Open-sourcing PAIR

Google first announced PAIR in 2022. The tool allows publishers and advertisers to securely upload their encrypted data to use with a clean room.

“PAIR is centered on a few key things: first-party data; advertiser and publisher control durability; and interoperability across the ads ecosystem,” O’Hara told ADWEEK in an exclusive interview about the partnership with IAB Tech Lab prior to the presentation. “In a nutshell, it’s going to help advertisers and publishers securely match their first-party data by encryption in a way that does not track users across the web.”

At the NewFront presentation, NBCU chief data officer John Lee said PAIR can help the media company transmit data points like people logging into its NBC Sports app, theme park visitors and movie ticket buyers with the least amount of signal loss and filters.

The IAB Tech Lab had been working on its own tech for helping brands and publishers share first-party data, called Open Private Join and Activation (OPJA). But now, the IAB Tech Lab is backing PAIR as the industrywide protocol for this task over OPJA, Shailley Singh, evp of product and COO at IAB Tech Lab, exclusively told ADWEEK.

“We feel that PAIR protocol is better. It’s more scalable. It’s more elegant in design,” said Singh, who noted that the tech lab routinely adapts protocol given to the organization by other companies.

While Google didn’t mention its Chrome browser’s delayed deprecation of third party cookies on stage, it noted how PAIR can be a privacy-first data targeting paradigm.

“Privacy may not be front and center in CTV conversations today, but trust me, that will change,” said Adam Stewart, vp of sales at Google. “We actually have an amazing opportunity to get this right from day one. Because CTV has never used third-party cookies. We can start fresh instead of recreating outdated techniques.”

AI-driven targeting

No NewFronts presentation in 2024, especially one focused on demonstrating technical prowess, would be complete without an AI-driven product launch.

Google announced the launch of a tool that will come out this summer that lets a marketer describe their intended customer base, and Google’s artificial intelligence will build matching audiences beyond who the marketer might have originally conceived.

For example, a sneaker brand might not know that reaching people in the market for concert tickets could also lead to sales, explained Bill Reardon, general manager of enterprise platforms at Google Ads. Marketers still get to decide if they want to actually pay to target the segments suggested by the AI.