The Digital Advertising World Post the Demise of Third-Party Cookies

    The Digital Advertising World Post the Demise of Third-Party Cookies

    While the death of third-party cookies is shaking up the adtech world, marketers, publishers, and advertisers equally face the dual challenge of finding alternatives that enable identification and are privacy compliant

    The third-party cookie is the marketing and advertising industry’s default tracking and targeting tool. But the Consumer Privacy Acts like CCPA and GDPR want to ensure that user data tracking is done with transparency and user consent.

    Privacy concerns have been the biggest reason for the change within the industry, but now the battle is around anonymity and what that really means.

    Shane_Shevlin
    Shane Shevlin, SVP Strategic Development, IPONWEB

    The impact of the death of third-party cookies is reflected on all the components of the Digital advertising environment. Shane Shevlin, SVP Strategic Development, IPONWEB, says, “The primary concern for advertisers will be the demise of the third-party cookie and its effect on campaign targeting, performance, and measurement.

    This will have deep ramifications as advertisers and agencies shift to first-party data strategies, while also investing in and testing new targeting and measurement techniques.”

    Growing concerns on the impact of third-party cookies on user privacy have led to increased crackdowns on their use. There is going to be a significant impact on how marketers do their jobs and how brands reach audiences.

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    But the demise of the cookie does not have to mean the end of highly targeted advertising and marketing, and there are steps brands, and marketers can take time to prepare before a third-party cookie is wholly scrapped in 2022.

    Here are a few alternatives to the most widely used third-party cookie.

    Unified ID

    Most identity solutions provide their Unified ID, and this is only possible if all the players in the digital advertising ecosystem agree. That means publishers, DMPs, SSPs, DSPs, and advertisers need to adopt the same unique, standardized, cookie-based identifier. Although classed as a first-party cookie, the unified ID can be used for third-party cookie purposes, including ad targeting, personalization, and measurement.

    Leveraging First-Party Data

    Though third-party cookies are getting totally scrapped soon, advertisers can still use first-party data from CRM tools, foot-traffic, and in-app data. It will have relevant data of users who have shown interest in the service and the products, so the conversion rate would be higher than third-party audiences.

    Online advertisers also need to invest and use acceptable consent management features to get more insight from first-party data. This means that both Digital advertisers and brands need to build customer trust to comply with Google’s call for user control over the use of personal data. Brands and Digital advertisers now need to foster healthy and genuine connections with consumers across every touch point.

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    Contextual Advertising

    Business leaders believe that contextual targeting is more effective than third-party cookie targeting. Leaders suggest that contextual targeting can increase purchase intent compared to the audience or channel level targeting.

    Contextual targeting will enable marketers to forge a real, authentic, and empathetic connection with consumers in the right place and at the right time. As marketing goes ‘back to the future,’ contextual targeting will be a safer and smarter way forward to drive better, more meaningful marketing messages at scale.