A not-so-cookieless world is here - here's what it means for marketers

Here, Kurt Weinsheimer, chief product officer at Sojern, breaks down Google’s decision not to deprecate third-party cookies – and what marketers should do about it.

Cookies, cookies, cookies. If you’re a marketer who reads the news (which is all of us, undoubtedly), no doubt you’ve been busy contingency planning since Google announced that it was deprecating third-party cookies in Chrome. Since the initial announcement in 2020, we’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting for the third-party cookie deprecation apocalypse to hit. And then it didn’t. So now what?

Let’s talk about why Google opted to shelve its plan to deprecate third-party cookies and what marketers should do about it.

So what happened?

On July 22nd, Google announced that it no longer planned to deprecate third-party cookies in Chrome – and many marketers breathed a collective sigh of relief. While removing the hard-and-fast deadline certainly gives us more time to find better ways to target potential customers, we all have one burning question: Why did Google change its mind?

First, during Google’s cookieless tests, monetization was down and advertisers were getting less fidelity. Second, moving away from third-party cookies wasn’t going to stop data collection; it was going to shift control of that data from third parties to Google. This wasn’t a great move for protecting consumer privacy. While Google’s decision was definitely frustrating – especially for those of us who have spent years preparing – it was the right thing to do.

The reality of third-party cookies

In the marketing world, we’ve talked about moving away from cookies for years–well before Google’s initial announcement. Google simply gave us a hard stop date. Why? Because ultimately consumers don’t like, nor completely understand, cookie tracking. Right now, 67% of US adults turn off cookies or website tracking, and it’s because 68% of them worry about the amount of data companies collect.

But there’s a catch: 71% of consumers expect personalization. And therein lies the problem.

Third-party cookies don’t optimize permission based personalization; they’re just a tracking device. Now, to give consumers the personalization they want (in an opt-in manner they will give consent to), we have to find another way. Cookies will still have their place in an integrated campaign, but we simply can’t rely on them to meet consumer expectations and reach our own goals.

What now?

We’ve come a long way in the past four years expanding cookieless channels like search, metasearch, email and text as well as expanding opt-in ID graphs–and we shouldn’t stop now. There’s no going back to a cookie-centric world, so we have to push forward and capitalize on how far our data and targeting strategies have come. Customer expectations will continue to change when it comes to privacy and how we use their data, which means we must continue to focus on first-party data and building opt-in relationships.

By focusing on expanding multi-ID strategies that include first-party opt-in channels, we can continue to reach potential customers without cookies–and with increased accuracy. The information we collect, such as phone numbers, email addresses, physical addresses, and more, not only helps us create first-party profiles of our customers, this information allows our technology partners to connect online IDs. This is what ultimately enables us to reach potential customers with ads that resonate across all channels. While third-party cookies can play a supporting role in these types of campaigns, they’re only valuable when tied to the other online IDs that have more fidelity.

Beyond creating more robust data collection strategies, we must also ensure our underlying infrastructure can move at the speed of consumer expectations. Cloud-based martech tools allow us to integrate CRM, mobile, and other customer experience tools in the cloud, giving us access to real-time insights that allow us to shift and adapt to what customers want now.

The world is no longer going cookieless overnight, but it will be cookieless eventually. By staying the course and continuing to focus on building authentic relationships with customers via permission-friendly ways, we can create a world that offers more personalization–and fewer cookies.