Cookieless Advertising: Maintaining effectiveness without third-party cookies
The advertising industry is undergoing significant changes with the advent of the cookieless era. These changes stem from escalating restrictions imposed by regulators to limit access to personal data, as well as the initiatives of major web entities like Google, which aims to phase out third-party cookies from its Chrome browser. However, this transition does not signify the end of targeted and effective advertising.
The goal persists for advertisers to be able to deliver media campaigns in a cookie-free environment while upholding privacy standards without sacrificing performance. Instead, it encourages adtech companies to devise new digital and technological strategies to address these challenges.
This guide aims to provide you with the necessary information to better comprehend market developments and cultivate expertise in this new cookieless and consent-driven landscape.
How Cookies Function in Advertising Marketing: Heading Towards an Era Without Third-Party Cookies
To anticipate future changes effectively, it's crucial to grasp the role of cookies in online advertising. Here's an overview:
👉 Types of cookies:
- Session cookies, Temporary and erased when the browser is closed.
- Permanent cookies, Last up to 13 months, enabling longer-term tracking.
👉 Cookie categories:
- First party cookies, domain-specific and not shareable, facilitate navigation on a specific site.
- Third-party cookies, used by third parties to track user behaviors and interests, pivotal in online advertising campaigns (learn more about targeting by third party cookies)
👉 Functions of cookies in digital advertising:
- Technical cookies Ensure seamless site navigation.
- Analytical cookies Anonymously measure audience engagement.
- Advertising cookies Facilitate targeting, optimization, and personalization of digital campaigns, along with performance analytics.
The shift towards a "cookieless" environment is influenced by various factors, including browser decisions and initiatives like Qwarry's semantic targeting as early as 2019.
Cookie's limitation and the transition to cookieless
Major limitations of third-party cookies accelerating this transition include:
- Tracking difficulties: Inability to track users across devices and browsers.
- Privacy concerns: Rising user awareness leading to cookie blocking or restrictions.
- Limited lifespan: Cookies expire, hindering long-term tracking.
- Data accuracy : Cookie-based data may be outdated or inaccurate.
- Regulatory developments: Stricter regulations such as GDPR impose limitations on data collection without explicit consent.
To adapt, marketers must explore alternative targeting solutions, including:
- Pseudonymized targeting: Precise targeting while maintaining anonymity.
🔗 Understand advanced identification strategies.
- Cohorts targeting : Grouping several thousands users with similar characteristics like for instanc the FLoC solution within the Google Privacy Sandbox
🔗 In this article, master how cohort targeting works.
- Contextual targeting: Utilizing content for campaign segmentation, with semantic targeting offering high accuracy.
🔗 Learn more about contextual targeting in this article.
"Qwarry is placing its bets on the synergy between first-party retail media and semantic targeting for effective advertising," says Geoffrey Berthon.
Measurement, analysis and attribution of media campaigns without cookies
For measuring campaign effectiveness without cookies, alternatives include:
- Universal IDs: Unique identifiers for cross-platform tracking.
- Data panels: Anonymized datasets offering insights into browsing and purchasing habits.
- Incrementality: Comparing results of exposed and non-exposed users.
- The MMM (Multi-Channel Measurement): Evaluating campaign impact across various channels.
- Browser APIs: Providing user information via browser interfaces.
- Data clean rooms: Secure environments for confidential data sharing.
- Attention measurement: Assessing user attention to ads.
- Semantic measurement: Analyzing context and semantics for performance impact.
👉 Discover how Qwarry's cookieless measurement and analysis works
However, these initial alternatives necessitate obtaining consent from internet users and may pose challenges in terms of implementation, reliability, and significant costs for advertisers.
The advent of the cookieless era thus presents both challenges and opportunities for the advertising industry. Despite the complexity of this transition, it opens avenues for advertising that prioritizes privacy and relevance to consumers.
To thrive in this new environment, the expertise of industry specialists can serve as a valuable asset in guiding advertisers and agencies towards a privacy-first approach.
