Most media companies and advertising firms are utilizing the same set of data providers in order to target their advertising campaigns. These data aggregators compile user cookies, credit card data, flight history and more in order to create segmentations to target with advertising. The problem is that consumers are becoming more knowledgeable about how their personal data is being utilized and there are growing concerns about privacy protection.

 

• Privacy focused search engine Duck Duck Go has garnered over 1.3 Billion search queries

• Studies show that over 40% of consumers delete their tracking cookies and are browsing in "safe mode" more frequently in an effort to protect their personal data

• Facebook claims to have data on more consumers than actually exist in U.S. Census data

• Websites and publishers that use digital "fingerprinting" to still capture data from consumers that are actively blocking cookies are being seen as threats by Google, Mozilla and Apple.

• Use of Ad Blockers represents over 11% of digital users and growing

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These issues and more are causing major waves in the digital advertising industry. Brands and businesses are no longer confident that they are reaching their desired audiences and there is continued fear that ad dollars are being wasted on irrelevant targeting and blocked impressions. Additionally, the various ways data aggregators build audience personas for data segmentation is showing cracks in the process. Computer algorithms created by rocket scientists are powerful tools but at the end of the day the data still needs continued analysis by living breathing human beings to ensure accuracy (which isn't happening as often as needed).