Telecom at core of privacy-first digital economy

“First-party data is key in a new era for digital advertising.”

— Deloitte Digital

Most companies cannot see more than half of their customer interactions, according to a Deloitte study.

“Companies that excel at customer behavioral insights outperform peers by 85% in sales growth and more than 25% in gross margin.”

— McKinsey & Company

“As privacy rules tighten, marketers are losing access to behavioural signals that once powered precise segmentation.”

— BCG

Programmatic now represents the vast majority of digital display spend, according to a PwC study.

“Safari audiences attract 60% lower CPMs compared to cookied Chrome traffic.”

— AdExchanger

Precision in ad delivery is becoming the new currency of marketing effectiveness, according to a Deloitte study.

“Without stable identifiers, advertisers lose the ability to understand user journeys, control ad exposure, and measure outcomes across the open web.”

— IAB

Firms must reinvent e-commerce into a model that deeply integrates online and offline engagement and places digitally-driven commerce at the centre of their operations, according to McKinsey & Company.

“Offline and online data are typically hard to combine due to a lack of shared identifiers. Offline transactions tend to be recorded as anonymous, leaving any chances to connect both worlds far behind.”

— Vaimo

“Addressable TV advertising allows for the serving of targeted ads to specific households or users, marking a significant step forward in achieving cost-efficient reach and frequency for advertisers.”

— CIMM Study via Newscast Studio

“Inaccuracies in IP-to-household data can erode advertiser confidence in its reliability for audience targeting, attribution and measurement.”

— CIMM Study

“Retail media networks are booming. Our research finds 73% of advertisers anticipate spending more on RMNs in the next 12 months, with RMNs capturing an estimated 10 to 15% of total media spend.”

— McKinsey & Company

41% of advertisers feel RMNs lag behind other channels in measurement capabilities. Inconsistent standards, fragmented methodologies, and limited transparency make it harder for brands to compare performance across multiple networks, according to the IAB report.

“By 2026, we expect more than half of all search queries to be generated through generative-AI interfaces rather than traditional search engines.”

— McKinsey & Company

“Perplexity steps away from its advertising goals without measurable monetisation results.”

— eMarketer

“The evidence appears to show that advertising and marketing influences gambling in adults and, to a lesser extent, children and young people.”

— Public Health England report (House of Lords Library)

Lack of consistent user identification across platforms makes enforcing category restrictions extremely challenging, according to the World Health Organisation report.

“The global A2P messaging market size is expected to reach USD 96.73 billion by 2030.”

— Grand View Research

A2P SMS is becoming commoditised, forcing operators to seek new business models beyond simple termination fees, according to Juniper Research.

To unlock new value, telcos are moving beyond connectivity and entering the advertising ecosystem with proprietary DSP offerings, according to a BCG study.

Most operators cannot offer deterministic identity at scale outside their own network footprint, limiting the value of their DSPs, according to a GSMA study.

“Customer churn is a significant Solution since acquiring new customers costs five to twenty-five times more than retaining existing ones.”

— arXiv research

The longstanding ability to differentiate products and services based on handset selection and network quality is disappearing, according to McKinsey & Company research.

Telcos are leveraging their data from multiple business units (media, retail, financial services) to build advanced analytics businesses, according to a McKinsey & Company study.

“The GDPR does not recognise the group as a separate data controller. This means that intra-group data transfers are not automatically legal.”

— ISiCO

“A number of countries have adopted data-localisation requirements or imposed stricter conditions on cross-border transfers of personal data, reflecting broader policy aims of data sovereignty and digital industrial policy.”

— OECD Policy Paper

“Without a shared and interoperable infrastructure, many data-assets stay isolated in the hands of single organisations or sectors, limiting cross-domain value creation.”

— Smart Data Forum

“Data sharing in Europe remains a strategic priority: the European Data Strategy aims to build an EU single market for data, increasing data sharing across multiple industry sectors and creating new data-driven innovation.”

— European Commission

“Specialised data intermediaries that are independent from both data holders and data users can have a facilitating role in the emergence of new data-driven ecosystems independent from any player with a significant degree of market power.”

— European Commission