Inside HP’s Programmatic Media Strategy After Cookies

Three major trends are colliding that are changing the way marketers design their programmatic media strategy.

Firstly, the death of third-party cookies are forcing marketers to rethink their data strategy, leaning into first-party data and augmenting that with second and third-party data enrichment. Secondly, there are growing concerns around privacy and consent from consumers and regulators, turning traditional strategies on their head. And thirdly, because of those two trends, we’re seeing a resurgence of contextual targeting, with adtech and martech converging.

We sat down with Talia Pinto, Head of Media, North America at HP and Christiane de Carvalho, VP of Global Business Development and Strategy at Acxiom, to discuss the primary risks brought on by key trends in programmatic media today, and how HP has evolved their strategy to strike the right balance of granularity when it comes to ad targeting.

Three Risks in Programmatic Media

Visibility and Consent

With more reliance on first-party data to drive marketing efforts, brands are prioritizing visibility, addressability and consent of the customers as mission critical to their marketing programs. Using first-party data means having ethical data practices that adhere to privacy and security standards.

Accuracy

Data is volatile, especially when moving across a complex programmatic ecosystem of systems, channels and devices. Having the right tools and processes in place to make sure that consumer identities are not being compromised during that journey from insight to advertisement is key.

Over-personalization

There is such a thing as over-personalization. In fact, you could argue that privacy laws are a lagging indicator of what consumers want. As they become smarter owners of their own data, they want (and expect) to receive information that is relevant and useful — without crossing into invasive. Creating an appropriate exchange of value with consumers, better understanding their nuances and delivering valuable relevant communications accordingly is key to building that sense of trust.

How HP’s Programmatic Media Strategy Evolved with a CDP

HP recognized a critical need to invest in first-party data, starting with moving away from the DMP. Over time they have accumulated a wealth of first-party data from their 250 million+ customers which has remained dormant and inaccessible in their aging homegrown customer 360. They ultimately partnered with a customer data platform (CDP) in order to harness all those insights.

“HP previously had a lot of first-party data sitting dormant that we didn’t know how to capitalize. When we partnered with ActionIQ we were finally able to start tapping into those insights and segmenting it in a way that unlocked value.”

Talia Pinto, Head of Media, North America

3 Benefits of Working With a CDP

1. Operationalize your first-party data strategy for a post-cookie world

With third-party cookies going away, HP knew they had to design a future-proof strategy and CX stack that would prepare them for any changes in privacy and consent regulations to come. With ActionIQ, HP is able to put their first-party data at the center of their programmatic media strategy.

2. Tap into a valuable ecosystem of partners like Acxiom to enrich data compliantly

To better reach new customers, HP also built a best-of-breed ecosystem to make sure they were capturing and enriching insights to inform effective, relevant targeting —that meant augmenting their first-party data strategy with second and third-party data from partners like Acxiom.

3. Create centralized access to these insights for their marketing organization

With ActionIQ, HP was able to centralize their vast dataset and provide direct, hands-on access for marketers. Now, the formerly siloed marketing organization is able to create audiences and orchestrate in one central location.

Their journey toward evolving their programmatic media strategy came with some key learnings along with some big opportunities to improve their business and generate results.

2 Key Learnings from Transitioning from DMP to CDP

1. Data collection takes time to generate true value

When making a big transition with technology and specifically toward the cookieless world, it takes time to understand and organize the different streams or data that you need to activate. For instance, you can’t implement a new tool, snap your fingers and activate the data — process is key. Advertisers have data in silos in their enterprise, and breaking that down for a single view of the customer takes time. Having the right partners to support the right segmentations, integrations and activations will take time to forge.

2. People and process are critical to tech success

Making any choice or transition with the technology stack is always about more than the technology itself — it’s about the people. Having the right stakeholders at the table to achieve goal, strategy and use case alignment is critical in order to generate value from any tech investment — and it doesn’t happen overnight.

Design a Programmatic Media Strategy for the Future

By partnering with a CDP to unlock new opportunities for the customer experience centered on first-party data, HP is maximizing reach and efficiency with their programmatic media strategy.

Watch the recording to catch up on the full conversation, with more on privacy, consent and protection of customer data, as well as how to design a strategy augmented by second-party data — or simply chat with our experts to learn more.