IAB Tech Lab finalizes first addressability solution

Project Rearc, an initiative within IAB’s Tech Lab, has announced the finalization of its first solution to the post-cookie addressability challenge, Seller Defined Audiences (SDA). The concept was first proposed in March 2021.

As the name suggests, this solution rests seller-side, enabling publishers or their data partners to scale first-party data in a privacy-compliant manner, aiming to “democratize the concept of audience cohorts for the open ecosystem” (from the Tech Lab release).

Publishers will be able to create and scale anonymous first-party data-based audiences across channels, including web, app and CTV. Audience members can be grouped using a standardized, but also customizable, Audience Taxonomy. Additionally, context- or content-based audiences can be created using a context taxonomy (yet to be standardized).

Among other benefits for buyers, it allows DSP machine-learning systems to optimize cohort selection through the availability of API-delivered metadata.

Why we care. It’s another addressability solution, this time rooted in the rich first-party data held by publishers. It holds out a best-of-both-worlds promise by offering audience-based and context-based addressability. And since it’s a Tech Lab initiative, it will continue to be an open and transparent work-in-progress.

The release admits “SDA makes no claims of being a silver-bullet for the industry, but should be a valuable tool in our toolbox.” A refreshing position to take because the air is full of supposed silver bullets right now.

About The Author

Kim Davis

Kim Davis is the Editorial Director of MarTech. Born in London, but a New Yorker for over two decades, Kim started covering enterprise software ten years ago. His experience encompasses SaaS for the enterprise, digital- ad data-driven urban planning, and applications of SaaS, digital technology, and data in the marketing space. He first wrote about marketing technology as editor of Haymarket’s The Hub, a dedicated marketing tech website, which subsequently became a channel on the established direct marketing brand DMN. Kim joined DMN proper in 2016, as a senior editor, becoming Executive Editor, then Editor-in-Chief a position he held until January 2020. Prior to working in tech journalism, Kim was Associate Editor at a New York Times hyper-local news site, The Local: East Village, and has previously worked as an editor of an academic publication, and as a music journalist. He has written hundreds of New York restaurant reviews for a personal blog, and has been an occasional guest contributor to Eater.