Dish Media on Tuesday announced it adopted the Unified ID 2.0 identity solution that’s meant to boost more precise targeted advertising and measurement, across both its traditional pay TV and virtual MVPD services.
Dish claims to be the first MVPD via its Dish TV service and the largest vMVPD via Sling TV to integrate the Trade Desk-pioneered open internet solution.
UID2 is meant to enhance first-party data audiences for advertisers as they seek secure and privacy-conscious methods to access publisher’s data for better targeting. It helps provides a clearer vision of viewers across devices, helping marketers know who they’re reaching while also reducing reliance on third-party cookies that are going by the wayside.
“Over the past decade we have invested heavily in harnessing the power of our first party data,” said Kevin Arrix, senior vice president of Dish Media, in a statement. “Unified ID 2.0 captures that power and opens doors to heightened precision in targeting. This partnership enables advertisers to leverage our enriched datasets for more effective campaign strategies and ushers in a new era of privacy-conscious, yet impactful, advertising experiences."
In addition to the Sling vMVPD, UID2 is adopted on Dish Connected, a platform that launched last spring and allows Dish TV’s live linear inventory to be executed programmatically in real-time. The adoption of UID2 allows advertisers to tap into valuable first-party data across Dish Media’s CTV and live linear inventory.
While the largest, Dish isn’t the first vMVPD to adopt the solution. Fubo back in 2021 became the first CTV partner to tap into The Trade Desk’s open-source identity framework for ad and later touted success. In October 2022 Fubo said that since adopting UID2, it’s saw a spend growth rate 112.8% faster than impressions growth.
Fubo said UID2 helped increase advertising spend by 61.5% year over year, while ad impressions rose 25% in that same period. Other early companies tapping UID2 were AMC Networks, Tubi, Magnite and others.
As reported in June by Insider Intelligence, The Trade Desk’s UID cookie alternative has since gained traction with major players signing on for the privacy-focused advertising identity tool. That includes Warner Bros. Discovery incorporating it into digital platforms including Max and Discovery+. The use of first-party data is meant to help not only with targeting, but enhanced personalization and a better ad experience with commercials that are more relevant.
“Dish Media’s adoption of Unified ID 2.0 reflects their commitment to provide a high-quality ad experience for viewers,” said Taylor Ash, general manager of inventory development for CTV at The Trade Desk, in a statement. “Publishers who share their first-party data with advertisers in a secure and privacy-conscious way will come out on top as the TV landscape continues to evolve.”
Identity in focus
Identity resolution and its ties to accurate data has become an area of focus for publishers and advertisers trying to reach the right consumers by leveraging data in secure, reliable and privacy-centric manners. LiveRamp is one company that has its own identity product Ramp ID and supports UID2 technology.
While there’s fragmentation in the viewing and advertising landscape, LiveRamp’s Tara Franceschini, head of Industry Strategy, noted during a separate interview this fall with StreamTV Insider that there’s also fragmentation in data with so many different datasets available. And data protection and resolution is needed to ensure those leveraging information don’t get stuck in a bad data arena as it travels through various ecosystem hops or partners.
“That’s what identify provides: data protection and resolution consolidation. And that’s critical for that privacy, that speed and that accuracy,” she continued.
It’s also why good deterministic people-based identity is key for brands and marketers, including those that want to invest in CTV.
“It offers unmatched clarity and context at the individual and household level, which will allow for better targeting and personalization,” Franceschini said in November.
When it comes to who it lands on to ensure data protection and resolution are happening in the identity realm, Franceschini said the onus isn’t on a single player or group in the ecosystem, but rather something everything in the industry needs to think about.
“Publishers need to be interoperable with identity, so they need to have partnerships with all the top identity partners out there so they can accept the demand and accept the data…it waterfalls out,” she told STV at the time. “Brands, they need identity. Identity is critical for their business to kind of just be able to see their consumer, utilize any first party data that they may have within their org properly, make sure it is consolidated, resolved, privacy compliant.”