Nothing better than a short deadline to kick us all in the butt
We’re all guilty of procrastination, says Blis's Charlie Smith, but has there ever been a better example of mass procrastination than the digital ad industry and cookies?
It's been over three and a half years since Google first announced its plan to phase out third-party cookies. Yet some vendors, media agencies and advertisers are still working on their own plans to replace cookies. I get it. Facing such a colossal challenge takes work and effort. But it’s now urgent. There’s no time for procrastination.
The multiple delays in phasing out third-party cookies didn’t help the industry take it seriously enough, and that’s not my opinion. According to the 2023 Forrester Marketing Survey, 51% of global marketers did not believe that Google would deprecate third-party cookies this year.
Well, like it or not, it’s happening. Google has already deactivated third-party cookies for over 30 million Chrome users.
This is no longer a test.
An old challenge on steroids
As we said over a year ago, half of mobile audiences and almost half of desktop audiences are already unreachable across the open internet. Audiences were fading away already. Yesterday, not today or tomorrow. Nearly every marketer is concerned about signal loss and the disappearance of third-party cookies, but just half (51%) have a plan to substitute them. A third (36%) of marketers aim to implement a solution in the year's first half.
If you are part of the half still trying to figure things out, know one thing: the challenge remains the same. You just have less time and a more significant need to get it right quickly. No pressure.
Many other options exist between contextual targeting and Google Privacy Sandbox. They all have pros and cons, so ask the right questions: Is it omnichannel? Is it helping you move away from identifier-centric solutions, or are they just cookies in a new guise? Does it work at scale?
These questions will help you be more assertive rather than wasting time on temporary solutions that will not last.
Avoid the temptation
Of course, the temptation to stick to what’s worked up until now will be there, but you truly need to weigh up the pros and cons of investments this year to find the right partners to deliver privacy-first campaigns that still have scale, reach, and measurability. For sure, the big walled gardens and emerging retail networks will still claim the lion’s share of investment, but working with privacy-first partners who can still offer precise targeting at scale is already a necessity.
Try to avoid fragmented solutions that lead to a poor user experience. Ask yourself if you are working with partners that still need some sort of identity or login information to be accurate. If that’s the case, bear in mind that brands will pay the price - more publishers asking for identity will probably lead to more people saying no and, most certainly, fundamental issues in targeting and measuring what truly matters: the people.
Bring that human element back into advertising
Whatever you believe about the speed of impact of increasing privacy measures, it’s still a certainty that people are more likely to engage with ads that demonstrate a deeper understanding of what they might want. That will never change. And that starts with a deeper understanding of the audience themselves. Don’t forget that we are talking to people, not to cookies. Focus on understanding your consumers and what they expect from you.
It’s time to embrace new opportunities that aren't just an imperfect solution to a problem or just a cookie in disguise. Some pretty exciting new technologies are opening up possibilities brands didn't have before or weren’t aware they had because they were all addicted to what cookies could effectively deliver. But cookies don’t allow you to effectively plan, activate and measure omnichannel activity in one system.
While third-party cookies certainly offered an attractive level of precision, they also meant that your planning was done innumerable times, depending on the channels you work with. Leaving the cookie addiction in the past should be seen as a huge step towards a unified and more effective way to plan and buy across channels, encouraging advertisers to think of things at a macro level, where brand outcomes matter more than ‘granular data’. It’s time to restore the old world where audiences aren't cookies; they're people.