Cookies had been a very essential part of the digital marketing since the early days; they are very useful as they help to track users across sessions, attribute sales to Ad clicks, retarget, build lookalike target audience and so much more benefits.
However, cookie-based tracking had evolved into a non-preferred and also an unsafe way of tracking users. Especially amid the ever updated privacy protection regulations, including for example the EU’s GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act.
In fact, eliminating cookie-based tracking is not only resulting from the regulatory and political pressures; but it’s also becoming the trend of all tech giants who are keen to protect their users’ privacy.
Two example internet and tech giants moves to eliminate cookie based tracking
- Google, the internet giant, had been actively allowing users to clear and disable cookies in Chrome, but the company further has set a two-year deadline to kill the use of third-party cookies regardless of users’ consent (according to Chromium official blog). With Chrome accounting for around 66% of web browsing, this decision will have a mounting impact.
- Apple, the tech giant, had also introduced Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP), a feature of that allows Apple’s built-in Safari to reduce the lifespan of tracking cookies to just 7 days.
A marketers’ perspective of a post-cookie strategy
With the evolution of a cookie-less digital advertising ecosystem, it’s essential that marketers keep in mind three main imperative strategic changes:
- Increased Cost of Third-Party Data: A world without cookies would further consolidate the power for the online advertising giants like Google & Facebook; with their owned online assets that allow them to collect users’ data.
- Data is the New Currency: users won’t just pay money; but they also pay data. So marketers need think of new ways to build direct, consensual relationships with customers and also to have a well-defined and creatively designed ways to incentivize them to provide their data.
- Data Systems Became an Investment Priority: marketers need to ensure that they are having enough investments to the right tools across advertising and marketing technologies to achieve the right infrastructure and architecture to harnesses their data collection and aggregation strategies across platforms.
