In a world of increasing privacy legislation and decreasing reliance on third-party cookies, data clean rooms are one way publishers can monetise their audience data. We grab five minutes with Vlad Stesin, Optable’s co-founder and CSO, to ask him what advice he would give publishers.

Q: What is a data clean room (DCR) and how have they come about?

A: A data clean room is a secure environment that provides purpose-limited, privacy-preserving ways to collaborate with partners around data. They have come about as a result of gradual deprecation of personal identifiers such as third-party cookies and MAIDs, as well as a rise in privacy legislation. Data clean rooms re-enable the advertising ecosystem to work together, but they do so in ways that are anchored in privacy and security.

Obviously, there is a broad context to all this, and it goes beyond simply finding work-arounds for the withdrawal of identifiers. It’s about the fact that current advertising approaches have undermined trust, and we think the spirit of collaboration that data clean rooms can foster will help rebuild it. Far from being just a replacement for third-party cookies, data clean rooms represent a better and more sustainable means of targeting and engaging with consumers.

Q: What are the benefits for publishers in using a DCR?

A: Publishers are now creating their own walled gardens at an unprecedented rate. Data clean rooms offer the proper way to monetise audience data by amplifying its value through collaboration with advertisers. The potential is for publishers to really show the value they have patiently built, which is all about the close relationships they have with their audience.

Q: What are the benefits for advertisers in using a DCR?

A: For advertisers, it’s a question of being able to leverage first-party data from publishers that would be unavailable otherwise, combine that with data of their own, and thus achieve the kind of precision and performance offered by that data. And by following a privacy-compliant, consumer-centric approach, brands can be confident that they are operating in a way that respects the wishes and sensibilities of their potential audiences.

Q: What advice would you give publishers who are considering starting to use DCRs?

A: For publishers, a big question now involves vendor selection. My advice is to experiment with vendors that make it easy to do so, both from the technology and pricing perspective. There are certain things to look for: for instance, ease of activation is critical for an effective data clean room. A good data clean room is a low-technical environment that doesn’t require specialists to run it and can be accessed by anyone who needs it. It needs to be a one-click activation, and brands and advertisers shouldn’t need to use the same data platforms the rest of the time in order to collaborate in this kind of space.

Q: How can publishers use DCRs more effectively?

A: The key thing is to consider data clean rooms as a conduit to commercialising first-party data. As such, the products they offer to advertisers are above all about leveraging first-party data, but offering it through an infrastructure that makes it possible to do so: secure, compliant, and privacy-preserving.

Q: What are the trends in clean room tech and functionality and what opportunities do these present for publishers?

A: A major trend is interoperability - making it easy to connect data from various sources, and various partners. This is really important. No publisher wants to sign up with a plethora of data clean room providers and just wait for opportunities to show up.

Q: What's in the pipeline from Optable?

A: Our focus is on making it easy to collaborate with partners.

That comes through interoperability - making it easy to connect data from other sources and clean rooms - and more sources are becoming available constantly. We have also launched functionality that allows publishers to frictionlessly create data clean rooms with any other party, including those who aren’t Optable customers.

Making it easy also comes from an end-to-end approach and the integration with ad-serving systems, allowing brands and publishers to easily activate campaigns directly from the clean room

.

Finally, it also means that it is possible for people who are not software developers to use an intuitive interface that allows them to create data clean rooms. It shouldn’t be a technical challenge.

All those things are already in place, and many other improvements and integrations are coming soon. We’re really excited about this new era in ad tech.

Also published in: InPublishing