The discussion around third-party cookie phase out has been here for the past few years, but Google’s recent announcement has shifted it from a mere debate to a concrete ubiquity. In all fairness, publishers have been expecting this for quite a long time, but apprehensions have been there – as to its significant impact on targeting and personalized advertising.
One thing is for sure, marketing is going to change post-2024. Whether it’s good or bad, that’s subject to how brands and advertisers adapt to the new landscape, understand consumer preferences, and leverage emerging technologies effectively.
Let’s discuss how marketing will be transmuted into a more data-centric, privacy-focused and customer-driven post the removal of 3PC in 2024.
Marketing Post Third-Party Cookies Apocalypse
Let’s admit it, consumers don’t like to be tracked. Who says so? The European Consumer Trends Index 2023 reported that 58 percent of 7000 respondents considered the ads served to them through third-party cookies ‘creepy’ and ‘intrusive’.
Acknowledging the rising concerns related to consumer privacy, marketers have to make strides towards strategies that don’t rely on third-party cookies, emphasizing on user-centric approaches to reach their target audience.
Rooting from this echoed sentiment, marketing is evolving towards more privacy-conscious and personalized practices that prioritize user choice and data protection, fostering a more ethical and user-friendly advertising landscape.
Here are the key changes marketers are expected to see in 2024
- Using first-party data: In the absence of third-party cookies, marketers will shift their focus on enriching their first party data. Targeting will rely on data collected from the company website, social media, CRMs, and surveys.
- Server-side tracking: Marketers will turn to CRM like HubSpot or attribution tracking solutions like Trackier to leverage the S2S tracking also known as, postback method for conversion tracking. Postback tracking is an incredible way to track conversions and user behavior without tracking the personally identifiable information.
- Contextual targeting: Contextual targeting will emerge as the hero in this era. Using content analysis, brands and advertisers can target visitors on a specific website who might also be interested in their product/service. This method ensures relevancy, without being too intrusive and creepy.
- Audience segmentation: People based targeting using audience segmentation is already being popular among the advertisers. Using the data collected from the company’s website, audience segments can be created on the basis of demographics, intent, purchase frequency, and monetary value and target each segment with a personalized ad.
- Multiple measurement methods: Marketers will no longer rely on a single measurement method. They will deploy a mix of multi-touch attribution, media mix modeling, and multivariate analysis to measure the true impact of their marketing campaigns.
Good or bad, one thing’s for sure that the end of third-party cookies is going to usher in a new era in marketing that is more sustainable, consumer-focused and ethically centered in all its approaches.
Commenting on the same, Udit Verma, Trackier’s Co-Founder & CMO said, “The changes might come out as daunting to many marketers, but they also present a chance for us to reevaluate our approach and improve the user experience by offering more privacy-centric, relevant, and meaningful interactions. It also gives us an opportunity to build trust among our consumers and listen to what they actually need from our advertising campaigns as well our offerings. At Trackier, efforts are already underway to ensure that our attribution tracking platform is well-armed to help advertisers track and scale their campaigns in the post third-party cookies era.”
2024 will be the year for brands and advertisers who will be swift and smart to adapt to the challenges of third-party cookie phase out. The clock is ticking as we step into the last leg of 2023, prompting marketers to come out with alternate targeting and tracking methods for delivering personalized experiences to their target audience without compromising their privacy.