SAN FRANCISCO– Data is more relevant than ever, and clients and partners are becoming more educated about it. Because of this, they’re able to ideate much more effectively. In an interview with Beet.TV’s Jon Watts, John Baudino, gvp of publisher and platform partnerships for Acxiom, explains that as the ecosystem changes, by sticking with the roots of people-based marketing and ethical data sourcing and management, companies can stay ahead of the curve of privacy and legislation.

At the foundation of the response to a cookie-less future, consent and PII data are going to be important.

“You see some of the acquisitions happening where publishers are acquiring the programmatic platforms, the ad tech platforms, so they can have the full stack, and they can manage the people and the consent that they get on there,” Baudino says.

This will be important because these publishers are going to need to own it and know what regulations are coming next. Being proactive in this sense will make things like fragmentation within the industry less of a pressing issue. Being reactive to it, however, will make fragmentation harder to handle.

“You have to have that awareness and a plan for each market and what they’re going to do and be able to operate at data levels that fit each of those markets.” Baudino said. “As long as you have privacy as your foundation and how you build your data and your products and your capabilities, then you should be prepared to handle all situations.”

As far as growth opportunities for the next few years, Baudino believes that connecting digital data in the core marketing and connecting those two worlds together, using anonymous and known data, and connecting the insights that can be learned on both of those can help companies to more effectively market. Lastly, being able to do all of this globally will be a huge advantage.

“In the global markets, they’re going to accelerate their desire to be people-based, and you have to help educate them and understand what’s the investment and be able to give them a good, better, best approach, and consult.” Baudino said. “That’s what we’re finding—there’s a lot of consulting education still happening in the market, and if you’re willing to put in that effort, then you’re going to really support those brands and those platforms that want to listen.”

This video is part of  Beet.TV’s coverage  of  RampUp, LiveRamp’s summit for marketing technology in San Francisco.  This series is co-sponsored by LiveRamp and ZEFR.