How Dentsu and Permutive are reimagining targeting through curation

Advertising has always been about reaching the right audiences within the right context, at scale. Significant privacy changes and Google’s decision to allow users to make an informed choice about third-party cookies have thrown that into a spin. Although audience reach is attainable via today’s programmatic practices, consumers are exercising their choice, opting out of sharing data and using cookie-restricted browsers, meaning that approximately 70% of valuable audiences are untapped. The next evolution of advertising helps advertisers leverage first-party data, which is both scalable and sustainable. Instead of using third-party cookies and tracking data, advertisers and agencies must build long-term viable business solutions for reaching their audiences. This case study explains how Dentsu and Permutive’s Audience Activation Platform are building solutions that are fit for the next era of digital advertising.

The challenge

Dentsu and Permutive sought to prepare brands for a first-party future, developing effective targeting strategies focusing on solutions that do not rely on third-party cookies, which have traditionally played a crucial role in digital advertising.

The work necessitated exploring and implementing alternative data sources and technologies that could ensure precise and effective audience targeting while respecting user privacy.

Additionally, Dentsu aimed to retain control over the deal creation and data targeting processes within its Dentsu Media Exchange (DMX) offering, built on SSP curation tools. It required establishing robust in-house capabilities and infrastructure to manage these processes independently rather than outsourcing to third-party vendors.

Balancing the need for innovation in targeting methodologies with the demand for privacy compliance and operational independence presented a complex set of obstacles that Dentsu and Permutive needed to navigate to achieve their objectives.

"Given the uncertainty around third-party cookie tracking and ongoing challenges with measurement across our existing client network, we have been actively exploring opportunities to target new users in a privacy-safe way."

Theo Reisz-Gervis, Senior Programmatic Client Manager at Dentsu

The solution

Dentsu leveraged the power of publishers’ first-party signals to reach 100% of available audiences, offering a solution to targeting without relying on third-party cookies. These publisher signals go beyond authenticated or “logged-in” data and include contextual, declared, behavioural, and purchase data. By partnering with Permutive and its 150+ premium publisher footprint, Dentsu had access to a solution that delivers unique data and insights to deliver scaled audiences that align with advertiser requirements.

Permutive’s deep integrations into SSPs allow brands to seamlessly access publisher audiences for targeting in an open environment, using the same mechanisms traditionally employed for layering third-party data into agency-created deals. The collaboration created a significant opportunity because of the substantial overlap between Dentsu’s publisher list and those utilising Permutive as their Audience Activation Platform.

Curating a brand campaign

Dentsu and Permutive collaborated on a Father’s Day campaign for a luxury Italian brand. The brief included specific personas, outlining the target audience’s characteristics and preferences. Based on these personas, Permutive leveraged its extensive premium publisher network to identify and segment audiences that matched to share a targeted recommendation.

These curated audiences were then provisioned to the DMX Buyer seat in PubMatic, making it accessible for targeting. Subsequently, Dentsu layered these audiences into pre-established deals, leveraging first-party signals from premium publishers via the curated audiences recommended by Permutive. The data collaboration and curation between the brand, Dentsu, and Permutive illustrates the future of targeting. The combination of publisher signals, curated audiences, and deals makes effective targeting in the open web possible without relying on third-party cookies.

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Highest in IAS’s Quality Attention categories

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Higher performance in ad density and share of screen

Results

The success metrics for this campaign focused on Integral Ad Science’s Quality Attention scores — a tool designed to help brands understand how media visibility, the ad environment, and human interaction can be combined through advanced machine learning technology to elevate campaign performance.

For the campaign, Permutive’s curated audiences saw more measurable impressions, achieving the highest in IAS’s Quality Attention categories, specifically in ‘visibility’ and ‘situation’, versus the cookied audiences.

Visibility includes viewability, time-in-view and screen position. Situation, which measures ad density and ad share of screen, also achieved higher performance on Permutive’s curated audiences versus the cookied audiences.

Next steps

Dentsu and Permutive are expanding their collaboration to enable all of Dentsu’s clients to access the advanced targeting options Permutive enables. It will allow for more precise and effective audience engagement across various campaigns and audiences for Dentsu’s clients. In addition, Permutive plans to increase the number of audiences available for targeting within programmatic partners.

For more information, contact hello@permutives.com