• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, April 21, 2022

Neutronian announced on Thursday that ID5 became the first marketing identity platform to receive certification.

Certified by Neutronian acknowledges that ID5 Identity Cloud solution meets or exceeds industry standards for data quality. 

The third-party certification ensures marketers that the identity data provider has established benchmarks for compliance, methods, and performance. 

Mathieu Roche, CEO of ID5, believes the certification tells clients and partners that the company has a commitment to high-quality, transparent data.

Marketing identity platforms provide a crucial and highly sensitive form of data around consumers, such as the advertising IDs that are tied to user emails and devices, and are designed to target consumers across sites and devices, according to Timur Yarnall, Neutronian CEO and co-founder.

“One could argue that this type of data is even more sensitive than location data, so it's vital that providers of these identity solutions hold themselves to high, transparent standards, as well as show they are willing to be independently audited by a third party,” Yarnell said. “ID5 is setting an example that Trade Desk, Google, Facebook, and others should follow.”

Neutronian also announced the release of its first NQI Transparency Ratings report, a ranking of 250 data providers that sell audience segments to marketers through data marketplaces such as LiveRamp, Trade Desk, or Oracle. 

This ranking is based off a review of publicly available data and gives marketers a summary of potential high- or low-quality indicators that may guide purchase decisions before spending budgets to test the data.

The methodology -- initially announced in December 2021 in beta -- has been updated to include additional requirements such as enhanced scoring of privacy policies and consents, feedback from ecosystem partners that responded to the public beta, and scoring of first-party brands to compare their transparency and quality to other data providers.

The list, for the first time, also includes retail rewards programs from companies such as Kroger, Starbucks, REI, AutoZone, and Office Depot to measure the ease with which consumers may give consent or opt-out of these programs.  

For example, with Kroger purchase data now available for sale within private data exchanges, it may be compared with other data sources for compliance and transparency.   

Brands such as AutoZone, DSW, REI, Great Clips, and Kroger scored below industry average in the Consent and Compliance section of Neutronian’s methodology, while Albertsons, Reebook, and Starbucks scored well above average. Office Depot was the top scoring brand overall, followed by Albertsons and Rite Aid.

Neutronian locates and scores privacy and cookie policies, as well as consent mechanisms such as sign-up and opt-in, opt-out, do not sell, and any other items that can be located related to public publishing methods, Yarnell said.

Other considerations include security standards, certifications and, “as part of our methodology, we score the organization and ease-of-use of these policies,” he said, pointing to Eyeota as a good example.

When asked how these measurements and scores can help brands that want to sell data, Yarnell said that measuring the “transparency of data policies and consumer data use helps Kroger, Starbucks, and other leading brands by establishing trusted benchmarks that shows they have met and exceeded, not only data privacy regulatory requirements, but make the necessary elements clear and accessible to consumers and business partners.”