Unlock insights through data collaboration: PwC

In today's digital marketing landscape, data continues to become more valuable. But marketers are on edge: 76% of CMOs say the ability to comply with privacy regulations is a challenge, according to PwC’s latest Pulse Survey. In an inevitable, post-third-party, cookieless world where addressable inventory could shrink to just 10% of US web ad inventory from 56% today, businesses can no longer rely on third-party cookies for data-driven marketing.

In tandem, government regulations and consumer expectations on privacy have increased the need for consumer trust and governance controls. Plus, with the proliferation of MarTech and AdTech, data is now stored across many clouds and data gravity requires working with data where it resides.

Amid these challenges, marketers have a unique opportunity to deliver impactful consumer experiences by leveraging data as a competitive differentiator, while keeping privacy in mind.

You might be wondering, “Aren’t data clean rooms the solution?" Though these secure environments often help companies share and analyze data while remaining privacy-compliant, they’re only part of the solution. The real benefits come from rethinking data collaboration as a whole. You can bring together your siloed data and leverage data partnerships to gain a deeper understanding of the customer and reimagine their experience.

Why are organizations investing in data clean rooms?

As a key enabler for developing a data collaboration program, clean rooms can serve many purposes. And, as clean room solutions have matured to help meet market needs, they should be seen as a long-term, effective reality, not a passing trend. Here are some reasons organizations are investing in data clean rooms:

Clean rooms that can support zero copy data have emerged as the solution to overcome security compliance hurdles associated with data collaboration and data movement. Previous low adoption of clean rooms was primarily driven by the extensive cycles needed to gain CISO and legal approval for data sharing. The complex nature of these early iterations also required new environments to be developed. Now, with zero copy clean rooms, data can stay in its original environment and can even be deployed in under 90 days.

Historically, data clean rooms have been operated by walled gardens to advertise on their own media. Data collaborators, data owners and technology and service providers are realizing the independent opportunity for commingling data outside of walled gardens. One path that has emerged is using data clean rooms for partnership (second party) enrichment and value measurement. This allows brands to gain deeper insights into their customers and help identify cross-marketing opportunities as the value of second-party data increases. Additionally, clean rooms offer another avenue for utilizing partner data to expand consumer reach (e.g., media network solutions).

Over 77% of today’s inventory is bought from advertisers operating in a walled garden. The biggest challenge that marketers have faced to date is the inability to report across these walled gardens. By introducing a “garden of gardens" concept, you can effectively query and report across your walled garden clean rooms to enable centralized advertising network reporting and provide consistency in managing your channel strategy.

How do I choose which clean room to use?

Data clean rooms are not a one-size-fits-all solution. Different clean rooms suit different data collaboration needs and should be considered based on the use cases you are looking to drive. Currently, there are three main kinds of clean rooms available that can work together to support your data collaboration program:

Advertiser walled garden. Clean rooms play an essential role in media measurement and activation. Large advertising networks, such as Google (ADH), Amazon (AMC), Meta (Meta Advanced Analytics), have developed their own clean room solutions powered by their proprietary data for more advanced insights and targeting. However, these use cases would be limited to each respective walled garden.
X-media network clean room. Like the walled gardens, media networks or large publishers provide their advertisers with measurement and targeting offerings. Unlike walled gardens, these players have opted to leverage existing clean room technology vendors to enable their offerings. Traditionally, the key value proposition was the ability of media networks to provide closed-loop attribution, but as media networks have expanded outside of retailers, the value has proliferated into other use cases such as reach, frequency, suppression management, audience development and targeting.
Interoperable standalone clean room. Unlike the other two clean room types, this clean room approach involves advertisers directly licensing a clean room themselves. The clean room is indirectly used as a paid service. When directly licensing a clean room, advertisers can select an interoperable, easy-to-use and flexible clean room vendor that enables the advertiser to better target, measure and enhance media across activation channels.

So, what’s next?

To do data collaboration well, you need to make sure it pays off. Many organizations stumble on the way to data collaboration because they often don't plan well. As you start your journey, consider the following preparation checklist:

Define your data collaboration program. Whether you are looking to start your own media network as a ‘Data Owner’ or looking to use partner data, by first identifying your data collaboration use cases, you can determine whether you need your own clean room or if you can use a partner’s.
Size the opportunity. Moving forward with a clean room can be pivotal; however, it can demand considerable investment in cross-functional resource time. Forecast the size of the prize to understand whether it's a worthwhile investment and whether it will be a sustainable business function.
Determine your value proposition to the market. If you are unable to stand out from existing market offerings, it's likely your program will be unsustainable at driving demand. Make sure that you understand the uniqueness of your data attributes, attainable share of market, traffic and reliability of your customer data.
Gain CISO buy-in. Creating a data collaboration is not an easy feat. Your organization will often need to make challenging decisions on data sharing and movement. Each choice will likely require partnership with your information security counterparts. Making sure they are involved from the start can help prevent any showstoppers.

Executive perspectives on data collaboration

As the foremost brand steward, it’s your job to nurture and enhance the relationship with your customer, reimagining how to reach your buyers by delivering the personalized experience they crave. But, in a privacy-first era, obtaining the data you need to understand their wants and needs becomes a complex task. Data collaboration, supported by clean rooms, can help you overcome security and compliance hurdles. It can also help establish data partnerships for deeper customer insights and cross-marketing opportunities.

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Using your company’s data effectively can be the key to successful innovation in today's digital marketing landscape. CISOs can step up with a strategic data management and governance approach that safeguards against cyber threats and helps prevent unreliable data, allowing marketers to securely uncover insights for personalized products and services.

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As CIO, you already know that tech transformation requires a strong data foundation. You’re focused on avoiding data silos while also helping modernize, standardize and consolidate data systems. You’ll want to prioritize initiatives that have more impact on the customer — as those are the same initiatives that can help drive outsized growth for the company.

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