Cookieless: is the digital advertising industry finally ready?

Last week, the CNIL made adjustments to the guidelines published in July 2019 on the use of cookies and other trackers. While these changes were not a surprise for digital advertising players, they do represent the start of their compliance within 6 months. A few months before the end of third-party cookies on Chrome, are they ready for the big change to come?

Towards truly unequivocal consent

More than two years after the implementation of the RGPD, which caused consent pop-ups to flourish on the vast majority of sites, the observation is overwhelming... 88% of these banners intended to collect the consent of Internet users to monitor their online activity do not respect the minimum conditions of the legal framework, while design tricks encouraging the user to accept the deposit of cookies are multiplying. In publishing its latest recommendations, the CNIL was very clear: the simple continuation of browsing a website can no longer be considered as a valid expression of the user's consent, the publisher has a duty to clearly inform about the nature of targeting (personalized advertising, geolocated advertising, geolocated advertising, content personalization or even sharing of information with social networks), and refusing third-party cookies should be as simple as accepting them. Good news for users. On the other hand, these recommendations could have a real impact on the quality and accuracy of advertising targeting, and therefore on the overall performance of the industry.

A renewed challenge for players in digital advertising

Because in a context where consumers are increasingly concerned about the exploitation of their personal data, it is a safe bet that once all actors comply with these recommendations, publishers will experience an inevitable drop in consent rates, which will itself have an impact on the valuation of monetized audiences and therefore on advertising revenue. A more than plausible prediction that raises questions: do we really need third-party cookies to make our market work? Whatever the answer of the actors to this question, it is now both urgent and vital for the industry to seek to rely on a different type of data that does not rely on third-party cookies (endangered) or on user data to target Internet users and personalize messages.

Semantic data: an alternative to third-party data?

The industry is therefore preparing to implement a major transformation of its ecosystem. However, solutions exist and are already being used. Among them, semantic data, the most viable, makes it possible to move from a logic based on the user to a logic of hyper-contextualization through the analysis of the editorial context, the meaning of the web page and the feelings associated with the content. So, semantic targeting, Far from preconceived ideas, makes it possible to get rid of the personal data of Internet users by displaying a personalized advertising message in line with the content read in real time by the user. In addition to offering Internet users a message consistent with their distribution context, semantic targeting also makes it possible to maintain a high level of media performance and to enhance the advertising inventories of publishers. If this transformation takes place, it will also represent an unmissable opportunity to regain control of the ecosystem and to gradually get rid of walled garden data on which the market has become dependent.