Imagine you are out shopping and see a man paying at the cash till for his goods. As he does so, money is dropping out of a hole in his wallet. He walks out of the store but the money continues to fall and strangely, he appears to be simply ignoring it. Clearly no one would literally let such a situation happen, but that is exactly what many businesses are doing when they lack a good strategy to manage their data assets – a concept called “data governance.”
Here’s why – tracking technologies, which are typically referred to as “tags” or “scripts”, are of great commercial importance to businesses to drive improved business results. This space is exploding. The average number of tags per webpage has doubled from 50 to over 100 in the past five years.
Companies are spending significant money and time deploying and learning about these new technologies. But the number of companies who have a comprehensive strategy to govern which partners they work with and what data they have access to remains small. In an increasingly complex online marketing environment, driven by analytics and site optimisation, few companies are doing enough to protect their most valuable data assets.
Tag mismanagement happens when a publisher or brand does not know which companies have presence on their websites. This leaves companies vulnerable to third parties who appear on their pages, often brought in by other third parties, and whose function is unknown to the website host.
Comprising over eight million consumers, Evidon’s opt-in Ghostery panel analysed publisher domains and found that on average, only 54% of trackers were directly implemented by the publisher; the remaining 46% were deployed by third parties on the publisher’s site, testament to the proliferation of third-party tracking and the need for companies to take control of their data strategy.
Unmonitored proliferation of tags can also cause performance and user experience problems. When not properly managed, lengthy tag chains develop over time, creating a disorderly structure. This can disrupt both how a user sees elements on a page load, as well as data collection when tags at the end of long chains are too slow.
Some companies have tried to address these problems by working with a tag manager. This is a positive step, but offers only a partial solution to tag auditing and monitoring as tag management platforms may be unaware of all third party tags and other outside elements that could introduce data vulnerabilities.
So what can publishers do to protect the data they have invested so much time and resources in collecting?
- Know your tags: Ensure someone in your organisation has a full understanding of all the tags that operate on your website and how they got there. This can be done via a full site tag audit and ongoing monitoring to assess the utility and performance of the companies you find.
- Streamline structures: Assess how tag structures can be streamlined to improve the performance of your site and safeguard your data against leakage. Examine when each element is programmed to load, and tackle inefficiencies in tag structure and navigational issues caused by slow loading elements.
- Understand the motivations: Ensure you know what data each company is collecting and with whom they are sharing this information. Use this contact as an opportunity to solidify your present relationships with your adtech vendors.
By following these tips your company can become a leader in data governance. Moreover, in a crowded market place, this is a sure-fire way to gain commercial edge and optimise your website. After all, you want to protect the valuable data stored in your corporate wallet.
