Table of Contents
Overview
As the Identity landscape in AdTech continues to evolve, email addresses are emerging as a primary key for identity integrations across the board. One example to illustrate this is the prevalence of an email address as the primary key of many universal ID solutions, such as The Trade Desk's UID2.0, LiveIntent, ID5, and many others. As a result, buyers in the AdTech space have started to center their first-party Identity strategy around scaling their programs to collect or license email addresses. In response, Beeswax has added Hashed Email Addresses (HEMs) to the FreeWheel Identity Network. This solution offers a shortcut for clients to skip Personal Identifiable Information-based (PII) segment onboarding, and go straight to segment uploading and clean-room-based measurement. The FreeWheel Identity Network has a total of 399 Million distinct hashed emails at both the person and household levels. This page focuses on uploading Hashed Email Addresses into segments directly on Beeswax.
Use Cases
There are a number of use cases in which email-based audiences or identity data can unlock the value of data faster and cheaper than current available options. Currently, Beeswax offers a Segment Extension use case to upload email-based segments directly instead of relying on a traditional onboarder's time and cost requirements.
Instructions for Use
This feature is available for all Beeswax customers who have FreeWheel Identity Network enabled. Although Hashed Emails is a no-cost feature, FreeWheel Identity Network audience extension fees still apply. Please reach out to your Beeswax representative for more information.
- Ask your Beeswax representative to enable FreeWheel Identity Network.
- Ask your Beeswax representative to send you the FreeWheel Salt via email.
- You will then need to hash the emails with the following parameters:
- Upper case: Apply an upper case to the full email string ahead of hashing
- Encryption type: SHA-256
- Salt: Apply the 64-character string you received to the end of the input
- Once the emails are hashed, you can then follow the typical segment upload instructions.
- Once the segments have been uploaded into Beeswax, you can target the segments on the line item. Given HEMs do not come through on the bid request, you will need to apply FreeWheel Identity Network audience extension at either the campaign or line item level in order to deliver on the HEM segments.
- Please note, HEMs are not currently passed in log level data.
FAQs
What are HEMs?
- Hashed Email addresses are encrypted email addresses used for identifying and targeting users while maintaining consumer privacy. They are built from clear-text email addresses. They are used to enable personalized advertising without exposing raw email addresses.
How are HEMs tied into the FreeWheel Identity Network?
- The FreeWheel Identity Network is a PII-Anchored graph. One of those PII signals are email addresses. We have used the PII-Anchored core to create and add HEMs into the FreeWheel Identity Network.
Are there any restrictions on what type of Email Service Providers are supported?
- No, we support all service providers.
Is this available globally?
- This is currently only available in the US.
Can I filter QPS based on my HEM segments if I have my own Beeswax bidder?
- We can filter QPS on HEM segments using our Realtime User Filtering feature. Please reach out to your Customer Success Manager to set this up.
What is a Hash?
- A technical method to encrypt personal data while allowing for targeted advertising. It is one-way and secure, making it extremely difficult to reverse-engineer. This approach allows us to offer an email-based identity solution in an ethical and privacy-preserving manner.
Why SHA256?
- It is a part of the Secure Hash Algorithm 2 (SHA2) family of cryptographic hash functions known for its strong security and performance characteristics. It is widely trusted in various industries and was recommended by our partners in the FreeWheel and Comcast Information security departments.
What is a salt?
- A “salt” in the context of cryptography and data security is a random data string added to the end of an input before hashing. This technique enhances security by making common attacks less effective.
- For example, use SQL to apply the FW salt to the email address. Example below:
SELECT
SHA2(CONCAT(UPPER(email),'{FW SALT}'), 256) AS email_sha256
FROM customer_crm_data