Aqilliz-BritePool: A blockchain-enabled cookieless ad targeting solution

Aqilliz and BritePool are joining forces to offer a privacy-compliant, third-party, cookieless ad targeting solution using blockchain-enabled supply chain optimisation.

The partnership will integrate BritePool's identity management solution into Aqilliz’s products, which adopt blockchain technology to optimise processes across the advertising supply chain.

BritePool is an identity verification company that provides targeting solutions to publishers and advertisers without requiring third-party cookies.

BritePool has a database of unique identifiers (BPIDs) that it has created from user data from various domains and sources, using a combination of third-party data, cookies, beacons and pixels. It employs cookie syncing to match user IDs between adtech partner databases. It also matches online and offline third-party data from customers and analytics providers with corresponding online identifiers—like cookies—to create anonymised platform IDs and audience segments. These offline data sets may include hashed emails or other identifiers but do not include directly identifying information like names, addresses or phone numbers. Once customer data is "matched" with a corresponding BPID, the user becomes verified, and advertisers can enter a bid to serve an ad to the customer.

While BritePool does employ third-party cookies to help recognise users who don't login to a publisher website, for example, it is not reliant on these cookies to power its ID solution. Just as well, given third-party cookies will be defunct by 2022.

BritePool's ID solution will be integated into Aqilliz's proprietary tech stack, starting with its supply chain optimisation solution, which provides campaign stakeholders with real-time visibility into how each impression within a programmatic campaign is delivered. This allows for transaction verification and enables advertisers to optimise programmatic campaigns as they occur. 

“The dark corners and associated inefficiencies of the current programmatic supply chain are well-documented," said BritePool CEO David J. Moore. "The Aqilliz supply chain optimisation solution is an important step toward eliminating these harmful practices, and BritePool is excited to play a central role in it."

Aqilliz’s consent and provenance management service will also incorporate the BritePool ID.

Aqilliz and BritePool will initially concentrate on rolling out these offerings in the Asia Pacific region, Europe, and the United States to a pool of advertising clients across both firms.

The combination of the two businesses will "address a broad range of pressing pain points in programmatic advertising", the companies said in a press release. While BritePool identifies each unique user, Aqilliz can offer the ability to identify how the user’s data was collected, applied, stored, and shared through various activities. 

Moore said the joint offering not only provides enhanced consumer privacy protections but will also "increase advertiser ROIs". 

Aqilliz CEO Gowthaman Ragothaman said: "As consumer preferences continue to evolve and regulators continue to cast a critical eye on the digital marketing industry practices, it’s clear that our existing approaches to data handling need to change.

"Through the integration of the BritePool ID, we’re not only able to provide the use of high-fidelity, first-party data for improved targeting and personalisation capabilities, but also an immutable, tamper-proof record of the entire lifecycle of user consent along with past metadata, which is now a regulatory requirement. This capability will be essential for programmatic advertising to meet the growing demands of consumers for control and privacy."

Identity management is becoming a key focus of adtech firms as the deadline for the end of third-party tracking cookies looms. In August, supply-side firm Pubmatic launched an identity management hub allowing publishers to manage multiple identity partners including BritePool, LiveRamp and ID5.

Aqilliz's Ragothaman recently conducted a five-minute Campaign Crash Course on how to use blockchain in marketing, check it out.