Welcome to our Tweet of the Week, where we spotlight insightful, thought-provoking, maybe even weird tweets from the world of adtech. Every Saturday, we’ll bring you one tweet that captures important trends, shares valuable data, or offers unique perspectives on the market.
This week’s Tweet of the Week goes to Eric Tilbury, Senior Director of Solutions Engineering and Ad Operations at Inuvo (earning his second Tweet of the Week win!). In his tweet, Eric poses a poll: “Do you consider ID-bridging a form of fraud?” Of course, the poll is currently deadlocked, with 48.6% saying “yes,” 48.6% saying “no,” and 2.7% responding, “I’m okay with the risk.” That’s adtech, man.
The tweet, I believe, was prompted by a few ongoing, fairly spicy discussions about ID bridging on X. Doug Lauretano, for example, CEO of CivicScience, has been tweeting about the issue for a few weeks now (we hear you, Doug!), calling for a “long overdue reckoning” and stating unequivocally that undisclosed ID bridging is fraud, period. But how does that align with Eric’s poll? Huh. Scott Messer has also chimed in, pointing out that ID bridging “has been going on forever” and questioning whether it’s even “possible to unwind it” or “even get a clean understanding of its impact.”
Adding to the conversation, we posed our own question about ID bridging (not to disturb the Force): Who’s responsible for catching it when it happens with an SSP partner? Following an Adalytics report earlier this year, it’s unclear whether verification companies (they don’t track IDs by design), DSPs (maybe?), or others are really responsible for identifying these incidents. Viant’s Chris Vanderhook weighed in via tweet when we asked him directly: “DSPs catch this then, right?” Vanderhook responded, “Yes, they do, but it’s constant whack-a-mole to protect the clients or you get fired.”
Speaking of DSPs, Yahoo DSP’s Giovanni Gardelli, VP of Ads Data Products, actually published a great blog post to help advertisers navigate ID bridging about a week ago. Here’s a key passage:
So, what should advertisers do?
Develop a position, and ask the right questions:
🌡 Are you/is your measurement partner equipped to measure ID-bridged inventory in your DSP?
🔒 Do you know which vendors are driving this approach across the various supply platforms, and are you comfortable with their privacy policies and methodologies?
🔍 Do you have enough transparency to monitor ID bridging’s impact on your campaigns?
🎮 And last but not least, do you have the right controls to target, bid, and optimize based on what you learn?
Only if you can confidently answer “yes” to all of these questions is ID bridging a worthwhile investment for your advertising strategy.
All of this is interesting and highlights that ID bridging is still sort of a hazy, unclear issue in adtech that is still being addressed. SSPs, DSPs, advertisers — everyone has to play their part.
Anyway, check out Eric’s tweet here and dive into the related tweets below to explore more about the ongoing ID bridging debate and its implications for the industry.
