The true meaning of data clean room interoperability

The true meaning of data clean room interoperability
Nick Henthorn
Tuesday, October 31, 2023

The advertising landscape is rapidly evolving, and one thing is becoming clear - collaboration is now more critical than ever. However, collaboration can be complex in a world where businesses have fundamentally different technology and data stacks. This complexity is compounded by the skills gap in the industry, with some organizations having advanced data science resources while others rely solely on marketing expertise. 

Data clean rooms have rapidly gained traction as a solution. As a reminder, data clean rooms are secure, neutral environments where multiple organizations can collaborate across various data sources without sharing or exposing customer data. However, much debate exists about making these solutions more interoperable. We must explore the concept of interoperability in the context of advertising and how we can achieve true interoperability, making collaboration seamless regardless of your tech or data setup.

The interoperability challenge

Interoperability has become a hot topic within the data clean room space. However, to paraphrase Mark Twain, “The reports of data clean room interoperability have been greatly exaggerated.” Despite claims that clean rooms can effortlessly collaborate across the board, you're often tethered to the same clean room and cloud provider for smooth collaboration. 

As you determine your organization's requirements, it's essential to understand what this term means in the context of advertising. Exploring the potential for interoperability between clean rooms is an intriguing prospect. InfoSum collaborates closely with the IAB Tech Lab and other prominent industry organizations to assess this opportunity. But for most organizations, interoperability isn't about clean room-to-clean room compatibility. It's about enabling seamless collaboration regardless of your and your partners' internal setup.

At InfoSum, when we think about interoperability, we focus on enabling all parties to collaborate swiftly, efficiently, and without risks. From the earliest days of InfoSum, one of our key objectives has been to allow for collaboration using any type, size and format of data in any location in just a few clicks. This seamless collaboration should not depend on all parties sitting on the same cloud or data warehouse, having the same data taxonomy, or even having a common identifier. But how do we achieve this?

Any data, any location

As we touched on, many solutions that claim interoperability require data to be hosted in the same cloud or data warehouse provider. InfoSum believes an organization's data storage solutions should be separate from its collaboration technology. This is precisely why InfoSum exclusively concentrates on fostering collaboration rather than serving as your data storage solution.

InfoSum uses our unique Bunker technology to allow collaboration no matter the data’s location. Bunkers are ultra-secure cloud instances accessible only by the data owner. With Bunkers, leveraged data from any source and region. Bunkers can pull data from GCP, AWS, Snowflake, custom solutions, and a plethora of CDPs, DMPs, CRMs and more. 

Any taxonomy, any format

One significant challenge in data collaboration is that no two datasets are identical. A challenge compounded when you involve multiple parties. Our global schema acts as a "rosetta stone," automatically mapping data in various formats into a common language. For example, date of birth can be represented in numerous ways, such as MM/DD/YY, Month, Day, Year, or just Year. InfoSum's global scheme ensures that these differences don't hinder collaboration. Finally, whether your data is hashed, raw, transformed, or not, InfoSum can work with it.

Any identifier

Another major hurdle in data collaboration is the lack of a universal identifier. Companies use various identifiers, from email and phone numbers to Mobile Ad IDs (MAIDs), cookies, and other third-party identifiers. InfoSum overcomes this challenge with our market-leading ID bridge partners, making collaboration possible even when a common identifier is unavailable.

Any tech stack

InfoSum provides a suite of APIs that empower organizations to extract value from connected data within their own environment and across their stack. This opens the door for agencies to harness the intelligence of data collaboration within their planning and targeting systems, offering a seamless experience for internal teams and clients.

Additionally, InfoSum empowers organizations to harness their interconnected intelligence and deploy it securely wherever needed, all while prioritizing consumer privacy. This capability unlocks new possibilities for advanced data science and modeling, enabling businesses to extract deeper insights make more informed decisions and drive innovation in a privacy-first way. 

Any skill set

As previously mentioned, different organizations have different depths of skills. While some organizations have advanced data science resources, we’re increasingly seeing marketers and other business users be the primary owners of data clean room technology. InfoSum offers various ways to use our platform, from full to no code. Our querying tool gives data scientists all the tools they need. At the same time, our marketing-focused UI allows business users to unlock rich insights, plan effective media campaigns, and measure success in a matter of clicks. This means there is no requirement to invest in an additional orchestration layer to sit across your data clean room to extract value.

Removing barriers, delivering performance

Today, over 100 global organizations use InfoSum to seamlessly collaborate with partners daily, regardless of the data and technology stack. These innovative organizations have moved beyond interoperability questions and are now achieving remarkable results.

Axel Springer & Renault

Renault partnered with Axel Springer All Media to compare the performance of a first-party data strategy against traditional third-party cookie targeting. The first-party data campaign significantly outperformed cookie-based targeting, with an 18% increase in conversion rates, 38% improved target profiles, 15% lower cost per action, and 19% lower cost per click.

Download the full case study

Channel 4 & Nectar360

Channel 4 and Nectar360 launched RET4IL, allowing Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) brands to use combined data intelligence to target relevant audiences at scale and measure performance. The campaign delivered up to a 122% sales uplift for CPGs, with an average of 29% uplift across all partners and a 56% uplift for product-focused creatives.

Download the full case study

Even highly regulated industries, such as financial services, have benefited from InfoSum by unlocking more value from their first-party customer data. Watch our recent webinar, Banking on Collaboration: Driving Performance with Data Clean Rooms, to explore this further, featuring insights from Lloyds Banking Group and Global.

Don't miss out on the future of advertising

Don't wait any longer; join the fastest-growing data collaboration network in the world. With InfoSum, you can instantly and seamlessly collaborate with over 100 global organizations already using this groundbreaking technology while maintaining full control over their data and prioritizing the privacy of their customers. 

In a rapidly evolving advertising landscape, collaboration and interoperability are the keys to success, and InfoSum is at the forefront of this transformative journey. Join the data collaboration revolution and unlock the full potential of your advertising efforts.

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