LiveRamp, the data collaboration platform, has long been navigating the choppy waters of a cookieless future in digital advertising. But amidst the industry's nervous anticipation for Google's looming cookie deprecation, something fascinating is happening at LiveRamp – a quiet revolution powered by artificial intelligence that's setting the stage for a potential double-digit growth explosion.

While analysts have been keenly dissecting LiveRamp's Q4 and full-year performance [Reference: LiveRamp Q4 Earnings Call], a significant detail has seemingly flown under the radar: the strategic role AI is playing, both internally within LiveRamp and externally within the larger ecosystem of LiveRamp's customers. This isn't just about incremental efficiency improvements. This is about AI becoming LiveRamp's secret weapon, poised to unlock unprecedented value for the company and its customers.

Internally, LiveRamp is leveraging AI in ways that are already driving significant productivity gains. Software developers are utilizing AI tools to write code more quickly, and an AI-powered assistant is streamlining information retrieval for LiveRampers. These internal AI initiatives are enhancing efficiency across the organization, freeing up resources for accelerated innovation and customer-centric efforts.

But the real game-changer is how LiveRamp is positioning its data collaboration platform to power the AI initiatives of its customers. As Scott Howe, LiveRamp's CEO, articulated in the Q4 earnings call [Reference: LiveRamp Q4 Earnings Call], the company is acutely aware of the critical role data plays in the burgeoning field of AI. LiveRamp's data collaboration and enrichment products, combined with its vast connected partner ecosystem, are the foundation for helping brand marketers gather, organize, and enrich their customer data – the very fuel that powers AI models.

Here's where things get truly exciting. LiveRamp's platform isn't just helping brands accumulate data. It's enabling them to transform generalized AI models into proprietary models that produce brand-specific predictive customer insights. Imagine the possibilities – optimized segmentation, uncovering hidden customer interests, pinpointing propensities and affinities. These AI-powered insights, fueled by LiveRamp's platform, will empower brand marketers to deliver hyper-personalized marketing experiences more effectively and efficiently.

LiveRamp's $1 Million-Plus Customer Cohort Growth

LiveRamp reported an impressive 10% increase in its $1 million-plus customer cohort, reaching a record high of 115 in Q4. These are the sophisticated, data-savvy brands that understand the transformative potential of AI. As LiveRamp empowers these brands to leverage their data for AI initiatives, it's reasonable to hypothesize a substantial increase in customer adoption and usage. [Reference: LiveRamp Q4 Earnings Call]

PAIR: Powering Performance with Authenticated Data

Consider the impact of PAIR (Publisher Advertiser Identity Reconciliation), Google's answer to cookie deprecation within its dominant demand-side platform, DV360. As the IAB case study with Omni Hotels & Resorts demonstrated [Reference: IAB Case Study with Omni Hotels & Resorts], PAIR campaigns delivered a staggering 4x increase in conversion rate over traditional cookie-based targeting. This underscores the superior performance of authenticated first-party data, the very data that LiveRamp's platform excels in facilitating.

LiveRamp's strategic alignment with Google's PAIR initiative further amplifies the potential of AI-driven growth. With the cookie deprecation timeline extended until early 2025, LiveRamp has additional time to educate and evangelize the industry on PAIR's benefits. As more advertisers embrace PAIR, LiveRamp's platform, uniquely positioned as a primary PAIR partner, stands to benefit significantly through both increased usage from existing customers and a surge in new logo opportunities.

The potential is immense. Imagine a scenario where LiveRamp's AI-powered platform enables a significant portion of its 115 $1 million-plus customers to unlock 4x improvements in conversion rates. The resulting increase in customer satisfaction, retention, and upsell opportunities could propel LiveRamp's growth beyond its current projections.

While LiveRamp's guidance for FY 2025 projects high single-digit subscription revenue growth, the company acknowledges that it has taken a conservative approach, particularly regarding the potential impact of PAIR. If LiveRamp's AI initiatives continue to gain traction and drive customer adoption, a double-digit growth surge isn't just possible, it's highly probable.

LiveRamp's quiet AI revolution is happening beneath the surface, largely unnoticed by the wider market. But for those who recognize the seismic shift AI is creating within digital advertising, LiveRamp's strategic positioning as a data collaboration platform combined with its AI-powered customer data enrichment capabilities, reveals a compelling narrative – a story of a company quietly building its secret weapon, poised to unleash a double-digit growth explosion in the cookieless future of digital advertising.

"Fun Facts"

LiveRamp powers over 75% of the Comscore top 100 publishers. [Reference: LiveRamp Q4 Earnings Call]

The global data collaboration market size is expected to reach $4.3 billion by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 25.7%. [Reference: Grand View Research]