Third-party cookie cull: Ready for the cliff-face?

People are fed up with companies they don’t know misusing an understanding of their personal habits online. Smart CMOs realise this has the potential to damage brands. Regulators have listened and are acting globally. Walled Gardens are shoring up dominant positions under the guise of privacy.

However, some of the proposed solutions are risky. As an industry, we have a duty to remind people of the deal: free internet in exchange for advertising. That’s a fair deal. But…will ID-based solutions get to the root of the problem? People signing up at vast scale to hand over similar data that put us in this situation? Will Google deliver Unified ID 2.0 on Chrome? I genuinely hope so, but I’m genuinely not sure.

There is a fairly straightforward way to approach the cliff-edge we are facing. Make no mistake, this is not going to be a gentle decline like GDPR, this is a technical implementation that will shut off your prospecting campaigning on display and video in a matter of days. And that’s on top of sweeping regulatory change that will annoy customers and regulators from Thailand to Australia.

Firstly, build an understanding of the environment, not just the user. Use actionable insights to uncover the best possible brand safe and brand suitable environments for your advertising. Apply this same analysis to your PMPs too – they might not be as safe and appropriate as you are led to believe.

Additionally, get on top of your first-party data. After all, you can still use customer data on cookies on Chrome moving forward. Consumers don’t mind and neither do regulators. When someone visits your website, downloads your app or clicks on your adverts, they are interested in you, your products or your services. Stay in touch, nurture the relationship and convert them into a customer. This is fundamentally different from any old advertiser using any old data to deliver “relevant” advertising.

Moreover, use your first-party data smarter. Exclude it from cookie-less prospecting campaigns. Do not advertise to customers in unsuitable environments. This is all straightforward stuff when you have connected the dots between customer data and cookie-less prospecting tactics.

We are at a defining moment as adtech and martech converge. Marketers can optimize their advertising investments and create seamless, personalized experiences across the entire customer journey. To support this convergence, Oracle Data Cloud and Oracle Cloud CX recently joined forces as Oracle Advertising and Customer Experience (CX), connecting all your business data across advertising, marketing, sales, commerce, and service. This means your first-party campaigning is unparalleled and your customers will appreciate the genuinely relevant messages.

The greatest opportunity in a decade lies ahead. We can focus on first-party data and cherish our customers like never before. We can use this first-party data to gain more insight on the environments in which our customers engage, at what time, and on which device. We can use entirely cookie-less solutions to prospect effectively. Start today however, because the cliff face is looming.