The Future of Third-Party Cookies
by Sam Griffith
You can’t make this kind of thing up! After years of planning, investment, discussion and dialogue, despite moving the goalposts multiple times, third party cookies will remain!
The power now sits in our hands though – we can make an informed decision about how our data will be processed! Sorry, did I hear you say cop out? A combination of industry pressure from both publishers and agencies a like (Criteo claims Google’s Privacy Sandbox would erase publisher ad revenue by 60%), as well as their Sandbox falling foul of the very privacy laws and regulations it was developed to resolve, means that we are where we are!
What does this mean for us – the agency planners, online users and clients with budgets tio spend?
Actually, this is no bad thing. Yes, online users will get the choice through a one-time prompt, and if it is anything like the cookie consent options that came about after GDPR, it is likely people will accept. Though time will tell…as for planners, well this provides us with a continued variety of strategies that we can test. We’ve all sat through too many cookieless conferences over the last few years whilst we’ve known that 3rd party data still often performs best for campaigns.
Now we have the ability to maintain these recent tests between strategies, to test and learn which ones work best. Combining 1st party, cookieless, addressable and contextual segments alongside 3rd party data sets can only mean more opportunity to optimise to better efficiencies and produce more effective campaigns for our clients. With the advent of new channels like podcasts, digi OOH and CTV, we are becoming less reliant on cookies anyway; however this will allow us to maintain stronger control over frequency capping.
The ICO perspective is a little more depressing than mine with their Deputy Commissioner Stephen Bonner expressing disappointment in Google shelving plans; however rather than the backtracking blame being placed entirely at the feet of Google, perhaps the fault is more of an industry issue? The demise of 3rd party cookies presented the industry with the opportunity to come together and collectively come up with a solution that could improve the status quo. This was used as a way to build a competitive advantage over others so multiple routes were devised but with little connectivity between them. And this comes as no surprise – I even wrote this blog article back in Feb 2023 stating there should be less competition and more cooperation! The challenge remains though – how do all of these different strategies coexist? Cookies will reduce in number so this definitely doesn’t mean we should rest on our laurels.
Embracing all of these new technologies is important and will position December19 | B Corp™ in the best possible place to move forwards and provide cutting edge solutions for our clients.
If you'd like to chat further please drop me a line Sam Griffith
Head of Digital, December19