On this week's episode of The MadTech Podcast, Addy Cutts, regional director, APAC, at Oracle joins ExchangeWire CRO Anne-Marie Sheedy and CEO Rachel Smith to discuss TrustPid, finding the right post-cookie solutions, Trovo and Uplify's partnership, and more.

European telcos unite for opt-in targeting offering

Could TrustPid be a successful solution for the post-cookie era? What privacy concerns does it raise?

A coalition of European telecom operators are advancing plans to launch a joint venture that will allow mobile users to opt-in to “personalised” ad targeting. The venture, currently named TrustPid, will be equally owned and controlled by Germany’s Deutsche Telekom, France’s Orange, Spain’s Telefonica, and the UK’s Vodafone. The group asserts that the offering, which was tested in Germany last year, will run on a “first-party” data targeting framework that uses pseudonymised tokens to enable brands and publishers to recognise users without personally identifiable information.

In a filing made to the competition unit of the European Commission, the telcos assert that TrustPid will provide “a privacy-led, digital identification solution to support the digital marketing and advertising activities of brands and publishers.” The Commission will have until 10th February to approve or reject the proposal. The initiative has already drawn the attention of privacy regulators and commentators, who question whether it is in line with GDPR. In their filing, the coalition states that TrustPid targeting will only occur where “explicit user consent” has been provided via opt-in.

Marketers struggle to identify best cookie replacement

Has the post-cookie/cookieless landscape become too complicated? What are the pros and cons of the options currently on offer?

Marketers are finding it difficult to determine which solution will best support their post-cookie strategies, reports Digiday. The range of targeting alternatives on offer, spanning across deterministic, probabilistic, and contextual, is leaving advertisers at a loss over which tech providers to partner with. This question is further complicated by the fact that different regions have different privacy rules that may make some technologies incompatible in certain markets.

Industry insiders suggest that consider three factors — privacy, intent, and scale — when assessing whether a solution or partner is the right fit for them. Under privacy, marketers should ensure they know where data is derived from, know that it is being handled in line with applicable regulations, and that they understand how the ID-vendor authenticates users. For intent, advertisers should seek to understand whether a solution complies with data laws to acquire user consent, and how easy it makes it for a user to opt out. And for scale, marketers should ask for more detail about vendors’ audiences, such as their match rate and how they separate different kinds of identifiers (such as household level versus individual).

Trovo partner with Uplify to enhance creator monetisation

What does this move tell us about the value of the creator/influencer economy?

Trovo, the livestream video platform owned by Tencent, will integrate a new advertising technology into their offering. The deal with the new livestreaming tool, named Uplify, will reportedly enable brands and content creators to use interactive ads to bolster their earnings, using sponsorship automation technology to provide ads that can avoid being blocked.

The move marks a shift by the Twitch competitor, who previously placed audience contributions as central to influencers’ monetisation efforts. Trovo’s 600,000 influencers would traditionally accrue revenue by streaming via the platform’s PK Arena, which hosted rewarded challenges and enabled viewers to make donations to their favourite content creators. According to the partnership deal between Trovo and Uplify, the livestreaming technology provider will work to secure sponsorship deals for influencers and insert engaging interactive ads into livestreams on the platform.