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Consumers are demanding more privacy online. All the major web browsers have ceased (or are in the process of ceasing) support for third-party cookies.
This seismic shift toward privacy has significant implications for brands.
Marketing strategies that have relied heavily on third-party cookies are outdated now, making targeted ads a real challenge.
How will a cookie-less future affect advertising? In a cookie-less world, advertising strategies must adapt to rely less on third-party data for targeting and retargeting ads. Today, digital marketers are investing in gathering their own zero- and first-party data on their customers and exploring contextual advertising strategies.
As third-party cookie data comes to an end, marketers must adapt and accept a future of consent-based advertising. This means overhauling their strategies, including reevaluating their ad spend with Facebook and Google.
“It will likely take many years for a stable environment that balances standards-based data-driven advertising and consumer privacy to emerge. Marketing leaders responsible for ad budgets, media mix, planning and measurement will need to adjust strategies as Google rewires its data policies, ad products, and capabilities against a backdrop of new privacy norms and elevated antitrust dynamics.” – Eric Schmitt, Senior Analyst, Garner
Cookies themselves never posed any kind of threat, but their use has become increasingly problematic—especially third-party cookies. Consumers’ awareness of their online privacy has increased as well as general concerns about how consumer data is stored and more importantly, shared. Today, third-party data has quickly become second-class. In response to increasing user privacy concerns, Apple Safari, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox have all announced their desire to phase out support for third-party cookies in their web browsers.
Thanks to this seismic shift in data privacy, consumers are leery about their online privacy and blame both brands and browsers. Apple led the way with announcing Safari’s transition away from third-party cookies followed by Mozilla’s Firefox. Despite Google Chrome’s 65% browser market share, Google has been dragging their feet, and after numerous delays of their Privacy Sandbox trials, they finally announced that Chrome is slated to hop on the privacy bandwagon sometime in 2024.
Let’s break open Google’s answer to improved consumer privacy, called the Privacy Sandbox. The premise behind the Privacy Sandbox is to allow individual user data to remain in the browser instead of allowing ad tech and ad agencies to control and sell the third-party data. The goal is to allow for privacy but still ensure consumers see personalized ads that are relevant to them.
As a consumer, if you care about online privacy, you care about cookie tracking. Prior to the “cookie apocalypse” that began in 2020, brands and marketers relied heavily on third-party cookies to collect data that was used to formulate their marketing campaigns.
The impact of this massive policy shift on the digital ecosystem will be profound.
Thanks to the quick demise of third party cookies, today’s marketers are scrambling to revisit their data strategies.
Perhaps that is why zero- and first-party customer data is now all the rage. Companies are using privacy as a marketing tool as browsers compete for users based on how safe their products are.
This trend is fueling the customer experience across marketing, sales and customer support.
Discover new ways to collect zero-and first-party data from your website, turning prospects into customers and customers into loyal brand advocates. We understand the challenges that brands are facing in our new cookie-less world. Let us demonstrate the real power of unlocking your first-party data by utilizing SAVVY DATA AI's online visitor identification technology. If you are interested in driving more sales and giving your businesses a real competitive advantage, drop us aline and let’s chat.
