The Next Campaign: The Universal ID

4 Key Themes Impacted by the Universal ID

When you attend industry events involving Agencies, Ad Tech, and CRM Marketing companies, there are a few themes that consistently come up related to online advertising. In CRM Marketing, the key issue is accurate one-to-one matching. In Ad Tech, it is unique user reach. In the Agency world, it is proof of return on investment.

It seems that everything going forward in online advertising and digital commerce depends on establishing an infrastructure with greater reach and transparency. As an industry, and as marketers, we need better ways of connecting each and every online user to both their physical and digital footprints. In the industry, this is sometimes referred to as a Universal ID.

Here are 4 themes that advertisers and agencies care about that are impacted by the Universal ID.

1. Onboarding: If you are matching your offline CRM file or a third-party mailing list to an online list, you are onboarding data. Onboarding is a far more accurate method of targeting when compared to picking random pre-packaged online segments. Pre-packaged segments were created for generic purposes from millions of anonymous site visits. It is not unusual for one user to be separately identified by a dozen or more cookies in a single pre-packaged segment. With a Universal ID, this duplication is eliminated and inaccuracy is dramatically reduced.

2. The Physics of Match Rates: How well you match offline assets to their online footprints defines your success. If you are matching emails or postal addresses to cookies, realize that over 50% of consumers are blocking third-party cookies. By definition, at least half of your unique users are inaccessible from the start — and 50% of the remaining users likely won’t have an active cookie against which a match could be made. To address this match rate challenge, alternatives like IP Targeting and Device Targeting are being combined to provide upwards of 85-90% match rates — bypassing the cookie and moving the industry closer to a Universal ID.

3. Person-Based Business Campaigns: One of the more compelling applications of online marketing is Business-to-Business. Lead generation is a main goal with B2B, and the value of a lead requires that you reach as much of your list as possible. Transparency to who (and how many) you are reaching is an important part of maximizing leads. A Universal ID with the capacity to link business users to work and home locations, as well as to their mobile devices, makes it possible for person-based B2B campaigns to succeed.

4. Matchback and Attribution: An audience matching process based on a Universal ID supports deterministic attribution and measurement. A Universal ID allows marketers to link the offline CRM file, the online audience, the ad impression, the website visit, and even some in-store purchases together. The Universal ID will make it both possible and practical for your marketing team to hand physical leads to your sales staff based on a simple website engagement.

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