The Death of Cookies and the Way Forward for Digital Marketing

Data from cookies is used commonly to drive effective digital marketing.

However, according to the Deloitte Australian Privacy Index, 83% of consumers say they are concerned with their online activity being tracked by internet cookies.

While users prefer less invasive advertising, marketers need to achieve marketing goals in a cost-effective manner.

Nevertheless, meaningful consent must always be front and center across industries and sectors.

Digital marketing is moving towards campaign validation with fewer data sources, without the requirement for data access from third-party cookies.

Therefore, in this article, we look at how the phasing out of third-party cookies will impact digital marketing, as well as how you can build an effective digital marketing strategy.

Let’s take a look!

What Does the Third Party Cookie Phase-Out Mean for Marketers?

For more than two decades, marketers have been relying on data from third-party cookies for user analytics, cross-site & behavioral targeting, retargeting, as well as advertising.

The manner in which cookies have been used will change dramatically by 2022, as a result of Google’s plan to phase out third-party cookies from Chrome.

Google has joined Apple and Mozilla in remodeling the future of data privacy, as well as the online advertising industry.

To balance the phasing-out of third-party cookies, Google has introduced the Privacy Sandbox.

This will enhance data privacy with a set of open standards, enabling you to target and measure ads.

You can make use of Google Ads in the absence of data from Chrome-based third-party cookies.

This will be enabled by Chrome’s first-party cookies, as well as Privacy Sandbox tools.

The Impact on Marketers

• Lack of clarity with regard to online consumer behavior
• Difficulty in validating the effectiveness of digital campaigns
• Inability to target users with programmatic advertising
• Inability to target users with highly-relevant ads

The Way Forward for Digital Marketing

First-party data will become increasingly important in the absence of third-party cookies.

You need to rely on first-party cookies, as well as more insightful data housed in CRM systems.

This data will only increase in value in the cookie-less world.

User-based targeting will enable you to engage customers at the times and places they want to actually engage with you.

There are three key elements in this process:

• Identification
• Data
• Automation

Phone conversations may be the ultimate first-party data source.

Analyze customer conversations and derive meaning from them with automation.

With predictive technologies powered by machine learning, you can analyze conversations and turn them into actionable marketing insights.

This will enable you to chart a new digital marketing strategy by reducing dependency on invasive adtech.

In addition to this, transitioning to alternative adtech in a structured manner will help you preserve user privacy.

Wrapping up

As we move into the cookie-less world, it’s important to acknowledge that using overlay data or basic segmentation will not get you the level of performance you expect.

Exploring new avenues and technologies is the way forward to accomplish marketing goals.

Not sure how to get started?

Simply write to us at [email protected] and we’ll take it from there!