Five Things We Learned at Big Data LDN

Some of our Data & Analytics team went down to Big Data LDN to network and learn about the big talking points in Data today, here are the key insights that they came away with:
Insight: Know when to compromise between complexity and time
Talk: Your next basket – A Bayesian approach to relevancy modelling using WPS analytics (Jeff Ahrnsen, 8451/ World Programming)
With different models, platforms and vast parameters to consider when analysing data we are constantly weighing up the pros and cons of each to get the best output in a timely manner. In the talk on a Bayesian approach to relevancy modelling using WPS analytics, we discovered there is a constant balancing act when juggling different aspects of a project.
Insight: Keep innovating and creating POCs
Talk: Enabling data-driven decisions with automated insights (Charlotte Emms, Seenit)
Sharing ideas and putting them into practice is the start of formulating a POC, and it is important to do this as soon as possible in the thought process. Hearing about one analyst’s journey from dealing with the lack of engagement of her dashboards, leading her to think of an initial idea of insightful email type reports (POC), to learning Python to create a more robust e-mail template (MVP), to finally putting this to practice. This has been developed further since to a slackbot to return key metrics and graphs at your fingertips.
 
Insight: People are ready for “new nudges” and are more and more are comfortable with AI
Talk: New nudges – the next revolution in customer influence (Alastair Cole, Partners Andrews Aldridge)
With the new era of AI looming round the corner, we are slowly accepting it and moving along with it. Alistair Cole believes we’re ready for the next leap in creative thinking. Adding technology and data is the natural evolution and AI can design emotionally engaging experiences. From this we can create intelligent tools that will generate unique experiences.
Insight: Sometimes it’s best to let the robots do the work for us
Talk: Using AI and time series modelling to improve demand forecasting (Lukas Innig, Datarobot)
With the platform DataRobot, there are already pre-built models created by leading data scientists to reduce the laborious work we would have to do.We were exposed to a working example of how its time series model can help with forecasting with minimal error and allow us to minimise the compromise between accuracy, time and size of the dataset.
Insight: Integration matters, nobody has all the pieces
Talk: Automatic machine learning with guided analytics (Christian Dietz, KNIME)
As analysts we are constantly dealing with multiple data streams in order to get more insight, automating as many of the processes as possible – from pulling the data to producing actionable results. Automation can take out the drivers but it can then also take away their expertise. However, guided automation allows us to automate the tediously long pieces but keep the expert in the loop.
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Google keeps third-party cookies on Chrome, so what does it mean for advertisers?

In surprising news this week (though maybe not too surprising based on numerous delays), Google announced it is abandoning their plans to deprecate third-party cookies, something they have been working towards since 2020. Instead, they have now decided to push a one-time third-party cookie acceptance for a user. It is important to note Google are still working on their Privacy Sandbox, but this decision buys time to iron out the issues and regulatory concerns which have caused multiple delays already.

The push to reduce reliance on third-party cookies isn’t new, with Mozilla Firefox and Safari leading the charge years ago. Google has been the last major holdout, mostly due to their large global market share and potential concerns over lost revenue if advertisers cannot track performance details or reach the same audiences.

Google’s most recent timeline for third-cookie deprecation:

Cookies Timeline

What does this change mean?

Within the Google Ads ecosystem:

Since the conversations around third-party cookies have been going on for so long, advertisers have generally been prepared to move away from this and will hopefully adopt other privacy-safe measurement options. Google Analytics 4 was launched in 2020 as the update to Universal Analytics, without relying on third-party cookies for measurement. Since GA4 primarily utilises first-party cookies, not third-party, this is your primary source for tracking and audience generation. As UA was sunset in 2023, most advertisers who made this switch likely won’t see much difference.

The value of 1st party data has continued to increase amongst conversations of cookie deprecation and should remain a pivotal part of advertiser strategy across both audience targeting and performance tracking.
What about the rest?

There are still wider considerations across other ad platforms and websites which may rely on third-party cookies tracking your data across domains, which is what this decision ultimately impacts.

Advertisers across other channels such as Meta or Display are more likely to see a bigger impact, especially if platform-specific Conversion APIs are not in use. Many of these ad platforms rely on a mixture of third and first-party cookies for their respective tracking pixels to fire on-site, and feedback audience and tracking data back to the ad platform. Therefore, if the new direction from Google causes a blanket opt-out of third-party cookie tracking, there is going to be far less data shared.

We don’t know what opt-in rates would be like at this stage or how it would roll out in practice, but we can potentially take a lesson from Apple and their ATT opt-in rate, which started at less than 20%, but has grown over time to an average of 30-40%.

ROAST recommends all advertisers continue to take all steps possible to maximise data collection using privacy-compliant tools. Doing this sooner than later will provide a benchmark and help to understand the true impact when these changes do eventually occur.
Final thoughts from ROAST’s Senior Media Solutions Consultant, Milan Nayee:

“Whilst we read all these posts in shock and awe, I remain looking on the brightside of this news. In the last few years the advertising world, and we at ROAST have been preparing, adapting and innovating for this change. Was this a waste? No. We’ve all become better advertisers for it.

The deprecation of 3rd party cookies maybe scrapped, but we are still moving towards a privacy-first world, relying more on 1st party cookies, advanced analyses such as Media Mixed Modelling (MMM) and sophisticated tracking solutions such as server-side tracking. These are not in vain and will help us get more out of our data.”

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