What are marketers prioritizing as Google starts to crumble the third-party cookie?
Google kicked off the year with a signal that, yes, the third-party cookie is actually going away by starting to disable third-party cookies for 1% of Chrome users on Jan. 4. While questions — many of them — about what happens next remain, it’s clear that Google is no longer kicking the can down the road.
Marketers have already been working over the last two to three years to prepare for the long-awaited death of the third-party cookie. Even so, the readiness of the industry for said exit isn’t as certain as some would hope. How prepared a marketer is to manage this shift will vary. Trends of the last few years including a push for more full funnel marketing efforts, a recognition of the importance of owned channels vs. paid as well as a need to amp up loyalty programs to continue to collect first-party data will continue in the coming months.
“This whole cookie going away thing is a great opportunity for us to get away from the parts of performance marketing that have actually just been kind of gaming attribution models vs. looking at what is actually growing the business,” said Ed McElvain head of performance, Mediahub. “What our clients really care about is driving more sales, getting more people to tune into their TV shows, getting more tickets, etc.”
“As marketers, our jobs are so much harder because you really do have to have a full marketing mix of a variety of different activation partners or otherwise you’re not gonna be able to reach the people that you’re most inclined to reach,” said Dan Perez, svp at Epsilon. “So that’s really where we’re spending our time. It’s helping educate, kind of break down the fear and then really talking about the metrics we think are important.”
By the numbers
It’s been a long time coming, but the countdown to Google’s third-party cookie apocalypse has finally begun, sending digital advertising into an uncertain future. Whether the ad industry as a whole is prepared for said apocalypse is up for debate, at least according to Digiday’s recent reporting. So how is the industry coping? The potential use of alternative tracking technologies, according to survey findings from digital marketing agency Adtaxi’s 2024 Privacy Survey, is one way. See key details below:
- In the event of data privacy regulations limiting information gathering, a significant majority (74%) of data privacy professionals intend to augment their dependence on customer relations management programs.
- While a significant majority of respondents (66%) are actively pursuing or planning changes to incorporate AI in their privacy policies, 38% express a desire to make adjustments, although they are not presently in the planning stages.
- 89% of online users pay attention to the collection of their personal data, preferring pre-purchase notices over digging through terms and conditions. — Kimeko McCoy
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