LiveRamp makes its IdentityLink available for RTB

LiveRamp’s IdentityLink visualization

Identity resolution provider LiveRamp is now making its IdentityLink available for real-time bidding (RTB) on any demand-side platforms (DSPs).

IdentityLink provides an anonymous identifier that pinpoints a specific individual across multiple devices and channels, including offline. With IdentityLink as part of their targeting data, LiveRamp said, advertisers can limit their advertising frequency to specific users and make opt-outs more persistent.

Because IdentityLink works with a variety of matched cookies as well as mobile device IDs, LiveRamp also says its identity lasts longer than a single browser cookie.

Previously, IdentityLink was available only to supply-side platforms via the Advertising ID Consortium, and selected DSPs. LiveRamp said IdentityLink is available free of charge to SSPs, and now to any DSPs.

Why you should care. As a key member of the Consortium, LiveRamp’s IdentityLink is central to that organization’s effort to reduce the hassles and inaccuracy of cookie matching. Cookies can only be read by the domain that dropped them, so matches are made by ad tech firms between cookies, enabling the tracking of users across domains.

But the accuracy of the match rate can be 60 percent or less, meaning that nearly half of all cookies are not matched. IdentityLink, which contains its own cross-device and cross-channel graph, ties deterministic connectors like email addresses to the same person across data sets, and then identifies that person with an ID that can be used across cookies or attributed to a mobile device ID.

If IdentityLink is now freely available on both the supply- and demand-sides of advertising, it could go a long way to reducing the need for the ad ecosystem to match cookies, and it could help provide a consistent user ID across channels.

About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.