How two major publishers are unlocking first-party audiences

Chris Hogg, Managing Director EMEA at Lotame, takes a look at how JPI Media and Haymarket Group leveraged innovative technology to see their audiences across all first-party environments

With Safari and Firefox already blocking third-party cookies, and Chrome set to follow by 2022, digital publishers find it increasingly difficult to see and understand their full audience.  

The answer to this challenge lies in unlocking first-party data in cookie-blocking environments. By having a full view and detailed understanding, publishers can improve audience targeting and personalisation capabilities to make the most of monetisation opportunities.

With that in mind let’s look at how two major media companies, JPIMedia and Haymarket, leverage innovative technology to see their audiences across all first-party environments, including the cookie-challenged. Both use Lotame’s Lightning Tag technology, a tool that collects and extracts data in real-time on every browser and device that interacts with a publisher’s page.
 

JPIMedia doubles local reach   

JPIMedia is one of the largest local media groups in the UK, with more than 150 news titles including The Scotsman and The Yorkshire Post. It implemented Lightning Tag across all its publications because, with a substantial portion of its traffic coming from Safari and Firefox, it was struggling to see audiences and analyse their behaviours in order to create meaningful connections.

By using Lotame technology, JPIMedia nearly doubled the number of users it could recognise in its data-management platform. It increased the volume of targetable impressions in its ad server four-fold and achieved a 95% audience match rate. The company now understands audiences at a deeper level, creating stronger connections, and is getting more out of every visit by using data intelligence to strengthen advertising briefs and improve personalisation. 

It can target first-time and one-time visitors across browsers, which it wasn’t able to do before, thus enabling it to activate traffic surges in real-time – which proved invaluable this year as visitors flocked to local news sites in search of trustworthy COVID-19 news. 

Haymarket’s auto brands drive up scale 
 

Haymarket Media Group’s popular auto publications Autocar and What Car? rely on data collection and activation to understand audiences and monetise every opportunity, but deprecation of third-party cookies is obstructing this process. Safari cookie blocking alone was obscuring 35-40% of their audience from view, causing inventory pressures between browsers – a relative sinkhole for understanding a sizable audience portion, and for monetising valued inventory.  

Lightning Tag addresses the issue by enabling these auto publications to collect first-party audiences across all browsers, and to drive up scale, match rates and monetisation. After implementation, the publications saw a four-fold increase in first-party audiences across Safari and Firefox compared with their ad server, while also achieving a 98% match rate. Audience revenue doubled on Safari.  

Haymarket was previously unable to serve targeted advertising to first-time visitors and those that visit just one page and then leave the site. This meant Autocar and What Car? were unable to effectively monetise visitors from car reviews and news articles – their most common entry points – without visitors landing on a second page. With Lightning Tag enabling first-impression targeting, these publications now take instant advantage of traffic surges around breaking news and new car releases, which was particularly useful in Q2 this year when pent-up demand for cars caused traffic levels to rise. 

With cookie deprecation in full swing, publishers need to find new ways to understand their audiences, forge deeper connections, and drive revenue through targeted, personalised advertising.  By collecting and extracting data in real-time on every browser and device used by their visitors, publishers can unlock first-party audiences and make the most of monetisation opportunities.