Ladies and gentlemen, the wait is over (for 1% of you). Google Chrome has finally bit the biscuit and begun the long and winding road towards cookie deprecation.
The 4th of January 2024 marked the first steps to removing third-party cookies from 1% of users from Chrome browsers, with Tracking Protection coming into effect for around 30 million people around the world. But what exactly does that mean?
The Last Batch: Countdown to a Cookie-less Chrome
While there are still some obstacles to overcome, this is the firmest update to suggest that Google is sticking to their deadline of removing all third party cookies from Chrome by the end of 2024.
This poses implications to publishers and advertisers who are not yet ready to move with the times, but also provides a massive opportunity to revamp marketing strategies that no longer fit with users’ data-privacy demands. Now that testing is underway in a ‘live’ scenario with Privacy Sandbox, research will begin to funnel through how the cookieless future of targeting and measurement will look for digital media.
It remains to be seen whether this small change is significant enough for now to do valuable testing. But one thing is for certain, and the cliché “no time like the present” has never been more appropriate when it comes to planning your cookieless strategy.
Life beyond the Cookie and measuring up
Many believe that attribution and measurement will be broken once third-party cookies are wiped from Chrome. However there is a case to argue that attribution has not worked for some time already, or at the very least its previously been viewed in the wrong way.
Ultimately, digital media’s aim is to drive effective impact to your marketing efforts, translating into true business outcomes. Pinning success down to modelled conversion tracking will not lead us to cleaning up the ad ecosystem. A thought-shift to more effective measurement frameworks will provide the change required. Thankfully, there are some key alternatives which do not need third-party cookies.
Attention should be focused on attention – that is, areas that drive meaningful impact for your business, like understanding your current media mix. This predictive methodology looks at the best combination of channels and how much investment is required to get the best results for your campaign, otherwise known as Media Mix Modelling (MMM) attribution.
This is still a viable option for deeper understanding of macro-level optimisations you can make to succeed post-cookie. Remember, there is no one-size-fits-all for media mix and this will differ for each brand, and the cookieless nature of this data-driven attribution model can drive long-term success.
Another important barometer of success is how much search demand your brand generates in relation to your competition. This is another important piece of the measurement puzzle which has proven to be effective for many years.
At Anything is Possible we see driving your brand search amongst your competitors as a key objective. Our proprietary tech, Searchshare.io is a valuable measurement tool that is also not dependent on cookies. There is a growing handful of options at our disposal, and they’re the ones you should be exploring.
How to find the sweet spot and target your audience effectively
Many will claim to have a targeting solution that is primed and ready to continue targeting precisely and is also privacy-safe for consumers. While third-party cookies will remain for the majority of Chrome’s users, marketers will still face the temptation of sticking their hand back in the proverbial cookie jar.
However the alternatives, like contextual and first party data, to name but two, have shown signs that post-cookie targeting is not dead in the water. The start of cookie deprecation will provide marketers with real-time data insights into how these solutions perform before full depreciation happens (dare we say it) by the end of 2024.
Understanding which solutions are best for your brand, and importantly, compliant with consumer privacy requirements (because that is precisely why we are talking about this), is part and parcel of the challenge. This sounds complex, right? That’s because it is. Now, more than ever, it’s important to lean on the experts who are actively testing these new, or in some cases, trusted solutions.
We believe in the need to simplify the complexity in the market, so if you need help or support in navigating your way towards a cookieless future, get in touch and let’s chat!
