Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising company, today (27 October) announced investments which expand its portfolio of identity offerings. Earlier this year, Xandr announced a multi-faceted approach to balance customers’ advertising needs and consumer privacy, and has now delivered several addressability solutions through integrations with LiveRamp (NYSE:Ramp), netID and Unified ID 2.0, as well as publisher first-party data activation solutions, contextual and modelled capabilities. 

Facilitating addressability through consumer-consented data is a key component that Xandr has made strides on. Through Xandr’s collaboration with LiveRamp, Xandr this year launched end-to-end support for RampID on its platform. Publishers using Xandr’s Monetize SSP have started to use RampIDs in their monetisation strategies and have seen positive indications. Agencies and marketers are also beginning alpha tests for RampID capabilities on Xandr’s Invest DSP, which include data onboarding, targeting and measurement. Xandr and LiveRamp are also expanding their relationship in other ways, including LiveRamp becoming a partner on Xandr Curate, the platform for monetising data through curated deals. Travis Clinger, SVP, addressability and ecosystem at LiveRamp comments, “our mission has always been to make it safe and easy for our partners and customers to connect data, wherever data lives. Our continued and evolving partnership with Xandr helps make that possible programmatically, bringing the demand- and sell-sides closer together to ensure critical advertising workflows are more sustainable, efficient, and performant on a global scale. Further, Xandr's support of RampID, a high-fidelity, person-level, omni-channel identifier, takes our existing integration with them to the next level.”

First-party data will be key in the new era of advertising. Xandr has laid the foundation to roll out a suite of powerful tools which empower publishers to leverage their data assets to power relevant advertising, while still protecting the privacy needs of their users. Xandr’s publisher first-party data capabilities provide the necessary targeting, frequency management and privacy controls to enable scaled monetisation across environments. Today, Xandr supports netID across multiple use cases, and continues to build upon this investment, working with netID, publishers and marketers on its platform. In 2022, Xandr will launch an enhanced Publisher ID suite providing additional capabilities, which is built to address publishers’ forward-looking needs. “Providing publishers with the right tools to successfully execute business models, while ensuring that data is properly protected and users are in full control, will be of the utmost importance in this transformational shift in advertising”, says Achim Schlosser, CTO of the European netID Foundation. “First-party data is a key building block in future of digital marketing, which needs to be both user-friendly and sustainable. For that we need strong co-operation among the industry to enable a fair and open web.”

Whilst LiveRamp and netID integrations are complete, Xandr is collaborating with the industry to ensure readiness for the broader launch of the Unified ID 2.0 integration.

Alongside these integrations Xandr has advanced its modelled and contextual solutions utilising data science, machine learning, and contextual data to enable relevant advertising in the absence of identifiers.

Xandr has been productising its Real Time Signals offering (RTS) which enables audience activation by using contextual signals such as hyperlocal geolocation and URL to reach audiences in identity-less environments. RTS is a differentiating, scalable way to reach our clients’ desired customers in a privacy compliant manner and Xandr recently showcased this through its work with Dentsu.

Frequency management to avoid over-exposure is a critical need for publishers and marketers. As such, Xandr has developed an inventory classification model which does not rely on cookies or device/user level identifiers. This enables Xandr to infer one brand’s ad exposure to a user based on averages in real-time and make decisions on whether or not to bid for an impression, thereby enabling platform customers to prevent consumer ad fatigue and wasted spend without reliance on user identifiers.

Xandr understands that collaboration in the industry is the best approach to solving identity. With this in mind Xandr participated in the Google FLoC trial in June and July to better understand the solution. Xandr is continuing to work across industry groups to refine and test other proposals within this, including PARAKEET.

“Xandr is focused on the development of alternative solutions for its clients. Whilst integrations are an important part of this, as is first-party data activation solutions, Xandr is also heavily focused on offering modelled and contextual solutions of its own. During this time Xandr has also been working with customers on different testing opportunities and on Xandr’s platform, buyers and sellers are now able to target, frequency cap and measure outcomes” adds Ewa Maciukiewicz, VP, product management, Xandr. “Whilst there is no simple solution to identity; looking ahead to 2022 Xandr is focused on scaling addressability, simplifying first-party data activation, accelerating the connection between marketers and publishers, and thinking beyond identity to drive relevant advertising in non-addressable environments.”