Monetising Opt-Out Traffic with Vegan Ads

How much do we need to know about individual users to deliver relevant ads? With 36% of internet users in the European Union restricting the use of cookies on their browsers, user data has become the holy grail of advertising. As users become more privacy-conscious, broadcasters and publishers are left with a surge in non-monetised inventory and advertisers with significantly less targetable audiences. Additionally, broadcasters and publishers face challenges in ensuring that the data of users is processed safely and responsibly by downstream partners. With or without cookies, privacy is not only a fundamental right but a requisite for an ethical digital ecosystem — and for us, continuous development and innovation in this area remain a priority. This is why we developed Vegan Ads. 

So, what’s Vegan Ads? (Hint: Not your dinner)

“Vegan Ads” might make you think of your next meal, but it’s actually a nod to our clean, ethical, and sustainable approach to ad targeting. (Our product team initially considered calling it “Virgin Ads,” but quickly realised that could lead to some awkward misunderstandings).

In a nutshell, Vegan Ads is a privacy-safe ad-serving feature on the smartx platform that enables the delivery of targeted ads to users without using cookies, device identifiers, or other personally identifiable information (PII) that is connected to the user. 

How does Vegan Ads work?

Vegan Ads is available for both programmatic and direct campaigns in ATV, CTV, and online video advertising. Implementing this feature requires just a tick of a box at the deal or campaign level in smartx. Once activated, Vegan Ads restricts user targeting options to privacy-compliant methods, ensuring no user PII is used during the campaign. Frequency Capping is still possible with Vegan Ads, but to a limited extent, based on user preferences. Vegan Ads can be activated based on each deal, campaign, or line item, enabling more flexibility.

With Vegan Ads, smartx can anonymise the entire downstream delivery process, and all trackers can be proxied on behalf of the broadcaster or publisher. This prevents downstream partners from accessing, processing, or storing users’ PII and gives broadcasters and publishers control over which user data is shared within the ad delivery chain. 

Since Vegan Ads does not require PII data for targeting, all traffic, including opt-out traffic becomes eligible for ad delivery.

smartx offers various targeting options to ensure Vegan Ads campaigns still serve relevant ads to users, including:

• Geographic information, to tailor ads to users based on their location. 

• Device-centric data, such as the device group, the device settings, the operating system of the user, and the browser used.
  
• The users’ preferred language, as set on their browser.

• Contextual targeting, to reach users based on the type of content they are viewing using smart Context. 

• Frequency capping, to limit the number of times a user sees a particular ad.

Advantages of Vegan Ads

Vegan Ads is particularly important because: 

• Opt-out traffic can be monetised, while ensuring it remains completely privacy-safe, preventing any access, processing, or storage of PII.

• On the supply side, broadcasters and publishers have full privacy control over the downstream delivery chain. They can decide on a campaign or deal basis whether to share user data and with which downstream partners. 

• On the demand side, Vegan Ads provides advertisers with additional reach and access to traditionally unreachable inventory.
• Users see ads that are relevant to them even without sharing their data.

Serving Vegan Ads (Nope, still not dinner)

To drive the adoption of Vegan Ads and monetise opt-out traffic, broadcasters and publishers can bundle opt-in and opt-out traffic into a single offer. By including opt-out traffic in the regular inventory, advertisers can easily purchase a certain amount of opt-out inventory and reach an otherwise inaccessible inventory.

Vegan Ads is part of the suite of privacy-first solutions available on the smartx platform. From privacy-centric products to ID-based solutions, we continuously develop new tools that enable broadcasters and publishers to protect their user data without compromising revenue.