Seamless, not siloed: Why the growth of data clean rooms demands interoperability

As third-party cookies and other public personal identifiers die a slow death, digital advertising is crying out for a new and better approach to replace them. To fill the void, data clean rooms are increasingly being recognised as the answer, with advertisers seeking a solution that delivers actionable data within a privacy-safe framework.

However, their success, like the efficiencies and scale they offer, depends on their ability to link systems, platforms, and partners. This makes delivering a frictionless approach critical for the growth of data clean rooms.    

Creating frictionless partnerships

So why are data clean rooms seen as the saviour of digital advertising? It’s because they can power the whole advertising process, from delivering insights to campaign planning, activating, targeting, and measuring.

At the heart of a data clean room approach are partnerships: between advertisers, publishers, data providers and vendors. Ensuring successful partnerships can flourish requires frictionless collaboration that works on two levels. Firstly, the partnership level, with publishers and advertisers coming together to work with whoever they choose and linking seamlessly in a secure, privacy-complaint environment.

Secondly, the technology level, by allowing data clean rooms to connect easily with any relevant third-party platform. After all, companies want to avoid frustrations around time-consuming, bespoke implementations or the inability of platforms to interact every time they seek to engage in a partnership.

So while security, privacy and compliance are central to data clean rooms, they must remove the barriers that stifle this collaboration.

That’s because there are huge inherent benefits in creating data clean rooms that allow parties to collaborate directly, irrespective of the platforms they use. It’s why we’ve focused effort and resources from the start on building our technology so users can create data clean rooms then quickly execute partnerships by inviting businesses to connect without the other party needing to be a user of our platform. Real value is gained by offering an easy solution for achieving this platform-agnostic collaboration. 

The future is interoperability

Ultimately, any technology must be an enabler that eradicates complexity. For data clean rooms, this comes down to interoperability.

Ensuring platforms can connect and communicate with each other removes the friction around companies cooperating. Whether it’s integrating with other data clean rooms or collaborating with partners without their data having to leave their data warehouse, interoperability marks the next phase of building a frictionless environment.  

The whole point of interoperability is that it requires consensus. Time and again in ad tech, fragmentation and silos have hindered the ability of a market to evolve and prosper. However, we’re seeing the industry begin to tackle this with the IAB Tech Lab currently working on drafting a set of data clean room standards. This is a recognition of the importance of data clean rooms and represents an essential starting point for interoperability, because it’s through agreed standards that this becomes possible.

With more businesses looking to test data clean rooms, central to their success is ensuring it’s easy to establish partnerships and that technologies are mutually compatible. Ultimately, taking down the barriers, removing friction, fostering collaboration, and embedding interoperability means data clean rooms can fulfil their potential and support the future needs of the digital advertising industry.

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