How publishers can drive monetisation through audience insights and first-party data enrichment

Published: 08 Oct 2024

The writing’s on the wall for third-party cookies, and publishers are left grappling with the big question: How do you maintain ad revenues while understanding who your audience is across fragmented platforms and devices? And let’s not forget the growing pressure to build new revenue streams, like subscriptions and memberships. It’s all going to hinge on data strategies.

At the recent AOP Publishing Tech Talk, we discussed publisher challenges and how technology is helping them understand their audiences. One solution making waves is Experian’s Consumer Sync, which provides scaled online offline linkage to increase user addressability and unlocks new audience insight to fuel monetisation ability.

What happens in a world without third-party cookies?

For a long time, third-party cookies were the engine behind online advertising. They helped marketers track users across sites and deliver targeted ads. But those days are fading fast. Privacy concerns, alongside regulations like GDPR and CCPA, have pushed browsers to phase them out. Firefox and Safari already block third-party cookies, and while Google recently backed off a full deprecation, opting to give consumers more control, cookies are still on the way out. Publishers can’t rely on them the way they used to.

So, what’s next? Publishers are turning to new identity tech and first-party data strategies. Here’s the catch: first-party data is great but rarely tells the full story. A lot of web traffic is unauthenticated (people not logged in), which leaves publishers with only part of the picture. And that makes it tough to fully monetise your audience. Advertisers also expect more than basic engagement metrics now; they want proof that their campaigns drive real outcomes. Without that, publishers will struggle to secure the bigger ad spend.

How Consumer Sync changes the game

Here’s where Consumer Sync steps in. It links fragmented data across platforms and devices, transforming that unauthenticated traffic into addressable, valuable audiences. In short, it helps publishers build something advertisers are willing to pay for - more precise and actionable audiences and insights.

Consumer Sync was built with adaptability in mind and connects a range of offline and online signals including IP addresses, HEMs (hashed emails), CTV (Connected TV) identifiers, MAIDs (mobile advertising IDs), and even third-party cookies (for now). It uses machine-learning algorithms to stitch together this data and turn unknown users into known audiences.

The result? Publishers get a more complete, unified view of their audience. With Experian’s demographic and behavioural insights layered in, you’re not just learning what your audience is interested in, you’re gaining a deep understanding of who they are, where they are, how they behave, and even what they spend. It’s this deeper understanding that lets publishers personalise content, build premium ad packages, and drive-up programmatic yields by offering advertisers high-quality, curated audiences.

Consumer Sync currently reaches 82% of UK households and covers over 500 million digital identifiers – giving publishers the scale they need to build addressable audiences that can drive revenue in a cookieless world.

Maximising reader revenues through better insights

Let’s also remember it’s not all about ads. Publishers are increasingly looking at improving their reader revenues, which come from subscription models, memberships, paywalls, and exclusive content. To make these work, you need to know who your readers are, what they care about, and what they’ll pay for.

That’s where audience insights are key. With enriched first-party data, publishers can segment their audiences better, identify high-value readers, and create tailored offerings - whether that’s through personalised content recommendations or targeted subscription offers. Consumer Sync enables you understand both known and unknown audience segments, which is vital for driving deeper engagement and diversifying revenue streams beyond advertising.

Demonstrating value through measurable outcomes

Proving the impact of campaigns is also essential to securing ad spend. Advertisers want clear evidence that their investments are paying off through measurable outcomes like increased sales or foot traffic. With Consumer Sync, publishers could demonstrate the full value of their campaigns by connecting ad exposure to real-world transactions. For instance, a publisher could use the technology and retailer data, or Experian Spend Insights, to show how an online campaign directly drives in-store purchases, providing the performance insights advertisers need to justify ongoing investment.

As publishers face the realities of a cookieless world, the need to adapt is more urgent than ever. Leveraging first-party data and transforming fragmented audience signals into actionable insights will be critical for both maintaining ad revenues and driving new reader revenue streams. Solutions like Consumer Sync provide the tools needed to unlock these opportunities and offer the measurable outcomes advertisers now demand.

To learn how Consumer Sync can help you optimise your data strategy and unlock new monetisation opportunities, contact us today.