Datahash hosted a fireside chat on how privacy regulation, third-party cookie deprecation, and the iOS 14.5 changes have affected digital marketing, and how first-party data helps advertisers respond.
The panelists were Akash Saxena, Head of Growth (Performance and CRM) at Styli, Landmark Group; Hicham Auajjar, Chief Product and Services Officer, MENA at GroupM and Managing Director at Keyade Middle East; and Gaurav Chhaparwal, Founder and CEO, Datahash. Aditya Shrivastava, Entrepreneur in Residence at Datahash, moderated.
The discussion covered five areas.
Business impact of the phase-out. Saxena described a drop of roughly 30 to 35 percent in install-to-activation rate on iOS for Styli’s app-heavy business in Saudi Arabia, with a direct effect on customer acquisition cost. Auajjar grouped the impact into three buckets: audience targeting, measurement and attribution, and campaign optimization.
Consent and transparency. The panel agreed that users share personal information with companies they trust when the value exchange is clear. A first-party data strategy therefore has to include a consent strategy, built on transparency, security, and the user’s ability to opt out.
Compliance. GDPR and CCPA adherence remains complex to implement, and users often do not understand what consent involves. Auajjar argued the deeper work is building privacy-by-design governance across the organization rather than stopping at consent banners.
Recovering lost identifiers. Saxena reported a 30 to 35 percent improvement in ROAS after Styli implemented Conversions API, noting the optimization builds over time. Chhaparwal said signal recovery is strongest on web, where most signals can be recovered over time, and advised advertisers to start early because a first-party data base takes time to build.
The way forward. The panel called for balance between privacy and personalization, growing roles for media mix modelling and probabilistic measurement, and a privacy-first infrastructure built by every stakeholder in the ecosystem.