Ahead of next month’s Ad Trader Conference hosted in Berlin, Dimo Velev, OpenX, regional director, DACH, asks how can German publishers thrive in the era of big data given the more stringent privacy laws there, compared to the rest of Europe.

German publishing houses are notoriously risk averse, and are noted for their initial hesitance to ride this wave of innovation, although market data and anecdotal evidence suggests this is about to change.

In this piece Velev explains to ExchangeWire readers how ad tech providers can cooperate with said publishers to unlock the value of their first-party data to help spread value across the economic powerhouse of mainland Europe.

For many European publishers, the era of big data has been kind. Advertisers, eager to reach their ideal prospects, have willingly opened their wallets to purchase valuable audience data from publishers. Thanks to real-time advertising, publishers can sell both distressed inventory and their audience insights. In this situation, everyone benefits: publishers earn more revenue, advertisers drive campaign ROI, and readers enjoy a more relevant experience.

But German publishers have reaped far fewer benefits from the data revolution. Despite them knowing they have valuable audiences, Germany’s strict privacy laws have slowed participation.

Many have questions as to how they can monetise their audience data and remain privacy compliant. As a result, we see a great data divide between European and German publishers, and that needs to change – quickly. After all, Germany is an economic and digital advertising powerhouse; how long can Germany publishers sit on the programmatic sidelines?

There can be no doubt as to the value of first-party publisher data, which is highly granular and local. Across Europe publishers are selling their audience data – and earning premium CPMs – on the global ad exchanges, in private marketplaces, and on direct buys. Not surprisingly, publisher data often outperforms third-party data purchased from the big data companies, whose audience segments are largely unverified by measurement companies.

We need to bring the German publishers into the big data era. Universal pixels allow us to track users anonymously as they click around the Web. (And thanks to the EU privacy directive, consumers who don’t want to be tracked are free to block cookies.)

That means throughout Europe we have a privacy-friendly way to truly assess a consumer’s intent based on behaviour. Let’s say a consumer clicks on an ad for a new sports car model, and then uses the configurator to design his perfect car. Is this consumer a true auto-intender, or is he just fantasising about a car he’d like to own?

Now imagine tracking that consumer’s online behaviour post-click. If he goes on to like the auto manufacturer on Facebook, visits consumer review sites on the model, and then searches for auto loans with favorable rates, then his behaviour clearly indicates a higher propensity to buy. Imagine further if we could assign degrees of interest based on number of and types actions taken?

All of those data points stem from publisher sites, which means publishers should benefit from the premium prices advertisers would surely pay for these highly qualified audiences.

How do we make this a reality? No doubt the tech vendors that help publishers sell their inventory, both directly and programmatically, have a critical role to play in aggregating anonymous user behavioural data, assigning scores, making it available to premium advertisers to buy. Let’s hope, for all of our sakes, a solution along these lines emerges soon.

OpenX will appear at the Ad Trader Conference in Berlin on 8 April.