Given the recent revelations with Facebook and the sheer volume of consumer data that they have access to, it’s no surprise that consumer privacy is becoming an industry-wide concern.
For a bit of background if you aren’t aware, Cambridge Analytica, a political data firm, was able to harvest millions of Facebook IDs that could be used later to reach specific audience segments with targeted ads. It’s important to note, however, that most of these IDs were harvested without the users’ explicit knowledge, though they did have the users’ permission. Facebook has since disallowed this capability and has also removed the ability for advertisers to use 3rd-party audiences on their platform so as to prevent these partners from unauthorized access to or use of Facebook IDs.
What’s significant about the instance with Facebook is that they can actually afford to pull these third-parties due to their immense scale and reach, whereas those outside of the walled garden will either struggle with reaching highly defined consumer segments or otherwise proceed with the risks involved with using third-parties. So whether ad platforms decide to jump on the third-party banning bandwagon or risk a “scandal” of their own, it’s going to be decision time.
All that said, Gimbal takes consumer privacy seriously and we wanted to be clear on our stance and positioning around third-party data and quell any concerns around this hot-button topic.
Third-Party Data for Media
For the media side of our business, Gimbal is integrated with typical industry players like Acxiom, Datalogix, and Neustar. Advertisers can choose to use or not use any of the segments they make available. When we work with third-party data suppliers, we do not commingle or combine data in a way that would allow a third-party data supplier to access or use our own proprietary data in an unauthorized fashion nor do data suppliers have access to our data since it is not shared outside our platform. Moreover, advertisers and agencies themselves do not have access to our aggregated data, only their own.
Location Data For Enterprise
While we can’t speak to the ways in which other third-party data providers collect their information, the data Gimbal processes from our location platform is first-party (collected and owned by our Enterprise customers). Most Enterprise clients pay to use our platform to generate their own location data from users of their owned and operated apps. From this, they can create their own audience segments, attribute physical visits to push or media campaigns, or view analytics on their locations.
Location Panel for Targeting and Attribution
Similarly, our panel is comprised using the same technology and processes from app partners with our Location SDK installed. We apply the data from those devices to create audiences and measure footfall attribution against the campaigns we run for our clients. We never pass this information around, nor are these applications available outside the Gimbal ecosystem. As a result, there are no external APIs or user interfaces that provide bad players the opportunity to access, execute, or manipulate our (or our partners’) data.
Reap the Reward Without the Risk
We believe that our first-party location data assets can offer scale and a unique advantage for advertisers looking to create their own custom audiences without the risk of wondering where the data came from, who else is using it, and where it might “leak.” We process and apply it all for you.