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The mobile advertising world continues to shift dynamically as both public and private sector influences reshape ad targeting and data collection practices. The phasing out of third-party cookies and increased privacy regulations, coupled now with the financial pressure related to Covid-19, make 2020 an especially challenging year for marketing tech.

At the center of all of this is Semcasting, whose CEO and founder Ray Kingman is the latest guest on Street Fight’s Heard on the Street podcast (listen above). Semcasting applies advanced IP targeting known as Smart Zones to validate audiences and make sure that marketers are reaching the right people.

“Smart Zones [address] the topic of identity resolution. That’s what it’s used for. Everything we do in our world is based on offline data. So when we work with our customers, they most often come to us with their CRM data, customer lists, or in some cases their website traffic. And what they’re looking for is digital IDs for the CRM records they want to activate online, or give me access to more people that look like them.”

It’s a dynamic time for the world of location-based advertising given new legislation and new mobile OS restrictions, but in many cases, legislation like CCPA doesn’t prohibit ad targeting, but rather the exchange of third-party data to target ads.

The upshot is that buying or selling customer data is restricted, but using your own data is not. That could lead to even more strength for walled gardens like Google and Facebook, encouraging players with less first-party data to copy that playbook to the best of their abilities. The walled garden approach not only sidesteps regulatory scrutiny but also cultivates the use of first-party audience data, which is more effective than relying on other companies’ data inventory.

“If you look at it from Google and Facebook, they’re doing the only thing they can do, which is turn it into a walled garden and don’t share anything. Maybe that’s the remedy we all need to pursue. Maybe what we all need to do is build our own walled gardens and not be passing anything around that looks to be compromising to the consumer.”

We discuss with Kingman on the latest episode of Heard on the Street. Check out the full episode above, find out more about Heard on the Street, and see our entire episode archive hereContact us if you’d like to sponsor an episode, and check out Street Fight’s media kit for the full slate of visibility options.

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Mike Boland has been a tech & media analyst for the past two decades, specifically covering mobile, local, and emerging technologies. He has written for Street Fight since 2011. More can be seen at Localogy.com