With the end of third-party cookies in sight, the industry now looks at finding ways to build a more transparent, privacy-focused digital ecosystem.
The adoption of identity solutions have now matured and accelerated. New challenges have now come in the form of CCPA, GDPR, and most importantly, the final deprecation of third-party cookies. This is driving innovation among data and technology companies to replace their current cookie-centric models with new privacy-compliant approaches.
Google’s decision to phase out the usage of third-party cookies in Chrome within two years – following similar moves by Mozilla’s Firefox – has ushered in the new era of digital marketing.
There are challenges to navigate; marketers who rely on third-party cookies to create personalized and targeted ads will now have to reconsider the fundamental of their audience strategies. However, the industry now has a unique opportunity to embrace a better web and redraw the ecosystem around user experience.
Embracing Change
Businesses have caught on and are already looking for alternatives to create an identity strategy that will reach across a landscape with multiple channels and devices, including mobile, social, advanced TV, and beyond.
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With the number of changes taking place, businesses must keep pace, as failure to do so could result in grave business implications and impact on user experience. Most companies have already started putting in the work to diversify their identity footprint to create a more consumer-centric view. This is significantly less reliant on cookies and instead anchors on people and covers emails, device IDs, IP addresses, and more.
Impact on User Privacy
The industry is currently going through probably the highest disruption it has witnessed in a decade. It is entering this evolution wherein moving away from centralized identity, and centralized data to a decentralized, post-cookie world is much better for the consumer. It provides better solutions and data privacy for brands and publishers to work together to use better quality data.
While cookies are imperfect, the industry relies on them for ad targeting, bid optimization, frequency control, and attribution. Developing a scalable and reliable solution will need everyone to collaborate.
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With the evolving concept of identity, the industry needs to move to a more collaborative and more human model. Consumers should be able to receive the information they want without giving up their right to privacy. For that to happen, identity needs to mature into an open, transparent dialogue with consumers, where they are aware of what the data really is, how it is being used and how they can control and maybe block its use.
Multikey Approach
Moving forward, companies will need to reconsider how to identify, target, and engage audiences in a compliant and brand-safe way that does not compromise the user experience. The identity will need a multikey approach where multiple high-quality identifiers can help fill gaps and paint a complete picture of consumers without having to depend on a singular key.
As privacy regulations evolve and people-based marketing grows, most companies may not like to manage their PII-based identity graphs. This calls for identity ecosystems that allow companies to pick data on-the-go and tap into the data they need when they need it. There needs to be a convergence to a non-cookie-based, interoperable identifiers supported by the buy-side platforms for this to work.
Identity Ecosystems
The future of identity depends on multiple data sources, identity keys, and industry providers joining forces. With a cooperative approach to identity, marketers will be able to see the big picture and overcome the challenges resulting from the demise of cookies and other identifiers along with the ever-evolving regulatory landscape.
This move away from third-party cookies allows the industry to embrace transparency and encourage industry collaboration among players across the ecosystem, looking to industry trade bodies to lead the way. This will bring greater synergy and compliance across all verticals while ensuring the consumer remains the key focus.
