In a time when the focus is increasingly on privacy, businesses need to find new ways to manage and use their customer data. In our interview with Juan Baron from Decentriq, we discuss what the future holds in this evolving landscape and how Data Clean Rooms will play a big role in it.
With Google delaying the full phase-out of third-party cookies, many businesses are uncertain about the best path forward. At Converto, we believe that building a strong first-party data strategy is essential for future success – particularly in regions like DACH, where privacy regulations are stringent, and customers have high expectations for data protection.
In response to this crucial shift, we’ve partnered with Decentriq to jointly lead the way and help our customers make the most of their first-party data. To explore these emerging challenges and opportunities, we had a talk with Juan Baron, Director of Business Development & Strategy at Decentriq.
Google has announced that they will abandon the phase-out of 3rd-party cookies for the time being. What major challenges does this decision present?
Juan Baron: Google’s decision not to deprecate third-party cookies in their browsers isn’t as much of a game changer as it’s being made out to be.
The reality is, the third-party cookie train already left the station years ago, and there’s no turning back. There’s a huge proportion of users that are already not addressable with third-party cookies — when we talk about Switzerland, which is Apple country, more than half of users aren’t addressable today.
The third-party cookie train already left the station years ago, and there’s no turning back. – Juan Baron, Decentriq
When Apple introduced App Tracking Transparency in 2021, users decided in droves that they didn’t want to be tracked. When Google puts a consent banner front and center for Chrome users, it’s not going to slow down the decay of third-party cookies — it’s going to accelerate it.
Brands who are tuned into the data side of marketing are already focused on first-party data for targeting because the data quality is higher. They’re seeing measurably better addressability and ad effectiveness.
In your experience, what is the level of expertise in the DACH region regarding cookieless advertising?
Juan Baron: It depends on the type of company. Brands that have a direct relationship with customers, and have a rich CRM, typically already have a first-party data strategy. There it’s a question of when they plan to take the next step to use that data outside of their four walls.
CPG or FMCG brands who rely on retailers or distributors to sell their products are starting to lean more into these relationships. We’re seeing more of these players looking to collaborate on first-party data and utilize it for better customer insights and campaign targeting.
We see the shift towards using first-party data accelerating across the DACH market in 2024. – Juan Baron, Decentriq
Publishers are ahead of the curve. They’ve started putting up registration walls and introducing premium subscription models — that’s been their strategy for a couple of years now. They can offer their users access to higher quality content and user experiences and enrich their first-party audience segments as a result.
Overall, from Decentriq’s point of view, we see the shift towards using first-party data accelerating across the DACH market in 2024 and demand for collaboration solutions increasing massively.
What prerequisites must clients meet to successfully activate first-party data within a Data Clean Room?
Juan Baron: The prerequisites for using Decentriq are very light. The main requirement is that the brand has a way to capture or build up their first-party data. If the brand has a direct relationship to their customers, they’ll have first-party data in their CRM or CDP and can connect that easily to the data clean room. For brands that rely on retailers for sales, they can bring those retailers in as collaborators in the clean room to provide the customer data needed for targeting and activation.
What is a dream use case for Decentriq that you can support now, but haven’t yet had the chance to realize?
Juan Baron: We’d love to see more customers use the insights feature to power data-driven creative optimization. When a brand matches their data with a publisher or data partner in the data clean room, they get insights about how their customers are represented in that partner’s data — what their affinities are, and how their customers overlap with, for example, publisher segments. This is super valuable information when you use them to plan which creatives will play best with a certain target audience.
We’d love to see more customers use the insights feature to power data-driven creative optimization. – Juan Baron, Decentriq
Our platform can give brands this kind of information now, but often their marketing departments set creative strategy far in advance of doing the match in Decentriq. What they could do is push the data first, get the insights, and use them to inform their creative strategy.
How do DCRs help advertisers navigate the complexities of data privacy and regulatory compliance when using first-party data?
Juan Baron: Brands in Europe, and especially in the DACH market, are very conscientious about respecting the privacy of their customers and following the high standards of data protection regulations. Decentriq has built such strong privacy guarantees into our data clean room technology that DPOs typically don’t see any conflict with using first-party data in the platform.
Our platform is built on the most advanced privacy technology available on the market today, including Confidential Computing from Microsoft Azure. During the entire collaboration, data stays encrypted and is never accessible to any other party — not even us. Because of these guarantees, we’ve been able to successfully onboard banks and hospitals to the platform. We’ve even worked with the Swiss Army.
How do you see the future of tracking developing? Does Decentriq plan to find a solution for post-cookie tracking?
Juan Baron: Decentriq isn’t in the business of building tracking pixels. We’re firm believers in protecting individual user privacy. In the end what brands really want to do is understand how well their ads are performing, on which inventory and for which segments. So what we can do is match the transactional data from the advertiser’s point-of-sale with ad exposure data from the publisher in the data clean room to measure conversions. We’ve successfully tested this with clients, it works, and we’re planning to build this into a full user experience over time.
Why is now the time to use DCRs – and why are solutions like DV360 not a viable alternative?
Juan Baron: DCRs are now a proven solution — early adopters in the past 3 years have contributed to establishing standards around the use of DCRs from a legal, technical and business standpoint. The next wave of advertisers can now reap the benefits and use DCRs immediately to boost the performance of their ad campaigns.
DV360, or DSPs in general, aren't really alternatives to DCRs. From our point of view, they’re complementary solutions. Unlike DSPs, independent DCRs like Decentriq provide a neutral, trusted middle ground that allows any type of collaboration on 1st party data, including building audiences. DSPs then come into play to help advertisers and agencies programmatically buy audiences generated inside a DCR.
About Decentriq
Founded in Zürich in 2019, Decentriq set out to change how organizations handle first-party and other sensitive data. With a strong emphasis on data security and privacy, Decentriq has attracted clients in the finance and healthcare sectors – industries where trust and confidentiality are paramount. Leveraging a hardware-based technology called confidential computing, Decentriq ensures that only the data owner can access the data, offering unparalleled security. Additionally, Decentriq’s unique 'lookalike feature' enables advertisers to expand their reach by tapping into a robust publisher network, extending beyond their existing customer base.
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