Death of 3rd Party Cookies

The Death of 3rd Party Cookies. Midway through 2021, Google announced it was doing away with third-party cookies, which allow other sites to access your customers’ data, which they can then use for advertising, selling, or other purposes. The original target date from Google for officially ending cookies was the end of 2023, however marketers now have a bit more breathing room.

As of July 2022, the deadline has been extended to 2024. But regardless, we are now entering the endgame for adjusting strategy. In anticipation of doing away with third-party cookies, marketers will need to reconsider how to achieve and measure the success of their online advertising campaigns, email marketing, brand awareness, and other key marketing initiatives.

One major shift that will take place here is gathering “first-party” directly from the customer. That is, data the customer provides, or agrees to provide on apps and websites. Some say this method is actually better because it provides more relevant and accurate information that you can use to improve your marketing.

Related to this, many marketers may start using “contextual marketing,” which targets based on content that people view, rather than matching only their data. This definitely seems like a wise move, as demographic data only goes so far, and doesn’t truly represent interests, needs, or the idiosyncrasies of our lives that lead to purchase decisions. Marketers have relied on third-party cookies for over 30 years, so their disappearance means reporting teams need to research and implement new solutions for tracking their campaign success.

To provide some level of context to how ingrained cookies are in most marketing team’s reporting, nearly 80% of marketers rely on third-party cookies for measuring and reporting on digital campaigns, according to an Eplison study. 2023 won’t be the year that cookies disappear for good, but it will be the year that marketers spend time thinking about how to find an alternative to uncover similar audience insights and campaign measurement..