At the Cannes Lions festival, media agencies made it clear that they’re embracing Ads Data Hub (ADH) – Google’s answer to privacy-safe attribution – despite the implications for independent measurement.
ADH supplies a clean room environment in which agencies can continue to use their own modeling capabilities and data science within Google’s walled garden. Because ADH purports to be privacy safe – none of Google’s data can be ported out – buyers are able to access more data from Google for attribution and measurement than they ever could before, such as YouTube log files, search and event-level data.
In the past, agencies built their attribution strategies around the DoubleClick ID, Google’s cookie-based identifier that ties together user information across its properties. But when GDPR went into effect in the EU last year, Google deprecated portability of the DoubleClick ID in the region and announced it would soon do the same in the United States – effectively breaking independent attribution for buyers.
ADH is the workaround.
For the most part, agencies are glad to get their hands on more data from Google and they’re adopting ADH across the board.
But more access to Google data comes with a price: becoming even more reliant on the platform as it simultaneously acts to cut off external access to its ID.
“As they’ve made less data available externally, they recognized they can’t take this capability off the table,” said Evan Hanlon, chief strategy officer at GroupM US. “The trick is, you have to activate it only within their four walls.”
Close the door
ADH is Google’s attempt to balance the needs of consumers and advertisers with its own interests.
But while ADH ticks the box of privacy while allowing Google to maintain ownership of its proprietary data, the compromise falls short for advertisers, said Richard Lloyd, chief data officer of GroupM in the United Kingdom.
“ADH doesn’t actually solve for the underlying problem – to understand the entire media plan,” Lloyd said. “The vast majority of use cases we’re trying to solve for in ADH today aren’t solvable.”
“In an ideal world, you’d be able to measure across everything,” said Nicolas Bidon, global CEO at Xaxis. “But [solutions like ADH] are needed in a world where brands are worried about leaking data to the ecosystem.”
For some buyers, like GroupM, for example, the Faustian bargain is worth it. Ceding access to independent attribution for a view of Google activity is, Hanlon said, “a value exchange we’re willing to enter into.”
