Adform, the only global, independent, and fully integrated advertising platform built for modern marketing has unveiled an independent report with PwC showing that first-party IDs deliver significant uplift and scale on programmatic ad campaigns run with its ID Fusion solution.

With third-party cookies to be discontinued in 2023, advertisers and publishers are struggling to reach their audiences online in a consistent, transparent, and privacy-compliant way. Many publishers are adopting first-party IDs as an alternative to traditional cookies, which has created a jungle of fragmented ID solutions. Adform has built ID Fusion, an agnostic solution combining publishers’ first-party IDs with advertisers’ customer data to make sense of online users' identities.

Adform’s ID Fusion solution uses first-party IDs instead of third-party cookies to unlock scale for common use-cases such as frequency capping, audience targeting, and reporting.

Adform commissioned PwC to work with OMD Norway and Renault to develop and run a real-world campaign using Adform’s ID Fusion technology. As part of their testing and review, PwC also verified data from a previous campaign and Adform case study. These tests took place between February and May 2022.

669% increase in reach and 161% uplift in performance through first-party IDs and ID Fusion

Funnelling ad traffic with identifiers through the ID Fusion solution drove a significant 669% increase in the addressable audience, as well as a 161% increase in click-through rates, resulting in higher viewability and superior eCPM, and ultimately lowering CPC by 65%.

By using first-party IDs and ID Fusion, the test campaign was able to reach incremental users that could not be engaged using previous targeting methods, on non-cookie environments such as Safari, and Firefox, as well as a growing number of Chrome users.

Significant uplift in performance using first-party IDs

Additionally, using first-party IDs delivered higher ad viewability, with 80% versus 75% for third-party cookie traffic. Only ad traffic with first-party IDs was able to meet daily spend targets across the campaign period and deliver in full.

Identify and address previously “hidden” audiences on Safari and Firefox

In addition to the study of the live OMD Norway and Renault campaign using Adform's ID Fusion solution, PwC also ran a detailed analysis of Adform historical data, reviewing the performance of campaigns run across environments that support first-party IDs, but not third-party cookies - Safari and Firefox.

Lotte Gundersen, digital marketing manager at Renault Norway, said: "ID Fusion has allowed us to reach otherwise un-addressable audiences in cookieless environments. As an advertiser, it is reassuring to know that addressable marketing will continue to be a tool that we can rely on in the future also in cookieless environments and that we can continue to reach our customers and optimise our advertising efforts in a manner better aligned with the modern consumers' expectations around privacy."

Carl-Adam Sjölander, digital director at OMD Norway, added: “Our experience with ID Fusion so far has shown great promise for the future, and we look forward to working with Adform and our publisher partners to bring our clients powerful media activations after we’ve said a final goodbye to the third-party cookie. ID Fusion promises to be a valuable solution going forward as a flexible and agnostic platform, that encourages even closer cooperation with premium publishers to tap into their data in a transparent and privacy-compliant way.”

Adam Edelshain, the director, of PwC, said: “PwC’s marketing and media team firmly believes that trust and transparency are crucial to the healthy future of the digital advertising ecosystem. By subjecting their ID Fusion solution to independent testing, Adform has continued to demonstrate their commitment to this."

Read the full PwC report on ID Fusion here