← Adtech Unfiltered
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- [00:07]
A
Hey, this is Norna Sear for Adtech. Unfiltered advertisers and marketers have been talking about a privacy revolution for quite some time now. A world where brands will collect, manage and act on data in privacy compliant ways. But a lot of the talking points lack actionable opportunity. Liz Emery is determined to change that. She's the co founder of Viber who a company tackling some of the biggest challenges in ad tech, signal loss and tackling privacy first data strategies. Liz shares her expertise on building clean compliant data foundations, navigating the ever changing privacy landscape and helping brands restore the signals they need to optimize campaigns in a world where cookies are disappearing and regulations keep evolving. Let's get into this episode with Liz now.
- [00:51]
B
Liz, thanks for joining me to talk about what's been going on with Viber and just some of the challenges that you are looking to address in the ad tech space.
- [00:59]
C
Yeah, I am super excited to be here, super excited to share some knowledge and also have a really good discussion with you today.
- [01:07]
B
So we've known each other for, I want to say 12, 13 plus years now and you're a problem solver. So I want to hear a little bit about what got you to this particular juncture in your ad tech career. What, what guides you deciding to solve some new challenges and starting your own company.
- [01:24]
C
Yeah, anyone who's heard me speak before, knows me, hears me say that I need more hobbies. I become obsessed with how things work and I have to like lift up under the hood when I'm working on anything. I spent a long time on the agency world. If you look at my background, I've been at big agencies, small agencies, independents, and when I was working on the agency side, I saw firsthand that every brand's data was, was a mess. And it didn't matter what the brand was, a big brand, a small brand, it didn't matter the industry of that brand either. And what it came down to is a lot of the old ways of tracking were collapsing. So think about things like Apple and Google were blocking cookies, iOS updates, you know, which we just had one recently, were cutting signals and there's a new privacy law all the time that are kind of raising the bar on data usage for marketers. And, and I saw this kind of perfect storm being created for brands and what they were being left with was things like broken retargeting, low match rates, unreliable attribution. That was a lot of guesswork because, you know, they didn't have the data they needed. With all these different changes and to kind of like put the cherry on top of everything going on in the industry. Brands were getting hit with lawsuits because their data collection wasn't compliant. Platforms tried to fill gaps with modeling, which is a great thing, but it didn't solve the core problem in our industry, which was signal loss. So when I was at the agency, I met this guy named Naresh Parsad, who's actually my co founder. And we founded Viber because we believe that in order to win in this new like privacy forward or privacy first landscape, brands need to own their own data to fill the gaps. And what Viber does is that we're the plumbing for your ad tech stack. So think of us as the plumbers or the plumbing. We were created to fix this massive problem that marketers are facing, or you know, that their data is broken due to widespread signal loss. Think about us is that we have a team of data experts that installs a clean, compliant data foundation directly on a brand's website. Within that foundation, we collect the brand's data, we strip out anything sensitive, which is great in this new landscape, and we make sure that this data flows and enforces all of the consent rules. From there, we feed this perfect data back to the tools that marketers already use. So think Meta GA4 TikTok a data warehouse so they can finally work again. Right, you're replacing those signals that were lost with this clean, compliant data that you're collecting. And the best part about it is you don't have to learn new platforms
- [04:00]
B
to work with Fiverr.
- [04:00]
C
Right, we work with your existing tech stack. And so for what that means for marketers is your attribution works again, your match rates improve, your marketing becomes more trustworthy. And for us, it's not just about the infrastructure. We're a team of really nerdy data operations, people that actually stay with the brands to educate, to kind of calibrate and make changes as the rules change in the privacy landscape for marketers. So think about it as like, we absorb all the complexity so that brands can stop worrying about data headaches and focus on what they do best, which is growing their business. And let the Viber team help, you know, get the pipes flowing and data where it needs to go.
- [04:37]
B
Signal loss isn't a new thing. It's been going on for quite some time here. What do you think advertisers have been doing in the meantime? Because it does seem like you're carving out this new niche space that hasn't been addressed. What's your observation been as You've been engaging with advertisers and brands as far as how they're trying to address this issue.
- [04:55]
C
It's across the board and it really depends. We've seen everything from brands reacting really extremely right to all the different changes and privacy being like, I'm going to strip every single tracker I have off my website. Right? And then we've seen the other side of the spectrum where brands are like, I'm not going to do anything. I'm a small brand, like kind of flying under the radar. And for us, like, we think that privacy, it's all about being proactive with what's going on. And building privacy into your foundation is huge. Because think about it now, like There are what, 50 different states that all have some kind of state by state regulation right now. And I always say it's like playing Monopoly with 50 different rule books. So like California says, do not sell, which is different than Colorado's universal opt outs either. Like having an approach of the extremes doesn't work. You have to bake privacy into the foundation of your marketing. Like that's just what the future is. You have to capture your first party data, scrub it at the source and actually attach a user's consent directly onto the data itself. So that way, like no matter where a user is, they're in California, they're in Colorado, they're in New York. You're compliant by design because we're going to see platform changes continue to happen, we're going to see state laws continue to multiply. So if you chase rules one by one, which is a big thing that we see, you're always going to be playing catch up.
- [06:15]
B
Right?
- [06:15]
C
There's no winning in that way. But if you build a clean, compliant foundation, your marketing actually moves faster and you can move more confidently because you know that everything you're doing is dictated by compliance and enforced with compliance and takes into account all the different legislation.
- [06:31]
B
It seems like there's a need to do a lot of catch up work because you even addressed it a little bit earlier. There's been, maybe this isn't the perfect way to say it, a lack of seriousness around taking action. Have you noticed any new momentum and rationale for why advertisers and marketers are becoming more motivated to take on this work and partner with someone such as yourself?
- [06:51]
C
Oh, a hundred percent. And I think what's happening is that people are realizing signal loss isn't going away, it's not going anywhere. Rules are going to continue to change, things are going to get harder. But they're starting to see the impact in the data itself. They're starting to see it like we've had people reach out to us at Viber saying we can't optimize down funnel anymore. We've had people reach out to us saying, like, hey, our match rates are significantly lower than they used to be. What's going on? Our retargeting pool is significantly lower. So brands are starting to see it and I feel like, you know, unfortunately, like a lot of the time we tend to be reactive. It's like, I'm not going to deal with this until it impacts me. Now it's impacting people, right? They're seeing it more. So we're just seeing a little bit more fire to solve these things. But we're also seeing, you know, lawsuits. We're actually seeing platforms make changes. Like you see Meta, for example, like they have their sensitive categories change. They don't want to accept the liability of working with sensitive data. They want to put that onus back on the brand. They're not saying like, we don't want to use data because if you think about it, platforms need signal to work. They're just becoming more restrictive in the kind of data that they're accepting from brands and they're. So I think it's an eye opener. I think it's an eye opener where the more clean and the more compliant your first party data is, the more freedom that you're going to have and the dependency on, you know, third party data and the dependency on other things is kind of going away. So it's just kind of shining a light where brands are like, okay, now I have to move, now I have to act because it's impacting me directly.
- [08:20]
B
I know you already shared a little bit about what Viver does from a 30,000 flight view, but can you share more about how that restoration of signals takes place with your assistance?
- [08:32]
C
Yes. So this is like, you can tell how excited I get about these things. Being able to restore signals for advertisers and marketers without violating compliance is really at the heart of what Viber is doing and what we try and do. Because, like I worked at the agency, like when I was launching a campaign, my goal was I want this campaign to perform. I wasn't thinking about like wizard of Oz, like what's happening behind the curtain. But what is happening is what we mentioned before, right? The changes in browsers, ad blockers, the privacy laws, those are cutting off the very signals that platforms like Google and Meta need to optimize. And that's what's leading to that broken attribution, those low performing campaigns. And like at Fiverr, we study how the Internet works, we really nerd out, we look under the hood because we wanted to build, to fight what we call invisible challenges. So the people may not know their campaign's not working, they may not real things are happening. But our solution and like how we kind of, you know, restore those signals while staying compliant is to capture first party data directly from a brand's own site. And this data, I would say is like the only type of data that the modern web truly respects because it's collected by the brand. So it's clean, it's durable and it's not blocked by a lot of the things that we see, blocking signals. The thing that makes it compliant is that before we do anything with this data, we, we immediately apply a user's consent and remove anything sensitive from it. So then what we do is we create a durable id. So like nor you come to the site, we create a durable ID that remembers your choices so that any time that you come to the site it persists. And I think that's key is a lot of the time with, you know, consent, consent will expire. If it's built on cookies, for example, we remember it. So nor, let's say you're 1, 2, 3, like we remember every time you come back. So you're not going to have to reselect. No, I don't want to be tracked. Yes, I do want to retrack. And we know because we're persisting that, that we're only sending the right data on you to platforms when you've given the consent and when you've given us permission. So ultimately, you know, this restores the signals that platforms need to perform and the brand stays compliant every step of the way because we're applying that consent and enforcing it.
- [10:41]
B
Yeah, I think you've just addressed my next question which is going to be about consent. And what do you think really separates your approach to what consent looks like from what maybe many other players are doing in the space? Any commentary from you on what separates you from the rest of the pack?
- [10:56]
C
Yes, consent is like one of my biggest focuses and one of Fiverr's biggest focuses. And consent is clear. Right? It's a yes or a no from a user. And for a long time as an industry we've treated it as like a simple checkbox on a website or like a banner. But real consent, like in my mind, is a promise to your users. It's making sure that the user understands exactly what data is being collected, how it's being used. And like the brand can prove all of those pieces for the user. And so I always tell people, like for the user that means clear, non technical, plain language toggles, right? So that they understand what they're opting into. Not confusing legal jargon, which we've all seen on a banner. And for the legal teams, like the legal teams, it means like a complete timestamped audit trail that proves that consumer choices or user choices were actually being honored. And I think what separates Viber out is that again it ties back to the fact that we're capturing consent at the source. So we're collecting like noor you come to that site, we're collecting directly there what your consent is and then enforcing it. And not just enforcing it one time, we're continuing that enforcement. So if a user comes in and says no one month, we don't forget that. And I think that's like one of the key pieces. We bind that user's choice to, you know, a durable privacy, safe id, ensuring that that preference that they've selected, you know, with Viber is respected every single time they return to that brand site, no matter what. And I think that that's one of the differentiators is that persistence because we're giving users clarity and the legal teams the proof they need because Viber does provide that time set audit trail for legal and then it also allows marketers to still send the right signals to platforms. They can still send data to platforms and it doesn't put them at risk because that person privacy, again, it's built right into that foundation of how the data is collected. So there's not that misstep. Right? You don't have to worry about things expiring because the website remembers.
- [12:52]
B
It's funny, I was recently, very recently on a site and I think this has always been a mysterious aspect of when the consent prompt comes up and it says like will you, won't you accept this? And sometimes it'll say accept, deny. And in this case the language very specifically stated whether you accept this or you x out or or you continue to scroll on this page in any way that will all be presumed to be consent for us to collect data on this page. And I think that was the first time that I actually read it stated out loud. But I think that has been the case for years and years, that that's exactly how a lot of people who are capturing consent are doing it. They just aren't Notifying the user in a really direct way when they share the prompt.
- [13:34]
C
It's so funny you say that this is going to. It'll bite people. We're in a different time. You have to be upfront about what you're doing. And one of my biggest pet peeves just prompted this in my head is collecting data for the sake of collecting data. One of my biggest pieces of advice for brands is collect the data you need. You don't need to collect every single thing possible about your users. Collect the data. That's going to make sense because users are getting wise to this kind of stuff. They want their data protected. Like a lot of the privacy legislation. If you think about why they're there, again, it's about user protection from third parties. It's about protecting the consumer. And so I'm always really, really against any, ooh, I'm being tricky. Or I'm like, consumer trust goes back and forth. You can easily, with what happened to you on that website, lose the consumer's trust and become that creepy marketer versus being the good marketer who's leaning into what your consumers want, respecting their wishes and then catering to them like, it makes a huge difference. And I think a lot of brands falter there.
- [14:33]
B
I have to also ask you about part of your origin story, which was originally there was a lot of focus on specifically the healthcare space, where of course, privacy consideration and addressability is just an ongoing challenge. There is so much specific legislation in the healthcare space. Can you tell me a little bit more about that origin story related to healthcare and how you've been able to pivot to go beyond the scope of just that one vertical?
- [14:56]
C
So when we launched Viber, we focused on the verticals that were hit the hardest. Think about healthcare like healthcare is a perfect training ground. Healthcare brands face the same marketing challenges as everyone else, but they have far more regulation. So it's like, think about the world if you're not in health care that you function in and know that there's a layer on top of that that health care marketers are dealing with. Like they can't afford to get compliance wrong because they have health data. So huge shout out to all the health care marketers that are listening to this. The big lesson, it kind of ties back to what I said before, is that the only scalable solution, like working in healthcare or working in anything, is having privacy baked into your foundation for data collection and your foundation for your marketing. First party data is going to be gold, but scrubbing it at the source, attaching A user's consent directly to what the data event itself. Again, so that no mattering where a user is, you're compliant by design. And again, like healthcare, on top of everything, they have to pay attention because rules are vague. And I think that's one of the most interesting things going on in our space right now.
- [16:07]
B
When I think about a lot of partners and tech providers that want to assist with addressability and fulfill whatever their responsibility is with air quotes around making sure that they are limiting the collection of anything that falls outside of the scope of what they're allowed to collect and therefore meeting the requirements of privacy, it feels as though they want to limit the liability as much as humanly possible. That's what they're really using their legal team for, isn't really to dive deep into how they can assist you do better. They're trying to make sure that they're not on the hook for giving you information that they're not supposed to offer to you. That feels like the opposite what you're focused on at Viber. So what does that work look like internally? Do you have more legal expertise or consultation on your end? I want to hear a little bit more about that.
- [16:54]
C
I love this question. Tech today wasn't built for the landscape that we're in, right? So like a lot of these tools exist in this pre privacy landscape. So it's not malicious in the fact that like they're just not built to accommodate all these things. But you're 100% correct. It almost feels like a hot potato of liability. Nobody wants to be holding the hot potato at the end of the day, which is why we're seeing, like I said, like we're seeing these platform restrictions. We're seeing people reel back what kind of data that they're going to expand. Except they're saying you guys can use the data, but like we're not liable. So if the brand uses the data, the brand's liable, whereas if the platform is using that data, the platform's liable. So we're seeing that for us again, like, we don't think in terms of, like, okay, how can we do this? What is the patch we can put on this to use the data? For us, like, everything's just about building cleanly. That's like the ultimate goal. Like we pay attention to every piece of legislation that comes through. We pay attention to every single change in platforms, in browsers or, you know, the Rails in terms of how people access the Internet. We're paying attention to all of this so that we can build with all of it in mind. So, like, if you think about the compliance piece, we saw that compliance would expire and people would get sued for that. We saw that as an issue. Right. So we wanted to persist that consent. We saw that, you know, people were sending sensitive data directly to platforms to use. Oh, this is before the change. But we would see that, right? You would see this kind of stuff. And we were like, no, they don't need to know every nitty gritty piece of information about your user. What they need to know is that an action happened, that you liked, that you're reaching the right kind of people. And I think that's like the biggest thing for us is that everything we do is built with every change in mind. So that's why I said earlier, like, we adapt to it. Even with the growth of AI, as we were building things, we drew hard lines of what kind of data can be used, what kind of data shouldn't be used with, you know, the evolving sensitive categories. Like I said, like, we're not about finding temporary workarounds. We're about, you know, not having a losing game. We're about creating everything from the start with that built in mind so you don't have to think about it. Like, you can just function as marketing. Back in 2019, when the website remembered everything and that's kind of like the goal for us.
- [19:14]
B
I don't hear that often, was the entire pursuit of really deeply understanding every piece of legislation. I just haven't heard it before. Maybe it's happening, but I think hanging your hat on that is something that definitely isn't easy to do. But you guys clearly have made that commitment. You've addressed this in so many ways already. And it has to do with high profile lawsuits and settlements. Now advertisers and marketers are more concerned, more so than they have been in the past. Are there any misconceptions that you hear from marketers about the scope of privacy regulation or concerns side that makes you concerned about their perspective?
- [19:50]
C
Yeah, no. I always joke around that, you know, with my career pivot and really getting into privacy and data that I should take, like the baby bar because of all the legislation that I'm reading. Like, you know, I think it was Kim Kardashian who took it. Like, I feel like I'm right there with her right now. But the one misconception that makes me wince or like, keeps me up at night is when a marketer says things like, we're fine. We have a banner when it comes to consent. You can't see my face on this podcast right now, but if you could, you'd see like that sad moment because I always say that's like putting like a no burglars allowed sign on your front lawn, right? Like, it may look good and, ooh, it's scary, but it doesn't actually lock your doors for you. And like, the truth is, and it circles back to everything we've talked about is like, regulators don't care about what your banner says. I want to say that twice regulars don't care about what your banner says. They care about what's happening underneath the hood. They want to see again, like, what data is being collected, where is it going? And then the key piece here is whether a user's choice is actually being honored every step of the way. We've seen it play out in high profile lawsuits because that banner, it's just like a front door. Like, the real shield is having a system that logs and respects a user's choice everywhere their data goes. And so again, like, the one thing that keeps me up at night is that thinking a banner alone is enough. And that's just a huge misconception. And, and honestly, like a liability for a lot of people. And it's why data ownership is such a critical step in the right direction for brands. That's like the consistent theme here is in the new landscape, first party data is what the modern web respects and it's what's going to help brands as things continue to shift and data becomes, or certain types of data become less valuable or less available.
- [21:32]
B
Another question for you about policies, not so much from a legislation standpoint. It's very interesting to hear how much time and energy you're spending diving in deep. I want to ask about the other side, which is platform policy. Is there anything that you would rewrite from a major platform policy standpoint, whether it's health care and wellness specific, which is a specific and important niche related to privacy or any other that you would adjust so that things can be both safer and more useful.
- [22:00]
C
Yeah, I feel like every platform is sitting there listening and like, what's she going to say? But I think like, ultimately for me, when it comes to platform policies, it just circles back to clarity, just clarity. Because like I said, even working in certain verticals, people don't realize that one skew of their products fall under sensitive categories. Or we've seen things where there was a brand where they were orthopedic shoes and when, you know, Meta changed their policy, they didn't realize that they fell under, you know, the sensitive category. And so I think that the biggest change I would make for any platform is just being very clear about what's allowed, what, what's off limits, what falls under sensitive categories, and just being a lot clearer about it, because I think that's one of the biggest things is I get outrage all the time being like, can I use this kind of data on this platform? Is this legal, like to use on, you know, TikTok or can we put this into our life cycle? Because there's just a lot of gray. And I think that's like the biggest piece is that not everyone, to your point, is sitting here studying what every piece of legislation is. Not every person is sitting here paying attention to every change that every platform makes. So when someone's going to look for it, how to function in that space, again, it circles back that marketers are running campaigns they want to perform. They're not thinking about all the little pieces behind. So just being clear, it just protects the marketers, it protects the platform, and it protects the users.
- [23:24]
B
So much of what you just said is motivating this thought for me. There's somebody that you want to work with and then they start consulting you for what feels like legal advice as opposed to understanding exactly how to use your product. And that's just a tricky thing. It happens with agencies. It can happen on the brand side. And they're not asking their attorney, how do you navigate those waters, to have those conversations? Because you want people to do compliant, safe, privacy, considerate things. But everybody needs to have their own legal team.
- [23:51]
C
Hundred percent. There's three teams that we typically work with, right? Like we work with engineering. Like, since we're a quick install, it's a short, low lift, no dev. But legal, we love working with legal and compliance. They will go through, like, the whole process. Again, we provide the audit logs they need for consent. They can see exactly how things are flowing out. They can set the standards. Like, nothing leaves Viber's data infrastructure or data layer, unless the brand says, I want this to leave and go to X, Y and Z partner or this data warehouse and in what format. So, like, the brand can control exactly how the data leaves the platform. And if they're in health and wellness, you can obfurcate the data. If you're trying to use it for, you know, analysis and you don't want to use, you know, sensitive data, we can help anonymize the data. Like, I would say, just thinking about us as like, legal's best friend, and that's Kind of how we position it too is that we work directly with those teams before anything to make sure that everything is set up how they want it to be too and adheres to their standards. And then the third piece is obviously the marketing and the activation of the data. That's where we work a lot too. But like legal is a big part of what we do and we work with those teams on like a, you know, a daily basis because we think it's important just for it to be in step.
- [25:05]
B
It's impossible to do an interview in 2025, Liz, and not ask about artificial intelligence. And I know artificial intelligence is an important part of the work that you all are doing, especially as it relates to the data layer which you just mentioned moments ago. I want to hear from you. Where do you draw the line between using AI models around sensitive data and just making sure that you are only capturing the data an advertiser or marketer is comfortable with?
- [25:32]
C
Yeah, this is a fun one and it's something that's really hotly debated right now. But for myself personally, like this is a personal POV is I draw a hard line against using AI to train models on raw sensitive data. And that's things like health records, financial data or anything that can infer a medical condition. The reason why is like I always say, like when you're doing stuff with AI, it's like you're giving your diary to like someone that's like a gossip person. Once it's out there, you can unshare it. Like I said, I draw a very, very hard line with their and don't believe that you should use raw unmitigated sensitive data to train AI because there's just a lot of risks, privacy violation, you know, lack of consent in there. But that being said, there are ways to use data to get insights and predictions from it that that data should be scrubbed and messed. You can still use AI for like high leverage tasks like prediction, like people using AI to predict churn behavior, predict who's most likely to make another purchase. You can use it for optimization, better signals to your platforms, personalization, right, like better user experiences on your website, you know, recommending certain products. But the goal is you can still get the benefits of AI for your marketing. So like better insights, better performance without ever putting a user's privacy at risk. My biggest thing is don't train AI on raw sensitive data. The insights are what matters, not like the private details that you're giving on the consumer. So like thinking about things like de identified data using Differential privacy, which is a unique technique to look at your data. Synthetic data generation. Right. So you can still get the benefits of your data without, you know, kind of giving them a little too much
- [27:16]
B
on your users, obviously. Artificial intelligence, such a big topic. I know you have a ton to say there, Liz, but we'll have to save it for a future conversation. I want to ask you about your vision for the future, looking ahead at the next 12 months. You know, there's been so much going on, like you already mentioned, with Chrome's deprecation and the pace of that deprecation, more and more state privacy laws and these evolving sensitive categories. What should marketing leaders budget for now so they're not rebuilding again next summer?
- [27:44]
C
This is a really good question. And I think we live in this time now where there's almost a diffusion of responsibility when it comes to what's going on in privacy or, you know, reactiveness to what's going on or, you know, patchwork. And I'm really biased because of what I do. But like, my answer is really simple in terms of what marketing leaders should invest in and that's building a strong future proof data foundation and collection, not temporary patches. And the reason being is we're going to consistently see change. Chrome depreciates cookies. What we see now is someone's trying to find a temporary workaround or a new state law comes out. What we see now is people just add another layer of consent to their banner. Like this is a losing game because Chrome's going to continue to focus on privacy, more states are going to continue rolling out their own laws and platforms are going to constantly change their rules. So basically, if you follow the patchwork or you follow this like, you know, diffusion, you know, strategy, you're going to be building your stack every single summer and that's slow, that is expensive and that's a really big liability. And so like, for me, like, I think the smart move for marketing leaders is to invest in infrastructure that captures and protects first party data in a durable way. Because first party data is gold, will continue to be gold. If you're doing that, like when your data signals are clean, they're compliant, they're portable, you can plug them into whatever comes next without worrying whether it's AI, retail media, ctv, whatever's next in terms of what we're going to be working with, you're going to be ready for it and you're not going to have to rip up your entire system every time you want to invest in something different or in something new. So like investing in that privacy safe foundation. You're ready for whatever Chrome throws at you. Congress, California because your foundation is sound. Everything you do is being executed off of your own data that makes sense and so it's a one time investment that future proofs your strategy for your entire marketing operation. Like so, having that strong foundation without the gaps, without the leaks is what brands should be investing in to preserve them as things continue to change, because they will.
- [29:48]
B
It does sometimes feel shocking how often people are putting scotch tape on the holes of their boat to this day. But I think that the level of concerted effort that you're making and other people who are deeply motivated in being pioneers for both addressability and privacy are going to really motivate advertisers and people in the ad tech space to show up differently. So this hopefully is the beginning of more future meaningful conversations and I appreciate the time today.
- [30:14]
C
Liz, thank you so much for having me. I love it and this is great. I'm really glad to have this opportunity
- [30:20]
A
that wraps up today's conversation with Liz Emery, co founder of Viber, on the challenges surrounding consent and compliance for an increasingly privacy centered world for marketers and consumers consumers alike. If you like AdTech Unfiltered, please subscribe to our show on the podcasting app of your choice. I'm Noor Nassir. Another episode coming out soon.