Optable’s partnership with The Globe and Mail aims to demonstrate how data clean rooms can transform audience targeting and campaign performance while ensuring privacy compliance
Like many mediums in ad tech, privacy-compliant technologies, or more specifically, data clean rooms are becoming oversaturated with solutions. So, data clean room providers must differentiate themselves from one another.
Optable partnered with The Globe and Mail’s advertising arm, Globe Media Group, to stand out in the marketplace. Following this collaboration and a successful campaign for VIA Rail, Optable wants the technology to enhance audience targeting and drive revenue growth through advanced data strategies.
For example, in their recent VIA Rail campaign, Optable’s data clean room matched VIA Rail’s customer data with The Globe and Mail’s subscriber base, enabling highly targeted advertising.
We sat down with Bennett Crumbling, Head of Marketing, Optable, to understand how his approach achieved 3.4 times greater reach and 2.5 times more cost-effective results.
Andrew Byrd: The ad tech industry has promoted data clean rooms as one of the major privacy-focused solutions, but some publishers seem hesitant to test them out. What would you say to them? 
Bennett Crumbling: Like any new technology, there is an adoption curve. Organizations must adapt to fit these new solutions into their processes and find the right ways to capture the value they can create. Many misconceptions about data clean rooms are rooted in the idea that publishers either need loads of 1st party data and tons of engineering resources or give a large amount of money to what I call “ID middlemen” to make data collaboration work for them.
A couple of years ago, many thought DCRs were more of a luxury good used by the Disney & Netflix of the world rather than a core part of any publisher’s monetization strategy. What Globe & Mail has been able to accomplish, which is indicative of the types of success we have seen with tons of other publishers of varying shapes & sizes, is a clear sign that this is no longer the case.
We think data collaboration will become just as embedded in the planning, targeting & measurement stages of advertising as the DMP or the ad server.
AB: Based on your data, Optable’s data clean room played a critical role in securely matching VIA Rail’s customer data with The Globe and Mail’s subscriber base. Can you explain how the data clean room ensures privacy and security while facilitating such collaboration?
BC: Optable’s data clean room technology ensures privacy by utilizing different Privacy-Enhancing Technologies, or PETs, throughout the data collaboration process. Depending on the goal of the data collaboration, Optable’s platform provides purpose-built applications that use the appropriate encryption method to achieve these goals.
Whether the goal is to build a securely matched audience directly for targeting and activation or to share insights about audience behavior, we have developed end-to-end workflows that enable publishers and advertisers to easily complete a successful collaboration while always protecting individual identities from either party and ensuring audience privacy.
AB: The VIA Rail campaign achieved impressive results, including a 3.4X greater reach and a 2.5X lower cost per reach. What role did Optable’s technology play in achieving these outcomes, and how did you optimize inventory targeting for this specific audience?
BC: Optable’s clean room was pivotal in helping VIA Rail and The Globe and Mail securely match their data sets, enabling custom audience segments like “Lapsed Travelers” and “Mid-Week Travelers.” Our platform allowed for highly targeted ad placement, ensuring that VIA Rail reached the right people at the right time. Additionally, the lookalike modeling extended the campaign’s scale beyond direct matches, enhancing reach and cost efficiency. This level of precision and scalability is what drove the remarkable 3.4x greater reach and significantly lowered costs per impression.
AB: For publishers like The Globe and Mail, how does Optable’s platform help enhance audience engagement and grow readership through data-driven insights and targeting strategies?
BC: Optable’s platform allows publishers like The Globe and Mail to gain a deeper understanding of their audience by securely combining their first-party data with that of their advertising partners. This enables them to create highly relevant and personalized content and campaigns that engage specific audience segments. By leveraging data-driven insights, publishers can identify patterns in user behavior, tailor their offerings, and strengthen their value proposition to readers, all of which contribute to increased engagement and readership growth.
AB: How can publishers use Optable’s technology to monetize their first-party data better while maintaining a privacy-safe environment for their users?
BC: With Optable, publishers can securely unlock the value of their first-party data by collaborating with advertisers without compromising privacy. They can offer advertisers highly valuable audience packages and insights for targeted campaigns using clean room technology. This privacy-safe approach ensures compliance with data regulations and builds trust with users, who can feel secure knowing their data is protected.
This represents a significant opportunity for publishers to monetize their data through bespoke partnerships and premium advertising deals.
AB: How does Optable help publishers build stronger relationships with advertisers, like in the VIA Rail campaign, and what are the long-term benefits for both parties in this type of collaboration?
BC: Optable’s clean room technology enables deeper collaboration between publishers and advertisers by facilitating seamless, privacy-safe data sharing.
In the VIA Rail campaign, The Globe and Mail provided VIA Rail with unique audience insights based on their rider’s behavior and with Globe & Mail readership insights, leading to more effective campaign targeting. This type of data collaboration not only enhances campaign performance but also strengthens the trust and relationship between publishers and advertisers.
In the long term, these partnerships can evolve into mutually beneficial deals, such as subscription bundling or co-branded offerings, which drive revenue and engagement.
AB: What advice would you give to publishers just starting to explore data clean room solutions? How can they leverage these tools to create more effective partnerships with advertisers?
BC: My advice would be to start small but test ASAP – test clean room solutions on specific campaigns and with trusted partners to understand their value. Clean rooms allow publishers to unlock their first-party data and offer advertisers deeper insights and more precise targeting, which enhances campaign outcomes. Over time, as publishers get comfortable with the technology, they can expand their data collaboration to build stronger, more data-driven relationships with advertisers.