Digiday just held their bi-annual Programmatic Marketing Summit May 15-17 in sunny Palm Springs, CA. As always, AdDaptive was a proud sponsor of the event at the Ritz Carlton, Rancho Mirage, where agency executives and industry professionals gathered for three days to discuss the current challenges, strategic shifts, and solutions available to advertisers. 

The conference was jam-packed with town halls, 8 minute meetings, lunches, dinners, receptions, activities, and presentations featuring 22 keynote speakers, including AdDaptive’s VP of Sales, Ted McNulty. McNulty’s presentation, titled “Leverage offline data for more accurate, scalable, and transparent campaigns,” took place on the first day of the conference, May 15, just before the first round of 8 minute meetings pictured above. 

The challenge board reveals all

The challenge board has become infamous at the numerous annual Digiday summits. Attendees are invited to share the one main challenge that their agency is currently facing in a quick post-it note in order to spark conversation with other agencies who are experiencing similar challenges, and with vendors who can provide potential solutions.

Some of the keywords that appeared on the challenge board at May’s Programmatic Marketing Summit included: differentiation, measurement, transparency, cookieless, partnership, digital, and branding. 

The hottest topics covered during the various sessions and presentations at the conference encompassed many of these keywords, further proving the value of attending Digiday events.

Said topics included the ever-delayed deprecation of cookies, attribution, and building trust with ad tech partners. These themes have been prominent at all of the Digiday summits over the course of the last year or so, confirming their importance as they continue to remain top-of-mind for agencies.

Will cookies ever actually go away?

Last month Google announced the third delay in their plan to deprecate cookies, and advertisers are growing increasingly more skeptical about whether cookies will ever be completely removed from Chrome. Before April’s announcement, the platform was expected to be cookie-free by the end of 2024. Now that date has been bumped to some time in 2025. 

Though the deadline for the removal of third-party cookies from Google Chrome remains ever-prolonged, cookieless targeting solutions are the future-proof option for digital advertisers. Programmatic advertising is the seamless next step as the industry shifts away from a reliance on cookie-based targeting. AdDaptive’s cookieless solution, for example, has proven its success by bridging validated offline data sources to unique online identifiers for accurate targeting and reporting for over 14 years. 

Truly accurate attribution

Speaking of accurate reporting, attribution was once again a buzzword at the Summit. Since programmatic campaigns lend themselves to an omnichannel approach, launching simultaneously across various platforms in a combination of media types, KPI tracking can often lead to overlaps in data. 

Which click actually sealed the deal? 

The only way to know is by using the most accurate reporting technology in the industry. Truly accurate attribution is only attainable through forming an ad tech partnership with a trusted digital advertising solution provider, such as AdDaptive. 

Build a partnership with a trusted ad tech vendor

AdDaptive’s on-site team at Digiday: Jonathan Gravallese, Marisa Modoono, Joe Paratore, Mike Powell, and Ted McNulty

The number of vendors in the industry just keeps growing year over year. How can advertisers possibly choose between them all? The answer is just one word: trust. If it feels like “taking a chance” with a new ad tech vendor, they aren’t the right partner. Find a solution provider with proven success, who offers full transparency to put your mind at ease. 

Knowing what data is being accessed and how exactly it’s used to target key audiences helps soften any doubts about running new campaigns. For over 14 years now, AdDaptive has successfully connected validated real-world data sources such as SEC filings, building permits, census data, and much more to unique online identifiers for extremely accurate targeting. Since 2010 we’ve worked with over 500 agencies and launched tens of thousands of campaigns, none of which have ever relied on third-party cookies. 

Trust in AdDaptive’s future-proof technology to target with accuracy and scale so you can maximize ROAS.