IAB tech lab SDA

The IAB Tech Lab’s seller-defined audience (SDA) spec is touted as a key contextual targeting alternative for the post-third-party-cookie digital ad ecosystem – one predicated on privacy-friendly addressability and publisher first-party data monetization. Some publishers are enthusiastic about testing SDA campaigns in the run-up to Google’s 2023 deadline for the phaseout of third-party cookies in Chrome. There is growing concern, however, about a marked lack of advertiser interest in doing the same.

Scale. That’s the dirty five-letter word that keeps advertisers and agencies spending their budgets with Google and Meta. Even the largest and most prestigious publishers can’t come close to delivering that kind of scale. But one area where publishers have an advantage over the duopoly is content.

The erosion of third-party cookies and the fragmentation of identity have compelled publishers to rebuild their first-party data strategies. And the IAB Tech Lab’s Self-Defined Audiences (SDA) might be one of the most significant standards building toward a set of post-cookie digital advertising solutions that aggregate and normalize audience data points across publishers’ domains, writes Vlad Stesin, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Optable.