27/09/2023, 14:28 The Business Case for IPv6: Crossing the IPv6 Chasm - American Registry for Internet

n Registry for Internet Numbers

14 September 2023

The Business Case for IPv6: Crossing

the IPv6 Chasm
By E. Marie Brierley – Founder and President, Saatvik Advisors; Founder and Director, Saatvik Research

This is the third post in our Business Case for IPv6 series. Read the first and second post here.

The maturity of a technology can be evaluated in multiple ways. Can it perform the task(s) it was
designed to do? Can it integrate sufficiently with adjacent technologies? Is it manageable? IPv6
arguably has long proven itself as a mature technology by these measures. Deployment by many
organizations over the past decade has demonstrated that IPv6 can be trusted to do its job at scale.
Given these conditions, why the transition delay in enterprises? Multiple reasons and circumstances
exist, but, in this blog post, I’ll focus on making the business case for enterprises — which don’t
build or sell Internet products and services, but instead use the Internet as a critical enabler.

The Case for a Pivot

The message was clear for companies that build and sell Internet products and services: IPv6
transition was critical to their business models. The enterprise case is a more complex one to make.
Chief Information Officers (CIOs) for enterprises in industries that leverage the Internet as a key,
enabling technology but don’t necessarily build and sell Internet products and services are already
struggling with tightening budgets and an endless list of competing priorities. Adding an IPv6

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transition initiative when IP addressing isn’t visibly “broken” isn’t a project that’s likely to be
prioritized or sponsored.

We’ve hit a chasm between the manufacturers of Internet products and services and the enterprises
in most other industries, making it time to pivot our audience and our message for selling the
business case for IPv6. “Crossing the Chasm” by Geoffrey A. Moore, a playbook for identifying and
defining strategies for crossing the marketing chasm for technical products, provides a good
jumping off point. While IPv6 is not a technical product per se, there are parallels we can leverage
in order to move the IPv6 adoption needle.

Critical to building momentum for enterprises is translating IPv6 deployment from a strictly
technology-based consideration governed by network infrastructure decision makers to a strategic
business consideration in partnership with domains impacted by IPv4 scarcity. In the time of World
IPv6 Day and Launch in 2011 and 2012, CIOs in the Internet service and product industries could
initiate and secure sponsorship for IPv6 transition efforts on their own. For the enterprises we now
need to convince, obtaining prioritization and sponsorship takes a corporate village.

Building that corporate village starts with communicating how an IP address delivers abstracted
value: the functional areas to which it delivers value, how that value is delivered, and, most critically,
the quantification of that value.

Decision Makers
The enterprise industries we need to motivate make decisions very differently than companies who
offer Internet services and products as a core part of their product portfolios. There are more
decision makers across multiple sectors to convince, from finance and retail to transportation,
health care, manufacturing, etc. Despite the challenges of never-ending priorities and constrained
budgets, IT has many opportunities for strengthening critical partnerships with decision makers
who can be persuaded that there is sufficient value in the IPv6 transition to prioritize and sponsor
the effort.

The entire C-suite is fair game, but I focus on Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs). Marketing is often
an area with substantial budget, influential decision makers and potential sponsors, and an
eagerness to evaluate incremental improvements to the return on investment of their very
expensive digital campaigns. Marketing professionals tend to be tech-friendly and have existing
close partnerships with IT.

Messaging
The IPv6 business case messaging of a more secure, accurate, and scalable Internet remains the
same, but it needs slightly different packaging in order to motivate these enterprise decision
makers to take action. Nothing will cause the eyes of a non-technical business decision maker to
glaze over faster than a nuanced technical discussion. On the contrary, presenting an opportunity
for improving key economic factors gets their attention. Ultimately, this discussion comes down to
communicating the abstracted values IPv6 can incrementally improve. Gaining a deeper
understanding of the abstracted value of an IP address through marketing applications can be the
path to convincing a broader audience of decision makers and sponsors.

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E-commerce Everywhere
E-commerce is a revenue generation channel leveraged by most industries. Two key performance
indicators for e-commerce are the cart abandonment and cart conversion rates. Cart abandonment
measures how often consumers initiate a purchase but abandon their carts before the purchase is
completed. Cart conversion measures how many clicks progress successfully into a completed
transaction, thereby converted into revenue. To have the IPv6 transition conversation with CMOs,
we need to know:

1. How page load times impact cart abandonment,

2. How accurate geolocation impacts conversion rates, and
3. How the abstracted value of IPv6, digested into marketing applications, can facilitate reduction
of cart abandonment and increase in cart conversion.

Marketing teams invest an enormous amount to refine and measure their activities. And while IPv6
doesn’t directly generate revenue, it can be a facilitator. Two key characteristics of IPv6 are
performance and more accurate geolocation, which can be leveraged for positive impact on
revenue generation through reduced cart abandonment and increased cart conversion.

Consumers are addicted to speed. The faster technology goes, the faster we want it to go.
According to Portent, page load time has a significant impact on cart abandonment  , meaning
page loads are a critical element of cart conversion.

Fragmented packets and NAT for IPv4 have been identified as potential contributors for
performance degradation, as RIPE Specialist Erik Bais explains for Prefix Broker  .

Geolocation
Conversion rates for e-commerce in the U.S. are low to begin with, and, according to Statista’s
report for the second quarter of 2022  , they continued to drop from 2.6% to 2.3% year-over-
year. With such a low conversion rate as the “gold standard,” gains are measured incrementally.
MaxMind’s GeoIP2 City Accuracy report for the U.S.  indicates a 7% increase in correctly resolved
geolocations when IPv4 addresses are excluded. This difference is significant, and the impact on
revenue can be measured by marketing teams, which rely on accurate geolocation as a critical
element of targeting their digital campaigns.

For example, I’m in Reno, Nevada, and frequently get geolocated to Seattle, Los Angeles, and
Kansas. There are not many similarities between the demographic profiles of these locations, thus
decreasing return on investment (ROI) for any campaigns dependent on this information. The
features identified in Geo Targetly’s post “25 Simple Ways To Boost Website Conversion Rate Using
Geo Targeting  ” are far less likely to be successful without IPv6.

IPv6 Influencing
Akamai has done us a favor by submitting their 2023 marketing technology (martech) stack for
consideration for a Stackie award   .

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In it we can see the applications that ingest and measure the value of an IP address, and I’ve
created an IPv6 inventory of Akamai’s martech applications:

Application: Drift

IPv6 Support: No

URL: https://www.drift.com 

App Description: Chat

Application: Adobe AEM

IPv6 Support: Yes

URL: https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/experience-manager-65/deploying/introduction/technical-
requirements.html?lang=en 

App Description: Website

Application: Adobe Launch

IPv6 Support: Yes

URL: https://business.adobe.com/products/experience-platform/launch.html 

App Description: Tag management

Application: Adobe Target

IPv6 Support: Yes

URL: https://business.adobe.com/products/target/adobe-target.html 

App Description: Testing, personalization, automation

Application: Siteimprove

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IPv6 Support: No

URL: https://www.siteimprove.com/ 

App Description: Web analytics

Application: SwiftType

IPv6 Support: No

URL: https://swiftype.com/ 

App Description: Search

Application: ClearScope

IPv6 Support: No

URL: https://www.clearscope.io/ 

App Description: SEO

Application: BrightEdge

IPv6 Support: No

URL: https://www.brightedge.com/ 

App Description: SEO

Application: Semrush

IPv6 Support: No

URL: https://www.semrush.com/ 

App Description: SEO

Application: SDL* (RWS)

IPv6 Support: No

URL: https://www.rws.com/ 

App Description: Localization

Application: Google Ads

IPv6 Support: Yes

URL: https://ads.google.com/ 

App Description: Advertising

Application: Adobe Advertising Cloud

IPv6 Support: Yes

URL: https://helpx.adobe.com/legal/product-descriptions/adobe-advertising-cloud.html 

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App Description: Advertising

Application: LinkedIn Campaign Manager

IPv6 Support: Yes

URL: https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/ 

App Description: Advertising

Application: Hootsuite

IPv6 Support: No

URL: https://www.hootsuite.com/ 

App Description: Social Media Management

Application: Talkwalker

IPv6 Support: No

URL: https://www.talkwalker.com/ 

App Description: Consumer Intelligence

Application: Firstup

IPv6 Support: No

URL: https://firstup.io/ 

Application: Brightcove

IPv6 Support: No

URL: https://www.brightcove.com/ 

App Description: Streaming

Application: Rainfocus

IPv6 Support: No

URL: https://rainfocus.com/ 

App Description: Online Event Management

Application: Socialive

IPv6 Support: No

URL: https://socialive.us/ 

App Description: Live streaming

Application: Jifflenow

IPv6 Support: No

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URL: https://www.jifflenow.com/ 

App Description: Meeting automation

Application: Brighttalk

IPv6 Support: No

URL: https://www.brighttalk.com/ 

App Description: Webcast

Application: On24

IPv6 Support: No

URL: https://www.on24.com/ 

App Description: Virtual Conference

Application: Pigeonhole

IPv6 Support: No

URL: https://pigeonholelive.com/ 

App Description: Interactive audience

Application: TechTarget

IPv6 Support: No

URL: https://www.techtarget.com/ 

App Description: Targeted content management

Application: LinkedIn Sales Navigator

IPv6 Support: Yes

URL: https://business.linkedin.com/sales-solutions/ 

App Description: Sales platform

Application: Zoominfo

IPv6 Support: No

URL: https://www.zoominfo.com/ 

App Description: GTM Automation

Application: Cognism

IPv6 Support: No

URL: https://www.cognism.com/ 

App Description: Lead generation

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Application: Builtwith

IPv6 Support: No

URL: https://trends.builtwith.com/ 

App Description: Web Usage Statistics

Application: Salesloft

IPv6 Support: Yes

URL: https://help.salesloft.com/ 

App Description: Sales engagement

Application: Intricately

IPv6 Support: No

URL: https://www.intricately.com/ 

App Description: GTM Intelligence

Application: 6Sense

IPv6 Support: No

URL: https://6sense.com/ 

App Description: Account Based Marketing

Application: Folloze

IPv6 Support: No

URL: https://www.folloze.com 

App Description: Account Based Marketing

Application: Marketo

IPv6 Support: Yes

URL: https://business.adobe.com/products/marketo/adobe-marketo.html 

App Description: Marketing Automation

Application: Salesforce CRM

IPv6 Support: Yes

URL: https://www.salesforce.com/ 

App Description: Customer Relationship Management

Application: Lytics

IPv6 Support: No

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URL: https://www.lytics.com/ 

App Description: Customer Data Platform

Application: Adobe Analytics

IPv6 Support: Yes

URL: https://business.adobe.com/products/analytics/adobe-analytics.html 

App Description: Analytics

Application: Tableau

IPv6 Support: Yes

URL: https://www.tableau.com/ 

App Description: Visual Analytics

Application: RStudio

IPv6 Support: Yes

URL: https://posit.co/ 

App Description: Statistical programming language

Application: Crayon

IPv6 Support: No

URL: https://www.crayon.co/ 

App Description: Competitive Intelligence

Application: Integrate

IPv6 Support: No

URL: https://www.integrate.com/ 

App Description: Demand channels integration

Application: LeanData

IPv6 Support: No

URL: https://www.leandata.com/ 

App Description: Lead Management

Today’s results are discouraging. However, this provides a direct path to identifying opportunities
for influencing marketers and their tech vendors. The good news is that marketing has begun
buzzing about IPv6, as in this article from Ad Tech Explained  .

The value of network effect of IPv6 on non-Internet industries can be an accelerator for the
transition. We don’t need to boil the enterprise ocean. We can be successful by convincing just one

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enterprise influential in its sphere to take the lead. It will then adjust the many business levers at its
disposal to convince its supply chains and customers to follow suit. Marketing is a natural fit for
building momentum through network effect.

IPv6 Is Ready; Is Business?

Change is difficult, and change on the scale of the IPv6 transition is proving to be more challenging
than many technical transitions we have successfully completed up to this point. Convincing the
corporate village is critical, and it is dependent on reaching the strategic decision makers. Making
incremental, yet strong, revenue arguments can go far in getting enterprise IPv6 transition over the
hump of inertia.

We have the data to calculate the value IPv6 offers to enterprise financials and make the argument,
but the challenges before us are:

1. Increasing visibility in the greater C-suite audience, and

2. Reliably quantifying the incremental improvement to revenue.

There will not be a single driver for IPv6 transition, and the argument for the non-Internet
industries must be specific to enterprise business models. IPv6 has proven itself ready for business;
let’s shift our targeted audience and messaging to get business ready for IPv6.

Post written by:

E. Marie Brierley
Founder and President, Saatvik Advisors; Founder and Director, Saatvik Research

E. Marie Brierley is the Founder and President of Saatvik Research, a research firm specializing in
researching the global transition to IPv6 for enterprises. She holds an MBA from Santa Clara University.

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She led the IPv6 transition of cisco.com, enabling $40 billion of Cisco’s annual run rate. She has
contributed in multiple technical roles as database programmer and architect and UNIX system
administrator for Qualcomm, Cisco, BayNetworks, Altera and Gigamon. She is a tech speaker and writer
and is a selected Fellow for the ARIN 52 Fellowship Program.

Read E. Marie’s reports on the Saatvik Research project funded by the ARIN Community Grant Program,
“Building an Integrated Database for the Future of IPv6”: 2021 Grant Project Report and 2022 Grant
Project Report.

Any views, positions, statements, or opinions of a guest blog post are those of the author alone and do not represent those of
ARIN. ARIN does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or validity of any claims or statements, nor shall ARIN be liable
for any representations, omissions, or errors contained in a guest blog post.

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