Digital ad measurement as we know it isn’t built to last. The truth is, relying on one-to-one identifiers has always been a house built on a foundation of sand, but that foundation has now been completely eroded by the tide of privacy protection. This deterioration began years ago as major browsers started blocking third-party cookies, and continues today as mobile device makers end the ability to collect app IDs.

In a last-ditch effort to prop up the use of one-to-one identifiers, many have turned to using hashed emails. But the writing is already on the wall for this approach, too. For starters, the coverage is extremely low — only about 10% of web traffic is logged in, often on publishers without the technology to share hashed emails, leaving 90% of traffic completely unidentifiable. The death knell, though, sounded when Apple announced it would no longer allow hashed email sharing by iOS mobile app publishers, when users have objected to tracking, will violate its privacy policy beginning early next year.

An honest look at the landscape leaves little room for debate: The question facing us now is not how to prop up the existing edifice, but on what firm foundation we should build for the future. Upwave has charted a new course that integrates rigorous statistical methodologies from medical trials with privacy-safe, household-level tracking to deliver reliable lift measurement and targeting verification without the limitations of one-to-one identifiers.