Amidst growing privacy concerns and regulatory laws, marketers are facing a new kind of “new normal”—the loss of third-party cookies. Google announced in early 2020 plans to sunset third-party cookies on its Chrome browser, and is now preparing to begin the phaseout in mid-2023 and end in late-2023.
For years, brands and businesses have used third-party cookies to track website visitors, better understand user behavior online, and target ads to the right audiences. With this phaseout, and Google’s announcement last year that they will not be building other alternative identifiers to track individuals as they browse across the web, advertisers and marketers are being forced to pivot and embrace a more private web.
In this article, we’ll dive deep into the key drivers of this change, the challenges that accompany third-party cookie removal, and the alternative solutions that are emerging. We’ll also break down several tangible strategies your business or firm can enact now to get ahead of the curve.
The Why: Web Users Are Asking for More Privacy
Chrome isn’t the first browser with plans to phase out the third-party cookie. In fact, Firefox has already implemented updates in mid-2019 that block third-party cookies and cryptominers—by default—on desktop and Android. Apple quickly followed suit in early 2020 and released anti-tracking tech on its Safari browser with full third-party cookie blocking.
Although Chrome won’t be the first browser to pave the way for privacy on the web, it will be by far the largest and most widely used browser to do so. In September 2021, Chrome accounted for approximately 50.46% of the overall internet browser market share in the United States.
At the heart of this call for change are consumers demanding for more control over their internet privacy. Advertisers have heavily leveraged third-party cookies to deliver relevant ads but with this collection of individual user data, an erosion of trust has taken shape over time.
According to a Pew Research Center study, 72% of people feel that almost all of what they do online is being tracked by advertisers, technology firms, or other companies. Furthermore, 81% believe they have little or no control over the data that the government and other companies collect about them, and another 81% say that the potential risks they face because of data collection outweigh the benefits.
“Users are demanding greater privacy—including transparency, choice, and control over how their data is used—and it’s clear the web ecosystem needs to evolve to meet these increasing demands.”
– Justin Schuh, Director of Chrome Engineering
Tech companies aren’t the only ones enforcing stricter compliance on data privacy, either. Europe’s data privacy and security law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which was put into effect in 2018, has overhauled how businesses process and handle data. The question is now less about who will follow suit and more about what happens next.
The Challenges of Third-Party Cookie Removal
With the loss of third-party cookies, advertisers and marketers will need to find alternative methods to track user behavior across the web and market to users. The sunsetting of third-party cookies presents three major challenges:
- Less Accurate User Profiles
Many advertisers rely on third-party cookies to build behavior profiles and to target users with relevant ads based on their unique web activity. With the depreciation of these cookies, user profiles will include less accurate information and ads could potentially lose their relevance and effectiveness. - Retargeting Campaigns
Retargeting allows marketers to anonymously follow audiences across the web and show ads tailored to the content they’ve previously interacted with. Because it uses third-party cookies in conjunction with first-party cookies, the days of ads that “follow you around” are now numbered. - Cross-site Tracking and Measurement
Disabling third-party cookies will also inevitably create a gap in a marketer’s ability to follow users and track touchpoints after they’ve left their website. In turn, it becomes more difficult to measure the effectiveness of ad campaigns throughout the online user journey, especially for upper-funnel tactics.
Emerging Alternative Technologies: Google’s Privacy Sandbox
Google has taken deliberate steps to move gradually with its plans to remove third-party cookies, includes pushing out the phaseout to 2023, years after its first declaration to do so. This reserved approach is Google’s attempt to “move at a responsible pace” and “avoid jeopardizing the business models of many web publishers which support freely available content.”
In 2019, Google released its “Privacy Sandbox,” an initiative that aims to create web technologies (a tech stack) that both protects data privacy and gives companies the tools to market and grow their businesses. Since then, it has served as a wall for developers to collectively bounce ideas around and pitch alternative solutions.
The Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC)
The most notable solution to come from the Privacy Sandbox has been Google’s Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC), a “privacy-first” and “interest-based” advertising technology. With FLoC, Chrome will keep track of a user’s browsing habits across the web, and then will place them in a large crowd—or cohort—of thousands of users, based on those habits. Advertisers will then target ads to these cohorts, rather than individual users. Personal browsing history does not leave the user’s browser or device, and it’s not shared with anyone.
While FLoC was initially primed to be the star replacement of third-party cookies, it faced backlash and due to its granularity, posed user privacy concerns. Privacy critics, like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), argued that the system made it easier for advertisers to identify users with browser fingerprinting. Browser fingerprinting is a tool used by sites to gain specific information about a user’s device and browser, and it may also expose personal information like demographics.
A New Player in the Game: Topics API
With FLoC now cast aside, a new interest-based advertising system called Topics API has emerged onto the scene. With Topics, less information is revealed. It works by identifying five topics that represent a user’s interest for that week based on their browsing history. Chrome will store these topics for three weeks before deleting them, and there are currently about 350 available topics, which will grow in volume over time.
A user’s topics are then shared with the websites the user visits to help advertisers display relevant ads, without providing advertisers with the specific websites they’ve visited. Users will have visibility and control over the topics and are allowed to remove any or disable them completely in Chrome Settings.
Topics API is not without its faults and critics. Advertisers worry about the consequences of its limitation to five topics, the potential for users to disable the feature, and its less precise targeting abilities. With certainties still up in the air, investing in other strategies outside of third-party cookie data can help set you ahead once the cookie crumbles.
3 Strategies You Can Implement Now to Get Ahead In A Third-Party Cookie-less Future
Below are a few of the strategies that are readily available now that your business can put into effect before third-party cookies sunset in 2023.
1. First-Party Cookies Are Sticking Around
While third-party cookies will soon fall by the wayside, first-party cookies that track basic data about your own website’s visitors will continue to stay fully in-tact. Growing first-party relationships and leveraging strategies that use first-party data will be critical moving forward. This data has the advantage of being highly accurate because your owned website is its direct data source.
A great first step is to establish what first-party data you are already collecting and identify the gaps of where you should be collecting, but aren’t yet. Updating your website forms to include these data points can help you develop a clearer picture of your users. Just remember, the value of what you’re giving away needs to warrant the amount of information you’re requesting. Make it clear that filling out a form is worth their time and save longer forms for later down the marketing funnel. This data will help activate strategies across your channels.
2. Another Reason to Fuel the Content Engine
Developing thought leadership is a strategy we’ve been behind for a long time, and with third-party cookies depreciating, it’s never been a better time to start. A content strategy based on thought leadership can help you build credibility for your firm or business, create higher visibility in search engines, and capture your audience’s attention, increasing your users’ site duration.
Creating blog content on a regular cadence can help position your business as an expert, and when used in tandem with gated content, can help you collect valuable first-party data and build your pipeline. If you’re unsure how to get started, we can help. Check out our Ultimate Content Strategy Guide and drop us a message.
3. Context is King: Contextual Advertising
While third-party data allows you to place ads directly in front of individual users who match specific user profiles, contextual advertising allows you to circulate PPC ads on websites that rank for similar keywords as your ad. Put simply, it allows you to display ads based on the content a user is looking at, instead of their overall behavior profile.
Contextual targeting is executed through keywords and topics. For example, if you’re a private equity firm specializing in growing enterprise software companies, your ad would appear on web pages that cover technology topics, such as a technology publication geared towards entrepreneurs. This strategy is a privacy-compliant way to reach new audiences and requires less technical expertise to use.
We Can Help You Pivot Your Marketing Strategy
The digital landscape is ever-evolving and businesses that are currently relying on third-party cookies are being challenged to pivot their strategies. It’s become increasingly vital to build strategies that drive—and track—meaningful actions and engagements on your owned platforms like your website. By shifting this focus to first-party data and content creation, businesses can gain their own independence in their marketing efforts.
If you have follow-up questions or concerns regarding your own marketing strategies, or are interested in learning more about how we can help, drop us a message.