Nerd Alert: Targeting Without Tracking

Welcome to Nerd Alert, a series of special episodes bridging the gap between marketing academia and practitioners. We're breaking down highly involved, complex research into plain language and takeaways any marketer can use.

In this episode, Elena and Rob explore how privacy first advertising changes digital marketing. They reveal that when individual tracking disappears, platforms must rely on user groups instead. This shifts advertising toward probabilistic targeting, like how TV has always worked.

Topics covered:

• [01:00] "Reach, Measurement, Optimization and Frequency Capping and Targeted Online Advertising Under K Anonymity"
• [01:45] Privacy forces less tracking, more thinking
• [02:50] How K Anonymity groups users by shared traits
• [04:35] Simulating the trade-off between privacy and performance
• [06:00] Privacy pushes reach-first thinking

To learn more, visit marketingarchitects.com/podcast or subscribe to our newsletter at marketingarchitects.com/newsletter.


Resources:
Gao, Y., & Qiao, M. (2025). Reach measurement, optimization and frequency capping in targeted online advertising under k-anonymity. arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.04882.


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