Piano, a global customer experience and subscription platform, today announced new addressability partnerships with ID5, InfoSum, LiveRamp and Usercentrics to give clients choice and flexibility in harnessing their own data for onsite personalization and targeting, content monetization or advertising in the lead-up to third-party cookie deprecation.

The partnerships come as Piano enhances its First-Party Data Acquisition solution, which integrates its data management, identity and customer journey orchestration capabilities. The offering provides one system and one view that collects, unifies and activates user data across the entire digital ecosystem, preventing data leakage and poor ad performance while improving customer experience.

“For Piano's roster of leading publishing companies, the deprecation of third-party cookies represents an opportunity to use their trove of existing first-party data to provide a new means of connecting and engaging with customers,” said Joanna Catalano, Chief Growth Officer, Piano. “As consumer privacy and consent take centerstage, we are providing our clients the ability to collect and own their first-party data and think more strategically about how to use it to create a stronger value exchange with their audiences.”

Piano’s addressability partners will seamlessly work to achieve post-third-party cookie audience monetization across a number of capabilities:  

• Improved identification capabilities through ID5 (available globally) will focus on improving addressability in cookieless browsers thanks to its connection with most major SSPs.

“We are proud to partner with Piano on privacy-first identity that enables addressability across browsers for both authenticated and non-authenticated users, as we prepare for the end of third-party cookies,” said Joanna Burton, Chief Strategy Officer, ID5. "Piano has developed a comprehensive identity strategy that will help its publisher clients to prosper in the post-cookie world."  

• Collaborative data solutions available through InfoSum (available globally) will leverage “data bunkers'' and privacy-preserving data-matching for seamless identity-linking. InfoSum’s technology enables collaboration between brands and media owners to power first-party marketing campaigns. 

“True identity is table stakes at this point,” said Richard Foster, CRO of InfoSum. “Our partnership with Piano empowers publishers and brands to collaborate more closely while prioritizing the privacy of their customers. These first-party relationships enable those companies to unlock the full potential of their data and deliver better experiences to their customers.”    

• People-based identity through LiveRamp (available globally) will provide an out-of-the-box integration through LiveRamp’s Authenticated Traffic Solution (ATS), which connects authenticated publisher inventory directly to marketer demand leveraging a large network of ecosystem partners, including over 45 demand-side platforms (DSPs) and 25 supply-side platforms (SSPs).

“Third-party cookie deprecation provides a real opportunity to build a better open Internet for all parties and lean into the consumer dialogue to restore the trust that has been missing from the ecosystem for years,” said Travis Clinger, SVP, Addressability and Ecosystem at LiveRamp. “Piano’s integration with ATS ensures that consumer privacy and consent are at the forefront and enables publishers to create more relevant, respectful consumer experiences.”  

• Consent management through Usercentrics (available globally) will provide users clarity about and control over their personal data.

“Transitioning from third-party to first-party data makes permission and consent the new currency to solve your key business objectives,” said Hanna Waldenmaier, Vice President, Global Partnerships at Usercentrics. “Through partnering with Piano on its First-Party Data Acquisition offering, publishers and brands will be able to harness the deep, permission-based customer relationships needed to accelerate their audience monetization success in a privacy-compliant manner.”

Piano will also support First-Party Data Acquisition opportunities with Strategic Services to help publishers and brands define first-party data collection strategies and tactics, develop testing plans and deploy Piano software to drive their business objectives ahead of 2022.

Piano dramatically increased its first- and zero-party data collection, segment creation and activation capabilities via acquisition of Norway-based Cxense in 2019. The technology has since powered the campaigns of clients such as leading European media company Mediahuis, with whom Piano won a Digiday Marketing & Advertising Award Europe for Most Effective/Measurable Campaign of 2020. Piano’s capabilities also recently won Data Management Solution of the Year in the 2021 Data Breakthrough Awards. Piano’s most recent acquisition of AT Internet, a France-based leader in digital analytics and contextual data, will further bolster the breadth of data to which customers have access and tie it into experiences on both the web and within native applications.