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Zapier joins Tealium and Segment on the list of billion dollar valuations for powering the next generation of ad tech. As cross-site cookies and browser pixels

Zapier joins Tealium and Segment on the list of billion dollar valuations for powering the next generation of ad tech. As cross-site cookies and browser pixels are increasingly blocked, ad platforms are moving from browser-based tracking to server-side data transfer. Like those other companies, Zapier provides a single integration point that funnels user and conversion data to dozens of marketing companies' server-side APIs. A few clicks allow you to transfer your customer data to/from hundreds of different platforms.

kritiko 6y ago
How is this CCPA / GDPR compliant?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- marketingtech 6y ago
  There's a distinction between being a data controller and a data processor. The businesses that use these platforms are the data *controllers* and are responsible for implementing consent, "do not sell my information", "show me my data", or "delete my data" flows as required by law. The platforms generally offer APIs to implement these required data flows in a centralized way, which is another major value prop for them. The platforms serve as the data *processor* and can assume the data is compliantly obtained by the controller until informed otherwise.
  - Silhouette 6y ago
    The sustainability of that model of responsibility must be in doubt, though. Take a simple case like a website that loads a resource from somewhere else. Given how the technology works, any model where the original site is responsible for everything and the user's data is supposedly protected is obviously misleading, because very often it's the third party services that are run by the bigger, more powerful, data-hoovering businesses, and neither the original site nor the user may be fully aware of what is happening or have any practical control over it. The model assigns responsibility where it's convenient, not where it's reasonable.
    - marketingtech 6y ago
      In that situation, the third-party that is actively collecting and transmitting the data becomes a controller and is subject to regulation. Under the predominant data transfer model, the third-parties cede responsibility by making the data transfer an active behavior by businesses. Ad tech companies can say "We didn't actively collect the data from customers - we passively received it from businesses." That makes a huge difference in term of regulatory compliance. That said, this has been the most common data transfer model for years. "Data hoovering" is a misconception that allows millions of businesses who actively send customer data to Google/FB to shift privacy criticism onto the platforms.
      - Silhouette 6y ago
        In that situation, the third-party that is actively collecting and transmitting the data becomes a controller and is subject to regulation. And yet they may have no direct interaction with the user/data subject, who may not even be aware that they exist, so this model is still flawed. "Data hoovering" is a misconception that allows millions of businesses who actively send customer data to Google/FB to shift privacy criticism onto the platforms. I would have much more sympathy for this point of view if the likes of Google and Facebook were transparent with businesses integrating with them about what that really means in practice. For example, if we did a survey of local stores with simple websites that include any Facebook asset on their site, how many of them do you think could accurately describe the implications in terms of tracking their users? What about sites that use Google Fonts? I'm not even talking about asking businesses to actively upload their user contact details for targeting or deliberate tracking like Google Analytics or Facebook pixels here, just the incorporation of any third party resource into a website. It's also important to say that this isn't just about Google and Facebook. Many third party resources you might incorporate into a site for some reasonable purpose could also be used for tracking, while the site operators may or may not be fully aware of what is being done and the visitors may not be aware of the resources at all. Think of a CDN used to improve performance or a payment service that recommends including its scripts across all pages on a site to feed into risk analysis, for example. The general problem is the same in all of these cases. The way the technology actually works doesn't match with the way authorities are attempting to regulate it. Unless you're willing to interpret the current regulations strongly enough that some behaviours with legitimate uses are also effectively prohibited across the entire Web (at least within your jurisdiction) I'm not sure you can ever square this circle as a regulator operating within the current frameworks.
- michaelbuckbee 6y ago
  CCPA/GDPR don't really prohibit you from doing things with data or sharing with 3rd parties you just have to be really upfront about it. Say you were going to take the "Contact Us" form submissions from your website push those to Zapier to check if they were legitimate (before sending email to the addresses), you would need to disclose what 3rd parties you're using, what data is shared with them, etc. Checkout this massive list of companies that PayPal "shares" your data with - https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/ua/third-parties-list https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/ua/third-parties-list (mostly for fraud + geo checking)
tootie 6y ago
Zapier isn't necessarily just for ad tech. It can any kind of ad hoc automation between well-defined services. We use it for support ticket automation.
- adventured 6y ago
  It's a properly productized IFTTT. IFTTT was a disaster as a product for laypersons. Zapier is how you have to make things work for normal people to use such automation tools. There will be many more Zapiers across every segment where there is complexity in the tooling and interaction. If a person wanted to start a great business, find a business segment you know really well and create a niche Zapier for it. Then when the big companies come knocking (which they will right before they try to kill you and take your niche), sell to them. It's a repeat of the great CRM / enterprise roundup wars.
vincentmarle 6y ago
> powering the next generation of ad tech > Zapier provides a single integration point that funnels user and conversion data to dozens of marketing companies' server-side APIs I think that conclusion is a little far-fetched. If you've used Zapier you know how expensive it is to run tasks, so in my experience Zapier is used more to automate little bits of your business that you don't necessarily want to bother your engineer with. It's not like Segment that you can just turn on a firehose of data.
- mgdev 6y ago
  Except it's not far-fetched at all [1]. If you optimize for conversions, and the value of those conversions is large enough, the returns readily cover the costs. [1]:https://zapier.com/apps/facebook-conversions/integrations https://zapier.com/apps/facebook-conversions/integrations
- marketingtech 6y ago
  It's incredibly cheap in the context of 6 or 7 figure marketing budgets. It gets budgeted as a new compliance cost to continue doing business as normal even after Apple, Mozilla, and Google block advertising pixels from their browsers.
swyx 6y ago
i'm sorry but you, an account named marketingtech, are extremely blinded by your perspective right now. Zapier charges $599 usd for 100k "tasks" per month. you want to use Zapier for adtech? LOL.
- marketingtech 6y ago
  If you have 100k transactions or even landing page views per month, $599 is going to be the cheapest part of your advertising stack.
  - dillondoyle 6y ago
    What?!?!?! first of all if you only have 100k pageviews a month you're probably not even making $599 from serving ads and second i don't understand what Zapier is supposed to accomplish in your mind? maybe you have been using it in a way I can't think of? from what I think you are talking about: is zapier supposed to like sit between website & like some SSP or DSP? during the bid!?!?! or just to like establish an audience to target like send your new email based id to a DMP or wherever for a customer who wants a PMP deal or something? Also I'm almost positive Segment in your example is not used in the way you describe to pass user/device identifiers between ad platforms? Like i think they connect to adwords but only to grab the standard reporting data you can get into bq anyways. not any user or device data (impression level stuff is now complicated in their own odd like 'private' data clearing house thing). TTD Unified ID would be what you're looking for
    - adventured 6y ago
      > first of all if you only have 100k pageviews a month you're probably not even making $599 from serving ads You're talking about something entirely different from what the parent is.
      - dillondoyle 6y ago
        i totally could be i dont understand the main comment. but they wrote 'or even landing page views per month' ?

kritiko 6y ago

How is this CCPA / GDPR compliant?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
marketingtech 6y ago
There's a distinction between being a data controller and a data processor. The businesses that use these platforms are the data *controllers* and are responsible for implementing consent, "do not sell my information", "show me my data", or "delete my data" flows as required by law. The platforms generally offer APIs to implement these required data flows in a centralized way, which is another major value prop for them. The platforms serve as the data *processor* and can assume the data is compliantly obtained by the controller until informed otherwise.
- Silhouette 6y ago
  The sustainability of that model of responsibility must be in doubt, though. Take a simple case like a website that loads a resource from somewhere else. Given how the technology works, any model where the original site is responsible for everything and the user's data is supposedly protected is obviously misleading, because very often it's the third party services that are run by the bigger, more powerful, data-hoovering businesses, and neither the original site nor the user may be fully aware of what is happening or have any practical control over it. The model assigns responsibility where it's convenient, not where it's reasonable.
  - marketingtech 6y ago
    In that situation, the third-party that is actively collecting and transmitting the data becomes a controller and is subject to regulation. Under the predominant data transfer model, the third-parties cede responsibility by making the data transfer an active behavior by businesses. Ad tech companies can say "We didn't actively collect the data from customers - we passively received it from businesses." That makes a huge difference in term of regulatory compliance. That said, this has been the most common data transfer model for years. "Data hoovering" is a misconception that allows millions of businesses who actively send customer data to Google/FB to shift privacy criticism onto the platforms.
    - Silhouette 6y ago
      In that situation, the third-party that is actively collecting and transmitting the data becomes a controller and is subject to regulation. And yet they may have no direct interaction with the user/data subject, who may not even be aware that they exist, so this model is still flawed. "Data hoovering" is a misconception that allows millions of businesses who actively send customer data to Google/FB to shift privacy criticism onto the platforms. I would have much more sympathy for this point of view if the likes of Google and Facebook were transparent with businesses integrating with them about what that really means in practice. For example, if we did a survey of local stores with simple websites that include any Facebook asset on their site, how many of them do you think could accurately describe the implications in terms of tracking their users? What about sites that use Google Fonts? I'm not even talking about asking businesses to actively upload their user contact details for targeting or deliberate tracking like Google Analytics or Facebook pixels here, just the incorporation of any third party resource into a website. It's also important to say that this isn't just about Google and Facebook. Many third party resources you might incorporate into a site for some reasonable purpose could also be used for tracking, while the site operators may or may not be fully aware of what is being done and the visitors may not be aware of the resources at all. Think of a CDN used to improve performance or a payment service that recommends including its scripts across all pages on a site to feed into risk analysis, for example. The general problem is the same in all of these cases. The way the technology actually works doesn't match with the way authorities are attempting to regulate it. Unless you're willing to interpret the current regulations strongly enough that some behaviours with legitimate uses are also effectively prohibited across the entire Web (at least within your jurisdiction) I'm not sure you can ever square this circle as a regulator operating within the current frameworks.
michaelbuckbee 6y ago
CCPA/GDPR don't really prohibit you from doing things with data or sharing with 3rd parties you just have to be really upfront about it. Say you were going to take the "Contact Us" form submissions from your website push those to Zapier to check if they were legitimate (before sending email to the addresses), you would need to disclose what 3rd parties you're using, what data is shared with them, etc. Checkout this massive list of companies that PayPal "shares" your data with - https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/ua/third-parties-list https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/ua/third-parties-list (mostly for fraud + geo checking)

tootie 6y ago

Zapier isn't necessarily just for ad tech. It can any kind of ad hoc automation between well-defined services. We use it for support ticket automation.

adventured 6y ago
It's a properly productized IFTTT. IFTTT was a disaster as a product for laypersons. Zapier is how you have to make things work for normal people to use such automation tools. There will be many more Zapiers across every segment where there is complexity in the tooling and interaction. If a person wanted to start a great business, find a business segment you know really well and create a niche Zapier for it. Then when the big companies come knocking (which they will right before they try to kill you and take your niche), sell to them. It's a repeat of the great CRM / enterprise roundup wars.

vincentmarle 6y ago

> powering the next generation of ad tech > Zapier provides a single integration point that funnels user and conversion data to dozens of marketing companies' server-side APIs I think that conclusion is a little far-fetched. If you've used Zapier you know how expensive it is to run tasks, so in my experience Zapier is used more to automate little bits of your business that you don't necessarily want to bother your engineer with. It's not like Segment that you can just turn on a firehose of data.

mgdev 6y ago
Except it's not far-fetched at all [1]. If you optimize for conversions, and the value of those conversions is large enough, the returns readily cover the costs. [1]:https://zapier.com/apps/facebook-conversions/integrations https://zapier.com/apps/facebook-conversions/integrations
marketingtech 6y ago
It's incredibly cheap in the context of 6 or 7 figure marketing budgets. It gets budgeted as a new compliance cost to continue doing business as normal even after Apple, Mozilla, and Google block advertising pixels from their browsers.

swyx 6y ago

i'm sorry but you, an account named marketingtech, are extremely blinded by your perspective right now. Zapier charges $599 usd for 100k "tasks" per month. you want to use Zapier for adtech? LOL.

marketingtech 6y ago
If you have 100k transactions or even landing page views per month, $599 is going to be the cheapest part of your advertising stack.
- dillondoyle 6y ago
  What?!?!?! first of all if you only have 100k pageviews a month you're probably not even making $599 from serving ads and second i don't understand what Zapier is supposed to accomplish in your mind? maybe you have been using it in a way I can't think of? from what I think you are talking about: is zapier supposed to like sit between website & like some SSP or DSP? during the bid!?!?! or just to like establish an audience to target like send your new email based id to a DMP or wherever for a customer who wants a PMP deal or something? Also I'm almost positive Segment in your example is not used in the way you describe to pass user/device identifiers between ad platforms? Like i think they connect to adwords but only to grab the standard reporting data you can get into bq anyways. not any user or device data (impression level stuff is now complicated in their own odd like 'private' data clearing house thing). TTD Unified ID would be what you're looking for
  - adventured 6y ago
    > first of all if you only have 100k pageviews a month you're probably not even making $599 from serving ads You're talking about something entirely different from what the parent is.
    - dillondoyle 6y ago
      i totally could be i dont understand the main comment. but they wrote 'or even landing page views per month' ?