“There’s no real relationship to the customer if you rely on third-party cookies”

Mr. Baron, Ms. Feltscher, why do you think data onboarding is an answer to cookieless future?

JB: It all comes down to data quality. Third-party cookie deprecation is making it harder for brands to target audiences and track performance, but marketers have been skeptical for a long time. There’s no real relationship to the customer if you rely on third-party cookies. With data onboarding through data clean rooms, brands use real customer data to do much higher-quality, more performant targeting – while fully preserving customer data privacy. This includes working with 2nd party data owners with existing customer relationships, who can also be invited to collaborate in the data clean room.

IF: Goldbach has been proactively preparing for the deprecation of third-party cookies for several years. In addition to our contextual targeting solution, we place significant emphasis on utilizing first-party data. Thanks to data onboarding and data clean room technology, we can combine these with the valuable insights of our advertising customers and thus secure and increase the efficiency of our targeting solutions in the long term. In addition, Goldbach is part of the OneID initiative, the Swiss advertising ID within a network of various publishers.

Let's go into practice: what are the requirements for a customer who is interested in data onboarding?

JB: Brands need to have a robust CRM program so they can contribute first-party data. This is typically available in mid- to large-sized enterprises. That said, CPG brands and others who lack rich first-party data can lean on retailers and other data partners with direct relationships to customers to provide the data needed for the campaign.

IF: Our advertising clients are very dedicated to safeguarding their customers' data privacy and adhering to the highest standards of data protection laws. With Decentriq's privacy guarantees Data Protection Officers usually find no risk and have so far always approved data onboarding with Goldbach.

Are there certain industries that are better suited to data onboarding than others?

JB: There’s no limit to the sector – we’ve worked with automotive companies, ecommerce companies, and CPG brands, but also highly regulated industries like banking, insurance and telecommunications. There’s a reason why the Swiss department of defence worked with us: thanks to the use of Microsoft Azure Confidential Computing in our data clean rooms, we can prove that sensitive data stays completely private.

IF : Data onboarding is still quite new for our customers. We are currently in the process of introducing the solution in various industries and therefore we're dedicated to identifying best practices for specific needs in order to ensure a tailor-made range of services.

What achievements have Goldbach and Decentriq already had with data onboarding?

IF: Fifteen major brands have run about 20 campaigns using data onboarding. Among them are some of the biggest FSI and automotive companies marketing in Switzerland. We’ve also had several global agencies involved in the campaigns. In terms of performance we’ve seen engagement rates nearly double, and conversion rate improvements of over 50%. With one client in particular from the banking sector, their clickthrough rate more than doubled, and page views increased by nearly 30% while reducing cost-per-view by about half.

JB: Overall we see both brands and publishers benefitting from a more data-intimate relationship. Brands benefit because there’s a huge improvement in the performance of their campaigns – they can finally be confident that they’re targeting the right people through the use of their first-party data. And when they see how their data is represented in the publisher universe, they learn new information about their own customers, their behaviors and affinities. Publishers, especially premium publishers marketers like Goldbach, benefit because they have real relationships with readers. They’ve been able to build these relationships through delivering quality journalism and content over many decades, which they can support even better by better segmenting their audiences. So we can expect to see net positive effects for the entire ecosystem as well.

What have been the most important learnings from the collaboration so far?

JB: The key learning is that using first-party data in this way is a completely new process – for brands, for the agencies, and for publishers themselves. It’s like a muscle that you didn’t know existed before that you have to build. Goldbach now has a lot of experience under their belt after over a year of data onboarding that they can rely on for these campaigns. One great thing we’ve learned is that performance exceeds our expectations: we’ve regularly seen 30-60% lift on key objectives on the brand side, versus their traditional targeting approach. Even more growth is possible by learning and optimizing in following campaigns. 

IF: Regarding campaign setup, we've learned that data onboarding campaigns sometimes require a different approach compared to traditional targeting campaigns. Data onboarding allows us to create highly specific audience segments based on product or brand interest, so we must be careful not to overly restrict delivery. During the initial learning phase of a campaign, it's essential to maintain flexibility in campaign formats, placements, and durations. This flexibility enables us to optimize and refine our strategies effectively. In order to achieve optimal results, open and transparent collaboration between clients, agencies, Decentriq, and Goldbach is crucial.

What can we expect in the future?

IF: We're now past the testing phase and have concrete evidence that leveraging first-party data really works. Our goal for the future therefore is, to streamline data onboarding, making it a solution that can be easily deployed with minimal effort.

JB: Overall, for us it’s about building a platform that help a brand run campaigns using their first-party data. The more value we can provide them through first-party data matching, insights, activation and measurement, the better. That’s what we’re aiming for. Concretely, that could mean expanding the platform to include data from trusted partners, and developing richer insights and targeting.

We are excited to see what else is in store. Thank you very much for the interview.