Understanding the technology that generates the data is vital, says Christian Bartens, CEO of Datalicious, while speaking at Cypher 2017.
Chris begins with analysing how various advertorial methods determine where people are going to spend their money. However, the catch here is how due to technological limitations, the last touchpoint becomes the primary one.
In his talk, Chris elaborates on how every single touchpoint can or rather should be taken into consideration for the final sale. Speaking about the dynamics in India, he gives figures to validate how India is rapidly going mobile-first with its rising smartphone users.
Apple recently announced that with its updated iOS 11 version, it will disable cookies, limiting advertiser reach by placing new safeguards into Safari that use machine learning to suppress cross-site tracking and purge ad retargeting data after 24 hours.
Simply put, we know that cookies carry bits of useful information about your interaction with the website that sets them. Usually, they contain a string of text or “unique identifier”, which acts like a label. When a website sees the string of text it set in a cookie, it knows the browser is one it has seen before.
However, Bartens elaborates on what happens when you use a different computer, or open a new web browser or use three different devices? The website will treat you as if you have arrived for the first time or as three individuals.
Going in greater detail, Chris elucidates the ‘purchase path’ of a user keeping into consideration the different identities of one person and all the touchpoints that may have triggered a purchase. The more the devices, the greater are the number of cookies, which eventually make a long trail and often make it difficult to access the most effective touchpoint.
Chris says that it starts with a data problem. An attribution model can only be as good as the data going in. In order to build the most effective model, one has to address the data problem.
As per the new study Datalicious published in collaboration with Facebook, sound recommendations on where media investments should be placed, require the impact that particular channel or tactic is having to be quantified.
With every new device and/or browser creating a different proxy view of a person, the potential to draw the wrong conclusion on its impact is a major possibility. Whilst this is not new news to digital marketers, this research has paved way to quantify just how many different proxy identifiers we see for each real person.
To know more and to get a deeper understanding of how cookie can crumble, watch Christian Bartens’ insightful talk. You can also click here to download the full study.
