The future is bright for the B2B ecosystem
Cookie renewal unlocks new potential for brands, publishers, and advertisers
The latest news from Google regarding the future of third party cookies in Chrome is still sinking in. No doubt, the details were sparse and there are still unknowns. This said, from where I sit as the CEO of a B2B data company, the future remains bright for the B2B ecosystem: brands, advertisers, publishers, and the infrastructure that enables them.
The Open Internet Continues to Thrive
The last few years have been a bonanza of new, highly engaging digital platforms and experiences that have raised the bar on content formats, experience quality and personalization, and visibility and measurement within the content and advertising world. Innovation in where and how content creators and platforms engage audiences is blossoming. This innovation, and the work that has been done to prepare for the future without cookies, makes us all stronger.
The Tool Kit is Bigger And The Playing Field Remains Level
While it would be easy to lament the time we spent wondering about a “cookie-less” future, the potential disruption due to the looming deprecation of third party cookies inspired innovation across the B2B ecosystem that will bring us to new heights. Here at Bombora we have made significant investments to ensure that our partners have access to greater scale and new addressability options across all advertising channels. Further, we have invested in key partnerships with industry leaders like The Trade Desk and LiveRamp, giving our clients access to their unique, scaled, and widely adopted alternative identity solutions and their clients access to our industry-leading B2B intent and audience data. We will continue to embrace and support these and other innovative approaches.
In addition, B2B players expanded their focus beyond traditional 3rd party data to building unique and highly valuable first party data. The more recent reverence for first party data is well deserved. Now, with cookies and other alternatives additionally in play, we can confidently pursue the next frontier of value creation that will be unlocked through unified 1st party/3rd party data strategies. Imagine the potential of at scale, unique, company-specific data sets driving B2B commercial strategies.
The Ecosystem Will Remain Privacy Oriented
Privacy will remain top of mind for all the players in the B2B ecosystem. Since inception Bombora has applied a privacy-centric approach to data collection. Our intent data is directly sourced from our proprietary publisher Co-op. Visitors to Co-op member sites give consent before we collect their data. Further, we have always focused on identifying behaviors of businesses and functions, protecting the privacy of individuals. Supporting individual choice when it comes to privacy will likely reward us all with sustainable access to data for ethical business purposes in the future.
Onward and Upward
While I am incredibly optimistic, there are still many unknowns. At Bombora, we have always kept a focus on changes across the ecosystem, and we will continue while also collaborating with industry-leading partners. Moving forward, we will monitor how Google presents privacy options to individuals, the scale and speed of adoption of these privacy options, and any material changes in B2B browsing and research behavior. As I said when I opened, potential disruptions are typically a source of inspiration and innovation. I have no doubt that as behavior evolves, we will rise to the occasion.