Disappearance of third-party cookies: why can't we wait until 2023?

Use this extra time wisely

According to the provisional calendar unveiled by Google, the search engine will remove the support of third-party cookies on Chrome over a period of 3 months from mid-2023 to the end of the year. A desire that remains well established, not to the liking of some! For players in digital advertising, it is therefore not a question of waiting for third-party cookies to be permanently banned from the browser to start exploring new possibilities. While this decision to postpone seems like a reprieve given the uncertainties surrounding the disappearance of third-party cookies on Chrome, it is appropriate to consider this additional delay as an opportunity to give actors time to identify and test other user targeting options now. Today, the blocking of third-party cookies on Safari and Firefox is already effective, around 30% of impressions on these browsers are no longer addressed by third-party cookies and the remaining part will face a higher cost (CPM) due to the increase in demand. While the cookieless era is gradually taking place, it should not hide another difficulty that already exists for advertisers: the obligation to add a consent banner on their site.

The problem of the consent banner

The deadline granted to bring sites into compliance with tracking rules ended on March 31, 2021. So for advertisers, there are now only two options. Or they strictly apply the rules imposed by the European Union, i.e. the implementation of the RGPD (collection of user consent). With the direct consequences that a large part of the traffic remains without consent information. Or they do not comply and choose not to take into account the respect of the privacy of users, which exposes them to increasingly severe sanctions. Indeed, since the entry into force of the RGPD, the non-compliance of websites has already represented nearly 300 million euros in fines, like a consumer giant that was fined more than 3 million euros in 2020. A difficult choice since it must be understood that today, 41% of users refuse to give their consent according to the 366 - Kantar 2021 study. It is therefore urgent to adopt a new approach, because at this rate, the volume of targeted data and the tracking capacity of advertisers are almost halving. Without user consent: no third party cookies or first party cookies. Tracking and capping are becoming impossible and the campaign performance analysis system is partly obsolete.

Find cookieless and “GDPR friendly” alternatives

The evolution of the regulatory framework and the decline of third-party cookies and other trackers are synonymous with difficulties for advertisers to continue to reach 100% of their audiences. The challenge is on the one hand, to find “GDPR friendly” alternatives; and on the other hand, to ensure that advertisers maintain their investments in the open web. To do this, we will have to go beyond the limits of user targeting by diversifying media strategies in order to integrate semantic data as a lever to overcome technological and legal constraints and reach an audience that otherwise remains untouchable. These changes do not mean the end of targeted advertising, quite the contrary, because according to a study published by IAB Europe in 2021, 75% of users want to keep targeted advertising on the Internet in order to have access to free content. However, marketing strategies must be transformed to adapt to the new complex requirements of a market that is constantly evolving.