Amazon jumps in bed with Reach for post-cookie deal

Reach_titles2Google’s deprecation of cookies might be far from a done deal but Amazon is not taking any chances by signing a deal with the UK’s largest publisher, Reach, to get its hands on the publishing giant’s customer data to target its online advertising.

In what is claimed to be one of the first such deals in Europe, the Amazon and Reach partnership is designed to compensate for the loss of third party cookies, once Google can appease major concerns raised by the UK’s Competition & Markets Authority.

Reach said it will partner with Amazon on sharing “contextual” first-party data, using the information to sell more targeted advertising on the UK publisher’s sites.

Reach has over 130 national and regional brands, across both print and online, including the Mirror, Express, Daily Star, Daily Record, Manchester Evening News, Liverpool Echo, Irish Star, OK! magazine, WalesOnline, MyLondon and Curiously.

The publishing group first started ramping up its adtech service in late 2019 with the launch of Mantis – an AI-powered brand safety and contextual tool developed in partnership with IBM Watson. The team then developed Reach’s Plus products that offer customer matching, and developed Ocean, Reach’s first party data platform.

In 2022, it pooled its existing first party data platform with its data matching capabilities and custom-built AI contextual tools under the digital tech platform Neptune, supported by the Ad Tech Workshop which houses developers, testers and product managers.

The companies said the deal comes “as the advertising world tackles deprecation of third-party cookies, a long-anticipated industry milestone that Google kick-started in early January”.

Amazon Ads director of EU adtech sales Frazer Locke said: “As the industry shifts towards an environment where cookies are not available, first party contextual signals are critical in helping us develop actionable insights that enable our advertisers to reach relevant audiences without sacrificing reach, relevancy or ad performance.”

Google’s withdrawal of cookies was first announced as far back as February 2020 – and there have been three stays of execution since – but the tech giant has stuck to its guns this time with the phasing out of the tech to starting last month, although the CMA has blocked any such moves in the UK.

One recent study found that nearly two-thirds (63%) of UK marketers still have no clear strategy for personalisation in a cookieless world, with more than half (54%) also lacking a clearly defined strategy for personalisation using first-party data.

Many industry chiefs believe there is a critical gap in preparation for the post-cookie era, where personalised experiences will rely heavily on direct user interactions.

The study, which quizzed 100 senior UK marketing professionals across the UK, also revealed that 83% of marketers feel their current personalisation efforts are primarily based on assumptions about customers rather than data-driven insights.

To prepare for the future, marketers are being urged to re-evaluate their personalisation technologies and move from using third-party cookies to first- and zero-party data.

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