Talking Privacy and Transparency: Three Takeaways from DPS Europe

Last week, Digiday held their second European Publisher summit of the year in Barcelona to discuss the latest trends and hot topics and anoint this year’s top buzzwords. A number of influential changes are on the horizon for the European market, which led to a lot of interesting speculation on stage and in the hallways. Here are some takeaways from the event.

The ePrivacy and GDPR Saga Continues
With GDPR at the center of media attention in recent months, publishers, exchanges and data providers have been working toward compliance and a better understanding of their data handling positions (as either as controllers or processors). While the industry continues to grapple with the full impact of the current GDPR regulations on their respective businesses, the ePrivacy Regulation also looms in the background. The ePrivacy Regulation, a proposed updated version of the EU directive, could soon be upon us, bringing additional compliance challenges for both publishers and vendors.

The ePrivacy law will require cookie consent to be provided at the browser level instead of via display banners which are controlled by publishers directly. This is will likely increase requirements for publishers, such as browser whitelists, potentially resulting in additional fees and workload. User opt-in at the browser level will likely drive further declines in available cookie data which could also impact publisher revenue. EU publisher groups continue to lobby for alternatives that would maintain greater control for publishers.

Transparency
With recent revelations surrounding Bid Caching circulating the advertising world, advertisers and publishers are leaning further toward an approach of total transparency giving them a detailed view of the path from dollar to consumer. Agencies and exchanges will increasingly be forced to better communicate with brands regarding how their money is being spent and to clearly show costs and value in order to maintain partnerships. Publishers are also pushing for transparency and a more thorough understanding of what percentage of revenue is lost within the buying cycle. Platforms will have to work closely with publishers to maintain relationships and instill confidence in their partners. With this push on transparency, Blockchain technology has also begun generating buzz as a potential solution to provide a clearer picture of cost throughout the value chain.

Video Content Creation and Monetization
Video content creation and monetization continues to be an evolving area for publishers. Many attendees noted that they were struggling to navigate the balance between branded and original content. Although branded content returns are quite lucrative, they are also time-consuming and take away from the creation of original content.

Despite some of these emerging challenges, most publishers were also optimistic about new opportunities to innovate around both audience development and monetization. At 33Across, we’re excited to partner with our publishers on many of these opportunities heading into 2019.