Get more from first-party data on The Trade Desk

At The Trade Desk, we want to ensure that you can own your relationship with consumers, efficiently target addressable audiences, and measure your campaigns effectively. We get that changes in consumer behavior and the increasing scarcity of traditional identity data present a challenge to achieving these objectives.

But remember that third-party cookies are not the only asset at your disposal. Mobile ad IDs (MAIDs), device IDs, and alternative identifiers like Unified ID 2.0 (UID2) are reliable signals to support known audience targeting at scale. What’s more, users’ attentions are shifting toward new devices — connected TV, gaming, streaming on mobile apps, even audio and podcasting — all of which are cookie-free environments that can be included in your holistic targeting strategy.

In this article, we’ll cover three strategies for leveraging first-party data on our platform to maximize its value and, in turn, increase the efficiency of your media spend.

SET UP YOUR TARGETING

1. Organize your audience data. Before you import data into our platform, it’s important to organize and segment it based on your campaign goals and demographics. Whether you’re using first-party data from certain collection points or brands, determining whom to target, or looking to do competitive conquesting, the first step is to set up your campaigns with the right data. Include all available IDs to create the largest seed audience for reach — from traditional IDs like third-party cookies (hey, for now we still have them) and MAIDs to UID2s and RampID.
2. Implement cross-device resolution. Cross-device identity resolution can help you pinpoint where consumers are spending time with quality content and can best engage with your brand. If your campaign requires specific device or channel targeting, you can still customize these details while leveraging the power of Identity Alliance, The Trade Desk’s graph solution.
3. Leverage the data marketplace. The Trade Desk’s data marketplace is a way to layer, enrich, and expand your audience targeting based on demo, behavior, and context. Composed of some of the most sought-after data providers (including retail), data marketplace has segments containing many ID types — including UID2, to help diversify your ID mix and reduce dependence on cookies. For a list of relevant segments leveraging UID2, reach out to your account team.

MODEL YOUR AUDIENCES

1. Consider lookalike modeling on our platform. There are many ways you can build out net-new audiences with first-party data. Within our platform, you can create lookalike models based on first-party data with Audience Predictor, which considers your achievable scale within a given time frame against a specific ID type. Newest to the party, customer relationship management (CRM) data can now create cross-device lookalike models for additional reach against new users, inclusive of many ID types, along with UID2. Addressability on Connected TV can be fundamentally improved with alternative IDs like UID2.
2. Explore the lookalike capabilities of your data partners. If you work with specific data partners or platforms, explore their lookalike capabilities. Many customer data platforms (CDPs) and clean rooms also have marketplace approaches to audience expansion and modeling, so you can import data into our platform that includes lookalikes, and compare lookalike models and performance within the platform — refining your strategies with first-party data over time.
3. Test lookalikes off multiple audiences. It’s a good idea to build models off all the segments you port into the platform and test scalability and performance of those different audiences and ID types. With CRM data, you can create cross-device and cross-ID lookalikes via UID2.

APPLY EXCLUSIONS

1. Identify whom you don’t need to reach. Perhaps one of the most useful benefits of first-party data is the ability to not target existing customers for certain campaign initiatives, like new-subscriber promotions or competitive conquesting. For campaigns where your main objective is to reach net-new users and get them to convert, excluding your first-party audiences will help ensure you’re not wasting impressions on the wrong people. If your audiences will be organized prior to onboarding onto our platform, you can exclude specific lower-funnel users too — like purchasers from a past campaign or brand loyalists.
2. Apply Identity Alliance to exclude across devices. Identity Alliance helps you to exclude all IDs and devices owned by the person in your exclusion. Identity Alliance can even enable household-level suppression — which can be especially handy for auto and CPG brands.
3. Use the Exclusion Savings Report. We can provide an Exclusion Savings Report with every campaign, so you can monitor the benefits of exclusions and see the overall impact against your various audiences.

As you begin leveraging or deepening your sophistication with first-party data on The Trade Desk, you can refer to these three simple and effective strategies to help you achieve more effective omnichannel campaigns.

For further support, recommendations, or assistance implementing identity-based features, please contact your account team at The Trade Desk.