Welcome to Ad Age Datacenter Weekly, our data-obsessed newsletter for marketing and media professionals.

Nielsen plans to offshore ‘much of its workforce’

“Nielsen will ramp up offshoring to India, Mexico, Poland and elsewhere in a move likely to result in more layoffs as new contracts with U.S. TV networks lower revenue for the heavily indebted measurement giant,” Ad Age’s Jack Neff reports. “Nielsen has been working for months with McKinsey & Co., according to people familiar with the matter, to develop a plan for offshoring much of its workforce.”

The details: “While Nielsen appears to be staving off its biggest competitive threat in decades, the company is taking its lumps in a grinding war of attrition,” Neff notes. “The offshoring effort follows a 9% workforce reduction for Nielsen in September.”

Essential context: “The measurement industry, like much of media and ad tech, has been seeing waves of layoffs,” Neff adds. “Rival VideoAmp announced a 20% layoff and management shakeup earlier this month following a 10% layoff in September.”

Keep reading here.

Also: Media measurement uncertainty—tracking TV, social and digital

Email marketing, social media and consumer data-sharing trends revealed

Relationship marketing company Marigold is out with its 2024 Global Consumer Trends Index, a study based on a global survey of consumers from September through November 2023 conducted in partnership with Econsultancy. Key findings shared first with Datacenter Weekly:

• Consumers want to be rewarded for giving up their data. “When it comes to sharing their data in exchange for something, a majority of consumers find value in discounts/coupons (91%), loyalty points/rewards (89%), early/exclusive access to offers (83%), a chance to win something (81%), unlocking content (60%) and brand community (55%),” according to the Marigold study.

• Consumers say they’re souring on social media. “Notably, 63% of consumers don’t trust the advertising they see on social media and 55% of consumers are engaging with social media less for the sake of their mental health,” per Marigold.

• Email marketing drives sales. “Email is the most popular marketing channel when it comes to consumer purchases,” according to the Marigold study, “with half of consumers surveyed stating they have purchased an email offer in the last year, surpassing social media ads (48%), social posts (43%), SMS/MMS messages (24%) and banner advertisements (21%).”

• Personalization matters. “An overwhelming majority of consumers say their favorite brand treats them like an individual (85%), and strives to develop a relationship with them (82%),” per Marigold.

Macroeconomic news and data in a nutshell

• “U.S. economy booms with 3.3% growth in final quarter of 2023,” Axios reports

• “U.S. initial jobless claims up 25,000 to 214,000 in latest week,” per MarketWatch

• “Americans’ bank accounts are stabilizing after inflation shock,” The Washington Post reports

• “Zillow just raised its home price forecast, seeing a 3.7% jump in 2024, and it’s all because of ‘external factors,’” from Fortune

Also see: Layoffs and budget cuts—tracking economic moves and news

Could Google’s post-cookie test results be skewed by ad tech IDs?

“With testing of Google’s cookie-free ad platform underway on Chrome web browsers, some ad tech companies worry that rivals outside of the tests can still sneak their hands into the data cookie jar through alternative ad IDs,” Ad Age’s Garett Sloane reports.

The details: “The concern is coming from demand-side platforms, which are trying Google’s new data-restricting platform to serve ads through Chrome, while some ad tech players use other data sources—such as IP addresses—from outside Google’s box to buy ads, which could skew the tests,” Sloane notes. “Meanwhile, publishers are on the other side of the ad transaction, deploying ad IDs to maintain the value of their inventory on Chrome, offering diverging paths to the post-cookie web.”

Essential context: “The issue was raised by Lukasz Wlodarczyk, VP of programmatic ecosystem growth and innovation at RTB House, which is trying Google’s Privacy Sandbox, the post-cookie ad platform,” Sloane adds. “There is a debate about the cookieless future in internet advertising: Is the answer in Google’s sealed browser or IDs that still track IP addresses and similar web data? The IDs operate separately from Google’s Privacy Sandbox by sharing data between publishers and ad tech companies. Privacy Sandbox participants are restricted to the information that comes through the Chrome browser, which hides consumers behind encryption and within groups that can’t be traced to an individual.”

Keep reading here.

Pricier broadband services give Comcast a boost

“Comcast reported earnings and revenue that beat analysts’ estimates as broadband customers spent more on pricier services,” Bloomberg News reports (via Ad Age).

The details: “Revenue climbed 2.3% to $31.3 billion in the fourth quarter, the company said in a statement Thursday,” per Bloomberg. “Adjusted earnings per share rose 2.4% to 84 cents.”

Essential context: “The largest U.S. cable company and owner of Xfinity broadband business has been losing subscribers to telecom rivals that are deploying fast fiber connections and improved wireless offerings,” Bloomberg adds. “But those that stick to Comcast spent on average 3.9% more in the fourth quarter as they moved to more expensive higher-speed offerings.”

Keep reading here.

More news: Amazon Prime Video offers incentives for ad tier after lackluster initial demand

Just briefly

• “Data breaches and ID theft are still hitting records. Here’s how to protect yourself,” from USA Today

• “N.S.A. Buys Americans’ Internet Data Without Warrants, Letter Says,” The New York Times reports

• “iPhone Apps Secretly Harvest Data When They Send You Notifications, Researchers Find,” from Gizmodo

• “Facebook suffers big loss in lawsuit against data-scraping company,” Ars Technica reports

The newsletter is brought to you by Ad Age Datacenter, the industry’s most authoritative source of competitive intel and home to the Ad Age Leading National Advertisers, the Ad Age Agency Report: World’s Biggest Agency Companies and other exclusive data-driven reports. Access or subscribe to Ad Age Datacenter at AdAge.com/Datacenter.

Ad Age Datacenter is Kevin Brown, Bradley Johnson and Joy R. Lee.