The never-ending demand from internet users for increased transparency, privacy protection, freedom of choice, and personal control has once again ignited the debate over how our data is handled, triggering yet another disruption in the web industry. This latest, hair-raising chapter of the “web user manual” involves the so-called third-party cookies, that is, the invisible identifiers stored by websites other than the ones we visit, that are specifically designed to track our online activity for the purpose of turning us (often unknowingly) into advertising targets.
In compliance with the latest GDPR and CCPA’s discipline on the matter, and fearful of the civil and/or criminal sanctions imposed on violators, major web browsers Firefox and Safari have quickly disabled these “tricky assistants”, whereas Chrome – the market’s undisputed lion’s shareholder with a staggering 60+% – is due to join the pack by early 2022.
While this piece of news may feel reassuring for us, the end-users, it is sending shivers down the spine of marketers, web publishers, and advertisers alike.
For a start, eliminating third-party cookies will de facto undermine the effectiveness of traditional advertising campaigns, as impairing cross-site audience targeting essentially means slashing the personalization options that lie at the very core of digital advertising efficiency. On one end, this will cause publishers to incur painful ad revenue losses, and on the other, it will encourage advertisers to place their advertising budget on stand-by until the fog clears.
As it always happens though, whenever a shock to the system occurs, along with the inevitable setback come new opportunities. And those players that will prove quicker at seizing them, will gain a substantial lead vis-a-vis their competitors.
Unquestionably, the digital advertising ecosystem is up for a long-overdue facelift.
Web publishers will be forced to reconfigure their approach to advertising and data management – and act swiftly if they aim to slow down the hemorrhage in the course.
On the advertiser side, brands will need to adopt innovative ad technologies, and subsequently, customize them and integrate them within their Mar-Tech stack. Reasonably, those sites that are best equipped to collect and process data autonomously and “safely” (essentially the Tech Giants like Amazon, Facebook, etc.) will gain a competitive advantage over the rest, and will end up attracting fresh, massive flows of advertising budgets. The smaller players will end up paying a heavy toll.
One might wonder, what will replace third-party cookies in the end? And how will effective advertising targeting be performed once they are gone?
Among the many pioneering solutions currently on the table, three categories, in particular, are worth highlighting:
- Those that do not require a personal user ID, advocating a shift from an individual to a cohort analysis approach (i.e. Google’s FLoC).
- Those linking publishers and advertisers’ first-party data.
- Those based on “context targeting”.
Whatever the solution adopted in the end, this process shall hopefully lead to a safer, less invasive, and overall, more user-friendly web environment. Another step forward in our collective quest for a fairer internet.
One where cookieless won’t necessarily mean less sweet.