Immediate's consent management platform is more than just a way to check boxes under data law — it's a compass that guides strategic partnerships and helps determine who stays and who doesn't among the ad tech partners that drop cookies on your site.
And a significant number of companies did just that, says Mario Lamar, director of revenue operations at Immediate. Armed with this insight, he and his team began questioning these partners about their data practices. Those that couldn't justify their actions were swiftly fired, Lamar added. This began in 2023.
“Earlier this year [2023] “We started off with nearly 900 partners, but by the end we had around 150,” Lamar said.
The goal is to further reduce the number of partners to under 100 by the end of the year and streamline to around 50 by the second half of next year.
“We do this by working with our partners to understand the importance of leveraging them in terms of our data being handed over to them and then helping them monetize it, as well as weeding out players who are doing things with the data that they shouldn't,” Lamar said.
But as Immediate reduces its partner count, the challenges become more acute.
These partnerships are maintained for good reasons, so any further cuts could impact revenue. The way Immediate addresses these issues is by recognizing that any negative hit to programmatic revenue from not being able to monetize data with many ad tech partners is offset by the fact that more advertisers understand that by working directly they have access to richer data in a more transparent way.
To address these challenges, Immediate Media recognizes that any potential decline in programmatic revenue due to fewer ad tech partners monetizing their data is offset by the value advertisers place on accessing richer, more transparent data directly through Immediate Media.
This approach to CMP is very different from the checkbox compliance used by other publishers.
Here, CMP serves as a crucial tool for responsible data management and user-centric privacy practices. Immediate's CMP facilitates granular consent management, empowering publishers to exclude certain vendors from user consent options. It also allows for auditing of data usage, immediate revocation of access for suspicious partners, and halting consent signals to blocked vendors. Additionally, CMP documents data flows, enforces user opt-outs, and manages consent strings within the IAB framework. Leveraging these capabilities, publishers can conduct regular privacy audits, quickly detect concerning activities, and take decisive steps to protect user data.
“At the end of the day, CMP is the technology that we interact with most with our users, so it holds the golden ticket for us,” Lamar said. “We're moving from the idea that CMP is just a general way to get someone's consent to the idea of sending really personalized messages for the users that we have and letting them know what we're doing.”
Put simply, this is another example of publishers asserting more control over aspects of their business that have traditionally been the domain of ad tech vendors. But unlike companies that have chosen to aggressively cut back on their ad tech partnerships, Immediate has opted for a more measured approach.
“Obviously, this is a long journey and will take some time as we focus on getting the fundamentals right first,” LaMaa said. “There's not much point in trying to thoughtfully refine and personalize your messaging if you're asking for buy-in from up to 1,000 partners.”
For example, in 2023, the company made cuts roughly every four weeks, Lamar said, adding that it “eliminated some of the partners that we felt were less visible in how they were using data, and also took similar steps with partners who were engaging in more egregious behavior based on the consent signals that they were analyzing.”
Whatever the specific reasons, the common thread is the relationship between consent and privacy, and how CMPs drive monetization across their businesses. What makes this approach stand out is that the pursuit of monetization hasn't come at the expense of other priorities, especially the user experience on their site.
“So this year we've budgeted about 20% of our total inventory to be non-data-sharing,” Lamar said. “Getting that approval from management meant a lot, but it also highlighted the fact that we view privacy as more than just a means to reach our revenue goals.”
This is exactly what Lama is talking about when he talks about CMP being used in a more strategic way: It allows companies to think about consent in a more holistic way, beyond just making money or just compliance.
“It is critical that publishers maintain strict control over the vendors listed in their CMP to mitigate the risk of violating privacy laws and avoid potentially costly fines,” said Shannon Millard, vice president of platform solutions at Epsilon. “Having an open dialogue with all ad tech partners will help publishers understand the data requirements necessary to maintain existing business relationships and identify strategic downstream vendors that they do not have a direct relationship with. Striking a balance between revenue generation and user transparency and control is critical.”
