Old-School ID Solutions Just Don't Cut It Anymore

Media Minute is WPP Media's series, specifically crafted to empower our clients and marketers for their intelligence era.

It’s funny how fast things change in marketing, isn't it? Remember back to about ten years ago. If you were a marketer, "first-party data" probably sounded important, but it wasn't the be-all and end-all. 

Back then, marketers were swimming in third-party cookies. Need to reach a new audience? Buy a list! Want to retarget? Third-party data had you covered. First-party data – your customer emails, purchase history – was valuable, sure, but often siloed and mostly used for basic stuff like email blasts or simple segmentation. Privacy was a compliance checkbox, not a strategic differentiator. We were chasing volume and reach, often relying on external data for scale. 

Fast forward to today. What a difference a decade makes. First-party data" isn't just a buzzword; it's the foundation to unlock greater intelligence. With privacy regulations tightening and third-party cookies fading, customer data has become brands’ most precious asset. 

It’s a Numbers Game 

With ID-only solutions, only about 20% of your first-party data is shareable. And with true match rates averaging c.50%, you are only getting value from 10% of your first-party data. Even then, it’s limited to only the open web, which makes up only approximately 20% of ad spend, which means that a very small percentage of your data is informing a shrinking area of media consumption. Conversely, search and social accounts for 70% of media investment remain completely disconnected from your first-party insights.* 

The Limit Does Not Exist 

It's time that we embrace a fundamental shift in marketing, evolving past what was once deemed enough and start to embrace possibilities. Designed to drive business performance in the AI era, delivering faster, richer, and more actionable marketing intelligence about more people, across more channels globally.   

Redefine what’s possible with data in a time when traditional identity-based approaches can’t keep pace with shifting consumer behavior, evolving regulations, and increasing privacy expectations. 

With media being everywhere and in everything, Open Intelligence creates limitless growth. And when the world’s best data sits in many places, we need real, many-to-many data connections.  

AI methods translate and transform anything to anything, easily finding common patterns in diverse data – across content, identity, geography, interest, behavior and context – and activate in each channel based on predicted recipes for success.  

Power a deeper understanding of audience behavior and intent, unlocking new insights and opportunities that were previously out of reach. Confidently plan, activate, and refine marketing strategies across any and all channels, with greater speed, scale, and predictive performance. 

Your data is your superpower; you just need the right solutions to unleash it. 

* Source: WPP Media (2024) This Year, Next Year: Global media spend data; WPP Media ID analysis using internal and IDC landscape data.