The so-called “cookiepocalypse,” that point sometime in the future when third-party cookies will no longer be tracked or trackable in Google Chrome or other web browsers, has caused many media companies to rethink their programmatic advertising strategies. This need is especially pressing for broadcast companies, which usually have less first-party data from their audiences compared to newspapers.
Nine broadcast companies were able to accelerate their first-party data collection strategies as part of the National Association of Broadcasters PILOT accelerator program, funded by the Google News Initiative.
Three media company leaders shared what they learned in the program in a virtual webinar as part of LMA’s recent Accelerate Local How-To Series.
The speakers were: Allison Martin, vice president of innovation and strategy at NAB; Brandon Omohundro, vice president of digital operations at Gray Television; Jill Shiroma, director of digital operations at Morgan Murphy Media; and Sir Robert Burbridge, director of research and development at WRAL-TV (Raleigh, North Carolina).
Here are four takeaways from the session:
Get executive level buy-in
The panelists agreed that getting buy-in at the top wasn’t hard when leaders saw the percentage of ad revenue they could potentially lose after cookies go away.
What companies should focus on, however, is communication about the changes to the local markets. For Morgan Murphy, Shiroma said, plans are made at the corporate level but each local station has its own champion.
“Everybody plays a role, particularly in the data collection piece in each of our markets, and I think it’s important that you know what the company is doing,” she said.
Ask service providers lots of questions
Burbridge said he tells his team all the time that the data is everything, and they need to make sure the data they are getting from their service providers is good.
“if you’re not working with your vendors to get good data or if you can’t trust it, then you’re missing out. The data has to be in really good shape. So focus on it, and that’ll help you get to the right place,” he said.
Think of first-party data as part of your audience funnel
Shiroma said Morgan Murphy saw success with a growth in email signups for some niche newsletters as a result of its goals to collect more emails. The team also continues to focus on contest initiatives to grow email signups.
“We’ll continue to lean into that to connect with specific audiences,” she said.
Omohundro said this program caused Gray to refocus on contests and emails, because teams needed to engage with viewers more directly with cookies going away.
“I think at the beginning of this project is when we really added some more urgency to it. It had been very passive for many years prior to that.”
WRAL deployed surveys embedded into evergreen content targeted towards viewers who recently moved to the Raleigh area. Those surveys helped the team understand more about newer residents, Burbridge said.
Keeping testing your strategies to grow first-party data
WRAL team members did a lot of A/B testing with the survey they deployed to get the most and best results.
With all of the initiatives launched as part of the program, managers had to test components often and measure results, Martin said.
“It’s important to test the assumptions and kind of be prepared to pivot as necessary,” she said.