards those sections.

Why did you opt for the look-alike model for this campaign? What steps did you take to build augmented audiences using Optable’s prospecting technology?

We created a look-alike audience to reach potential new customers with similar interests in domestic travel. We achieved this by matching the audience to Optable’s prospecting Clean Room and assessing the model probability to ensure efficient scale and attribute, and then activating it.

How does The Globe and Mail plan to leverage the success of this campaign to attract more advertisers?

With VIA Rail, we have seen a 3.4 times increase in reach. We are continuing to use these tactics in new campaigns and conducting frequent data matches to improve our data strategy as we move forward. One thing we are focusing on is matching ad exposure with ticket sales to determine the contribution and identify who purchased the ticket after being exposed to the ad on The Globe. We are also working on another use case where we are creating a suppression segment to specifically avoid targeting existing ticket purchasers.

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The Globe and Mail's strategic approach to data collaboration and Clean Room technology highlights the transformative potential of these tools in digital advertising. By integrating advanced data solutions, focusing on meaningful metrics, and leveraging successful case studies like the VIA Rail campaign, they continue to innovate and lead in the realm of data-driven advertising.

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Overview

With the continuing loss of third-party signals, contextual targeting is becoming a popular alternative to ID-based solutions for delivering targeted advertising. It involves classifying web pages, as well as video and audio content, based on content categories and sentiment using keywords, titles, and meta tags. The classifications are then used to build audiences for targeting or suppression campaigns and, oftentimes, to curate deals to make inventory more attractive.

Oracle's Grapeshot, a widely adopted contextual product, recently announced the sunset of its entire portfolio. With little time to plan, publishers and marketers have quickly sought replacement solutions. While there are plenty of data providers in the market who can provide contextual categorization through natural language processing (NLP) or other methods, one of the biggest challenges publishers face is integrating this data, normalizing it, and making it actionable through simple audience-building UI and integration with activation end-points.

Optable can help publishers recreate audiences at scale with minimal revenue loss. This guide will show you how to use our platform to manage third-party contextual solutions. Our customers can then use our platform and tools to build audiences from contextual signals.

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While external data signals are dwindling, data collaboration and Clean Room technology have become pivotal for maximizing monetization strategies. To gain insights into the transformative approach for publishers, we spoke with The Globe and Mail’s commercial data optimization team. They shared their journey and strategies, leveraging collaboration around customer data. 

In the first part of our interview, Kabil Rahaman, the Head of Data Optimization, explains how data collaboration is integrated into their strategy.

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How did The Globe and Mail integrate data collaboration technology into your existing data infrastructure?

We’ve undergone significant changes in the past few years, with a focus on building around our data warehouse. One of the main reasons we chose Optable as our partner is because the process was relatively easy. Leveraging Optable's connection to our data warehouse made it a no-brainer for us to develop that capability.

Are there specific metrics you use to measure the impact of data collaboration on your operations and revenue?

However, focusing solely on revenue provides a limited viewpoint of our impact. To gain a more comprehensive understanding, we look at our interactions with partners and the discussions we have. These conversations are a valuable starting point for measuring revenue opportunities and tracking our progress.

How do you see data collaboration and Clean Rooms technology influencing your data monetization strategy?

Data collaboration is viewed as an extension of our data strategy, enabling partners to bring their data to The Globe's environment for media investment planning. The key metric measured here is the financial success of whether we've matched an audience, targeted a specific audience, or used insights from that match to plan a campaign. 

First-party data is essential for successful data collaboration and activation. Can you describe your journey in building your first-party dataset?

The Globe and Mail’s strategy began over ten years ago. Unlike many digital news media publications that chase clicks and traffic, we focus on providing high-quality news journalism behind a paywall. We believe in a balanced value exchange for readers, whether they pay and subscribe or not. The goal is to nurture a reader’s journey from being anonymous to registering. We collect data at all stages of this journey, ensuring a fair exchange for the news and media consumed. This approach helps us better understand readers' preferences and connect them with better advertising.

What questions do you ask your advertising partners to help qualify and set them up for success in data collaboration?

The Globe and Mail follows a readiness checklist that includes having a first-party data strategy and agreement from key stakeholders (IT, Security, Legal), including an executive sponsor. The presence of a person willing to take responsibility and be accountable for the success of the program is crucial. 

Media agencies, as data controllers or data stewards, face the challenge of managing the expectations of multiple stakeholders while handling sensitive customer data for advertising. Experience in uploading customer lists to platforms like Meta or Google makes collaboration easier.

What makes data matching successful from a publisher's standpoint?

Success in data matching stems from mutual learning opportunities between two customer data owners. Our team is very obsessive about the relationship their readers have with ads, helping advertisers connect with receptive readers and audiences. I see our success in giving brands the chance to connect with our readers in a meaningful way and providing learning opportunities for both the brand and The Globe through customer list matching.

Tell us about your test-and-learn approach. How does it look?

The test-and-learn approach begins with curiosity, aiming to validate an assumption or theory for a partner. It’s a highly collaborative process designed to produce structured tests to address business challenges. We use the acquired insights to improve campaign planning and segmentation.

What are your tactics in case the audience match with the advertiser is not significant?

As an optimistic person, I believe that a low audience match provides an opportunity for customer growth and acquisition. In this scenario, tactics include creating look-alike models, leveraging content insights, and excluding current customers.

It's important to test different tactics and learn from the results. Compare these tactics with a publisher's first-party audience to determine if there's a lift or difference in how the publisher defines their own audience compared to how you would match.

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About Globe Media Group

Globe Media Group is a media and marketing company that empowers advertisers with solutions and content to influence ambitious Canadians. As the advertising arm of The Globe and Mail, Globe Media Group’s offerings are end-to-end across multiple platforms, including digital, video, podcasts, app, newspaper and magazines, as well as custom content and special events. Globe Media Group provides unparalleled access to influential audiences within trusted, premium environments, reaching 20.5 million monthly unique visitors through Globe Alliance—a premium digital network of the world’s best news, business and lifestyle sites. Globe Media Group also connects advertisers to 2.6 million weekly readers of The Globe and Mail, Canada's most trusted news source. Each day, The Globe engages Canadians with award-winning coverage and analysis of news, politics, business and lifestyle topics.

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Identity resolution and ID graphs have become critical components for publishers aiming to optimize their data management strategies. However, building and maintaining an effective ID graph comes with its own set of challenges. This blog post will explore three common challenges that heads of data at publishing companies face and offer practical solutions on how to overcome them.

Challenge 1: Adding New Data Sources

The Problem

Adding new data sources to your ID graph can be a difficult and time-consuming task. Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) often lack flexibility when it comes to ingesting new data, especially from on-site sources. Additionally, second-party data typically requires extensive cleansing and normalization before it becomes usable, further complicating the process.

The Solution

Partner with technology providers that offer managed services and expertise in data onboarding, cleaning, and normalization. Seek out consultative partners who can help you integrate and test second-party data effectively. These partners should provide tailored approaches to your data ecosystem, ensuring that your ID graph meets the specific needs of various departments within your organization.

Challenge 2: Maximizing Usability

The Problem

Making your ID graph usable for different use cases is another common challenge. Graphs may need to take different shapes depending on the use case, and different identifiers require various rules for normalization and linking. Additionally, some IDs may need special treatment during the normalization process, and adjusting relationships between IDs can be cumbersome. Determining the right approach can be costly as your engineering teams have to spend lots of time testing and learning custom solutions.

The Solution

Work with platforms that offer flexible tools for graph building and shaping. These platforms should make it easy to ingest new data sources through their SDK or your cloud storage. Look for solutions that allow you to easily change how graphs are structured to suit different use cases. This flexibility will maximize addressability for advertising and ensure that your graph remains useful across various organizational functions, such as subscription marketing automation or evaluating audience lifetime value.

Challenge 3: Adding New Integrations for Activation

The Problem

Effective orchestration of your ID graph requires seamless integration with multiple endpoints for ad activation, marketing automation, and internal business intelligence. Data warehouses-only solutions aren't well equipped for this as they typically require multiple steps for data to leave the warehouse before being used in another system. Establishing these connections can be complicated and time-consuming, making it difficult to act on your data promptly.

The Solution

Utilize an audience management platform that offers purpose-built connections to activation endpoints for various publisher use cases, including advertising, marketing, and business intelligence. The key here is the availability and speed of custom integrations. Platforms that can quickly establish these connections will enable you to leverage your ID graph more effectively, ensuring that you can act on your data in real-time.

Conclusion

Building and maintaining an ID graph is essential for modern publishers, but it doesn't come without its challenges. By focusing on platforms that offer flexible data ingestion, partnering with consultative experts for data onboarding, and using audience management platforms with purpose built-tools and quick integration capabilities, you can overcome these common hurdles.

Ready to optimize your ID graph? Book a call with our expert team today to explore how we can help you streamline your data management and boost your publishing efforts.

‍In our previous article, we explored the concept of purpose-built identity solutions and the new pivotal role of ID graphs. As we dive deeper into the nuances of identity solutions, it's crucial to understand ‘ID Bridging’ and its impact on extending both direct and programmatic revenue streams. 

As we shift away from reliance on cookies & third-party identifiers publishers need comprehensive and scalable solutions that help them link, or ‘bridge’, their first and second party data sets as well as create interoperability with their demand partners and other activation channels. The most important dynamic here is that publishers maintain control and transparency so that these practices are in line with their advertisers and demand partners standards.

"ID Bridging is an important capability in our tool set as we continue to enter a world where free & widespread identifiers are less accessible & usable across our ecosystem. Being able to bridge together IDs from our various internal datasets as well as work with second parties ultimately helps to make cookieless environments more addressable to our advertising partners." said Paul Bannister, CSO of Raptive. "Working with Optable has helped us to scale and refine this practice across our large network of sites. Their ability to work as a true SaaS provider and give us the controls we need across various sources of identity helps us to both test and optimize our addressability and work closely with our demand partners so that we are doing this in a way that is acceptable to their standards."

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Understanding Addressability Evolution and the Role of ID Bridging

The ad tech system was engineered to provide marketers with rich datasets to target audiences with paid advertising, having made ‘Identity’ and ‘Addressability' synonymous for a decade. However, trends in data privacy are moving us away from third-party cookies and app-based identifiers.

Now, publishers face a challenge with these shifts due to lack of investment in understanding their audience data. They must pivot as linking user identity and addressability becomes increasingly difficult. Many publishers find that they lack the data science and engineering expertise to build & scale high quality and reliable identity graphs without the help of specialized platforms. To keep their data-driven ad products in line with these changes publishers are reviving concepts like contextual advertising and introducing new ones like identity cohorts and enriched audiences. As a result, traditional ad products are evolving, and publishers need to reassess their Data Management platforms and tech stack to maximize growth in both direct and programmatic monetization channels.

Amid signal loss in the programmatic market, ID Bridging was introduced to maintain addressability. It is the privacy-safe process publishers use to match their first-party audience identity signals with static signals from second parties to grow their understanding of their audiences. This subset of identity resolution is key as digital advertising heavily relies on these signals. 

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How is ID Bridging used for programmatic advertising?

A major trend in the response to the aforementioned changes in addressability and the need of linking identities is the creation and adoption of Alternative IDs. In programmatic advertising, an ‘Alternative ID’ refers to any identifier other than third-party cookies that is used to track and target users across websites and devices. Many different ‘Alternative ID’ projects have come about in recent years and many of them vary greatly depending on the companies behind them and the geographical regions they operate in (due to variation in privacy laws).

Some of the major ones include The Trade Desk's UID 2.0 project, ID5, and LiveRamp's RampID, but there are many more, and they continue to pop up in new and different commercialized forms as companies respond to the changing market. As a result, publishers are finding ways to use ID Bridging to actually enrich the bid requests they are sending to programmatic advertising platforms with Alternative IDs via a process called Bid Enrichment. 

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This process helps publishers increase the chances of an ad buying platform finding their inventory to be addressable and, therefore, maximizes their “ad yields.” By working with a first party DMP, publishers can not only implement this solution, but they can also test and optimize different identifiers. Some legacy programmatic data providers have offered other methods of doing Bid Enrichment by loading all possible Alternative IDs within their tags; however, this has limitations for non-web channels, creates latency across web pages, and does not allow for insights and optimization into what Alternative IDs are providing the best yield.

It is important to note that the IAB Tech Lab is working on new standards to support these changes. These standards will help give better guidance to publishers on how to best implement ID Bridging and Bid Enrichment, as well as to Marketers on the best practices for measuring success when their Publisher partners and ad-buying platforms are using these solutions.

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How can ID Bridging help improve directly sold inventory?

Beyond programmatic advertising, ID Bridging also plays a critical role in enhancing directly sold inventory. By increasing addressability, ID Bridging helps media owners and publishers grow revenue from the inventory they directly sell to advertisers.

The addressable advertising ecosystem is likely to continue to be in flux in the near future, given ongoing regulation in the US, Canada and other markets. Going forward, it is incredibly crucial for publishers to invest in a first-party DMP that can support addressable advertising in the many forms it will take. This means investing in a DMP that natively supports first-party ID Graphing and enables Bid Enrichment via Alternative Identifiers.

Integrating second-party data providers into the data strategy can be a big leap. By working with identity and data providers, publishers and media owners can grow authenticated users and enrich the existing data with additional traits and attributes, leading to a more detailed understanding of their audience. 

Besides deeper insights, enhanced data also gives the data teams more power when it comes to creating and leveraging audience segments. As a result, publishers can boost revenue from direct-sold campaigns by offering advertisers access to more defined and valuable audiences. Ultimately, partnering with second-party data providers not only improves audience insights but also drives better ad performance.

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Optable Enables Transparent ID Bridging

The impact of linking identifiers on a publisher's ad business depends on how providers use the IDs. If handled responsibly, ID bridging can enhance ad inventory value and bring revenue. Yet, if providers prioritize short-term gains by adding undisclosed identifiers, it can lead to ID spoofing and challenges with their advertising partners. Industry standards and working groups, such as IAB Tech Lab, are continuing to give guidance on ID Bridging practices to ensure ecosystem integrity. Optable, as a member, proactively develops and complies with these standards.

At Optable we work under a SaaS model, prioritizing transparency with our clients to ensure that agreed-upon identifiers are used in ID Bridging. This approach provides publishers with visibility, control, and the ability to test & optimize different ID providers & datasets to determine the most effective solution for their inventory. On our platform, teams can complete their dataset with identifiers including Universal ID 2.0, Criteo ID and Ramp ID and leverage hashed data from providers such as Experian, True Data, and ID5.   

Reach out to us at info@optable.co to learn more about how you can increase addressability & grow revenue using Optable’s Audience Management Platform.

Québecor has leveraged data collaboration to achieve remarkable success in digital advertising. We sat down with Sasha Audet, Audience and Programmatic Solutions Supervisor from Québecor, to discuss their journey in digital advertising, how they leverage data collaborations with partners to grow their advertising business and their plans for TV ads. Explore insights from Québecor’s experience in our latest interview hosted by Ioana Tirtirau, the Director of Customer Success at Optable.

What specific objectives are you aiming to achieve with brands and agencies when it comes to data collaboration?

Our primary objective is to provide brands and agencies with deep insights into their audiences through our data. We've worked diligently with Optable to map all our data. Therefore, when a client comes in, we can match their data with ours. This allows them to see their media consumption within Québecor’s ecosystem. These insights add great value for our clients, and we can activate this data directly, employing multiple strategies to engage with the matched audience.

How do you use data collaboration to grow your advertising business today?

We identified new opportunities with data collaboration, particularly in TV advertising. We plan to use data collaboration in our addressable TV business. By integrating Québecor’s digital environment with TV insights, we can better understand real TV consumption patterns. This helps us identify what TV shows our audiences watch, the times they tune in, and the frequency of their viewing habits. These insights enable us to enhance our addressable TV business by providing more targeted advertising solutions.

Can you give us an idea of how you arrived at this point where you have all these interesting insights to show advertisers? How did you go about preparing your data set?

We invested several years in gathering and preparing all this data, ensuring everything complies with legal standards. We tagged all our properties and used first-party data to ensure accuracy and relevance. After years of hard work, in collaboration with Optable and our teams, we made our gateway to accessible and comprehensive data, enabling us to offer these valuable insights.

Does interoperability play a role for you? Is it important in your first-party data strategy?

Absolutely. Interoperability allows us to bridge different ad tech and data stacks, making it a single entry point for Québecor. This capability, enabled by Optable, allows us to work with a variety of data sources and activate data through advertising seamlessly, regardless of whether our partners are existent Optable users or not.

What have you learned from working directly with advertisers, and how does that change your approach in the market?

Advertisers have high expectations and expect the platform to be turnkey. After working with many clients, we learned that successful collaboration requires significant effort from our side, the advertisers, and the technology providers. These experiences taught us a lot, and we were able to streamline our processes and improve our approach. Now, we have established a great process for all parties involved.

Since you mentioned the process, how is it built within your organization? What is the structure between sales and ad operations for a successful product launch? 

We clearly define the roles of each person involved. The critical part is our subject matter experts. They are salespeople and experts in the product that work directly with clients. They play a crucial role, enabling us to minimize the time spent on learning from every individual involved in sales.

How do you qualify your advertising partners for the collaboration? 

We have business rules in place to qualify clients, ensuring they are ready for collaboration. Our subject matter experts are involved in the qualification process, helping our leads to learn and to work with the product. Experts use specific rules to determine a client's readiness. This process requires substantial preparation and alignment with our technology, especially during the initial adoption phase. Since it is a partnership, the partner must also bring the upfront investment with us so it leads to long-term, successful cooperation. 

Ultimately, we aim to provide long-term, evergreen business for our clients with Québecor. There is a certain amount of work at the setup, but once everything is rolling, there is not much intervention.   

Can you share your experience with onboarding advertising partners to prepare a successful campaign?

The key to a successful partnership is thorough preparation. Before we begin, clients must ensure that their legal, marketing, and other teams are onboarded and aligned. Once we start, we focus on optimizing the campaign, making adjustments as needed, and managing expectations regarding performance, as clients have expectations tied to the third-party cookie world. Both internal and external education must be in place for success. Ultimately, the collaborative effort ensures the campaign runs smoothly and achieves its goals.

Québecor’s strategic use of data collaboration and insights sharing shows how effective data management and targeted advertising can drive growth and success in the digital advertising landscape. We look forward to hearing more about innovative projects from Québecor in the future.

About Québecor

Québecor, a Canadian leader in telecommunications, entertainment, news media and culture, is one of the best‑performing integrated communications companies in the industry. Driven by their determination to deliver the best possible customer experience, all of Québecor’s subsidiaries and brands are differentiated by their high‑quality, multiplatform, convergent products and services.

Québecor is headquartered in Québec and employs more than 11,000 people in Canada.

A family business founded in 1950, Québecor is strongly committed to the community. Every year, it actively supports more than 400 organizations in the vital fields of culture, health, education, the environment, and entrepreneurship.