For years, digital marketing teams have turned to cookies to better analyze user behavior. However, letting marketers and advertisers watch their online activities via third-party cookies has proven contentious for many website users, raising concerns about consumer privacy.
Google plans to discontinue supporting third-party cookies on its Web browser by the end of 2023, ultimately putting an end to two decades of media- and data-driven performance-focused advertising. Marketing executives and their teams must brace for a world without cookies by focusing on consent-based advertising.
To better prepare for the changes that a cookie-free future will bring, marketing leaders must follow the below-mentioned approaches.
Using a ‘value exchange,’ gather first-party data
First-party data is now more critical than ever in a cookie-less environment. Customers can be incentivized to give data in return for value by brands through a “value exchange.” Customers feel identified when they receive more specific personalization, such as one-to-one communications or customized offers, which encourages loyalty and empathy. As a result, revenue, client lifetime value (CLV), and repeat purchases all increase.
Reanalyze ad measurement practices
Cookie obsolescence would exacerbate current digital ad measurement difficulties, such as transparency and interoperability standards, as well as attribution accuracy while rendering others obsolete. Reset measurement baselines, engage in market research, and lock in essential resources, from agency employees to publisher-direct deals, to prepare for an era of advertising innovation.
Also Read: Bridging the Data and Analytics Skill Gap in Marketing
Prioritize consent when accumulating customer data
Utilize first-party data to provide a more tailored user experience and to forecast future behavioral patterns. During checkout, an e-commerce site might request that the customer’s data, such as name, email address, and referring channel, be collected. Customers consent to this information being shared, and marketers have legitimately obtained important first-party data.
Codify the brand
Activity like cross-platform frequency capping becomes difficult without third-party cookies. These caps not only remove wastage but also improve the user experience. However, while they were able to eliminate a negative experience, they were unable to improve or define the brand.
There’s a risk that when brand experiences are determined by the algorithms that regulate them, the end product will be bland, optimized, and reductive. Brands should think about how they act in relevance-driven communications when building for a post-cookie future.
How much and how often do brands like to target, and how obviously relevant do they want their targeting to be? A premium company is unlikely to want to be associated with the same frequent and open usage of data as an e-commerce expert.
Also Read: Three Reasons Why Marketing Attribution is Essential for Marketers in 2022
Use a single web domain name to do business
Using unified first-party data management and availability, it’s easy to follow customers’ authorized and persistent IDs across their online experience. Customers may be recognized across the web and mobile as they log in, allowing marketers to view them without duplication. Marketers receive a holistic perspective of their consumers as they connect with the brand, as well as a better knowledge of possible cross-sell/up-sell possibilities that would otherwise be hidden in a siloed, multi-domain setting.
Larger companies may construct multi-domains based on location or company diversity, for example, which adds to the complexity, especially when marketers can no longer track activity across websites using cookies. One of the few methods that address how data can be gathered in a cookie-less environment is to enable the usage of a persistent ID that can be used across different domains and loaded from one website to another. On the back end, data gathering can be leveraged to help address this multi-domain use case and identify consumers.
For more such updates follow us on Google News TalkCMO News.
