Natixis

How The Death Of Digital IDs Will Reshape The Marketing Mix

Ari Buchalter, CEO of Intersection, argues that the demise of cookies, IDFA, and other third-party identifiers will rewrite the advertising landscape. Without deterministic 1-to-1 targeting, marketers will rely on statistical proxies and cross-channel measurement, leveraging contextual targeting, app usage, media consumption, and location signals as audience proxies. Attribution will shift toward methods like consumer panels, market mix models, and walled garden clean rooms to capture outcomes beyond online conversions. Channels such as CTV, audio, and digital OOH do not depend on cookies but can still enable audience targeting and attribution through similar techniques. Four criteria—advertising scale, audience engagement, media cost, and brand safety—will differentiate channels in a post-ID world. The piece notes challenges like fraud and privacy regulations (GDPR, CCPA) and suggests that targeting will democratize across channels, potentially redistributing budgets toward channels delivering scale, engagement, and trust.