More than a year after the Facebook data debacle, Twitter is the next in social media platforms to remove access to 3rd party data. According to the Wall Street Journal, Twitter will soon be removing outside data sources from its ad-buying system.

What Does This Mean For Advertisers?

The company currently offers data from outside firms to help advertisers target users on its platform, but starting early next year the company will end that integration and require advertisers to buy data on their own. Twitter will also have to approve the data sources that marketers choose.

New data-privacy rules including the General Data Protection Regulation in Europe have increasingly required businesses to get consumer consent before collecting their data to serve them ads. This has also made the value of first-party data increase exponentially, with more advertisers aiming to leverage this data.

The effects of this switch on cost are unknown. However, the change could increase clarity around ad prices, as well as decreasing direct competition for certain audiences.

Twitter Data Breach

Twitter also recently announced that they had found issues related to personal settings and data sharing. The company stated "If you clicked or viewed an advertisement for a mobile application and subsequently interacted with the mobile application since May 2018, we may have shared certain data (e.g., country code, if you engaged with the ad and when, information about the ad, etc) with trusted measurement and advertising partners, even if you didn't give us permission to do so." While these issues were fixed only a few days ago, as we've seen with the downward spiral of Cambridge Analytica, Data issues should not be taken lightly and consumers are becoming more aware of the risk they are taking using the platform.

As marketers, we should be more aware of the threats a data breach can pose. We should treat this change as an improvement to limit data breaches and increase the overall experience.

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