AdExchanger study: Cookies’ low match rates cost Ad Tech millions

Recently we published a new study with AdExchanger, examining the impact of cookie matching on digital advertising. Below is a brief excerpt of the article.

As the digital advertising industry upgrades its privacy protections for consumers, some ad tech providers have wondered what the business impact for improving privacy will be. But how often do ad tech providers consider the cost of staying on legacy technologies such as third-party cookies?

The good news is that new digital advertising technologies like the Privacy Sandbox not only improve privacy for consumers but can also boost results for businesses in crucial ways compared to third-party cookies.

One example is audience matching between ad tech providers for real-time bidding. Audience match rates are the percentage of audiences two ad platforms (e.g., DSP and SSP, DSP and DMP) both recognize and enable an advertiser to reach programmatically.

This new study shows how ad tech that uses legacy third-party cookies to audience match could lose millions of dollars due to low match rates, typically around 31%-45%, suppressing actual reach. In comparison, new privacy-preserving technology like Privacy Sandbox enables vastly superior match rates and privacy protection.

Read the full story

The survey was conducted in February 2023, in paid partnership with AdExchanger and Privacy Sandbox.