While the third party cookie has a stay of execution until 2023, programmatic players still need to review their approach to identity to prepare for its eventual departure. Here’s how BidSwitch is tackling the industry’s identity crisis.
Supporting the Ecosystem
At BidSwitch, we’re proud to serve as a neutral intermediary in the programmatic ecosystem. We see our role as a custodian of the bidstream, opening doors for new partner integrations, optimising programmatic performance, and minimising the technical burdens associated with scaled trading on both the demand and supply side.
We asked Isaac Schechtman, Head of Product and Solution Engineering at IPONWEB and BidSwitch, to explain more about our position on the shifting landscape around digital identity:
“As a neutral platform committed to enabling optimal trading among SSP and DSP clients, BidSwitch has been partnering with industry trade leaders to lay the foundation for a cookieless future for over a year now. Most, if not all, identifiers can be leveraged by SSPs and DSPs connected through BidSwitch if passed via the open RTB standard EIDS (Extended IDs) field. Other solutions including the ‘avian’ ones like FLoC, TURTLEDOVE, SWAN – as well as new contextual options – are also under evaluation and some will be available for client testing and usage in the near future.”
As for the overall vision for identity and BidSwitch, Isaac said:
“The long-term goal is to ensure support for any mix of these that our clients and partners want to leverage. In the short term, that means a focus on testing solutions for insights into things like coverage and performance.”
In detail: Support for identity solutions in BidSwitch
With so much complexity in the space already, below is a summary of the steps we’re currently taking at BidSwitch to make the move to a cookieless future as frictionless as possible for our partners across the ecosystem.
We will support the Privacy Sandbox. Perhaps the most well-known answer to the question of identity, we’re planning to fully support the mainstream Privacy Sandbox, also known as the ‘avian’ solutions. Initially, we will deliver support for FloC and TURTLEDOVE, but we will also add support for FLEDGE once it’s been rolled out by Google.
We will support Apple’s SKAdnetwork. For partners who focus on app installations, we already support Apple’s privacy-focused SKAdnetwork framework. This includes registration with the IAB for the universal ID list.
We will support select third-party ID solutions. We currently support solutions from LiveIntent, LiveRamp, ID5, The Trade Desk, and PreBid through the use of the “EIDS” field. In the near future, we’ll support all third-party IDs sent within supply-side bid requests via the EIDS extension field. This will also enable support for several additional solutions via BidSwitch such as the Parrable ID,Panorama,>Net ID and the Brightpool ID.
We are focusing on contextual signals, too. BidSwitch currently offers support for Oracle’s Grapeshot contextual services, and we are exploring additional opportunities with partners such as Peer 39 to round out our support for contextual targeting.
We will keep testing, testing, testing. As we move closer to a cookieless future, we’ll be running continuous tests on the various ID solutions and sharing results with our partners. These critical insights about the effectiveness of the IDs will help clients make more informed decisions about which solutions are right for them.
Have other ideas? Just let us know. At BidSwitch, we’re always open to evaluating other identity solutions, provided it makes sense for all parties involved.