An introduction to cookieless marketing

An introduction to cookieless marketing

3 Ağu 2022

7 dk okuma süresi

Marketers have relied on cookies for targeting and measurement for many years. Cookies are small data files that carry personal identifiers. However, this ends, at least for the third-party cookies.

Many conventional digital marketing methods are becoming obsolete due to rising consumer demands for privacy and data protection. Fortunately, Google has delayed the phaseout of third-party (3P) cookies until mid-2023, giving you some extra time to modify your strategy mix for cookieless marketing.

Nevertheless, if you don't take action immediately, you'll have a measurement blackout, making it difficult to demonstrate how marketing contributes to sales. Once you understand how to sell in a cookie-free environment effectively, you'll find that many of your options are just as promising as the ones you previously relied on.

What is a third-party cookie?

Third-party cookies are placed on online domains by third-party AdTech and publisher platforms. Any website that loads the code from the third-party server has access to the cookie data, which includes user browsing history and sensitive information like age, location, and gender.

Marketers and advertisers use this data to display advertising pertinent to the user. An example is a relevant Instagram advertisement for a product you've been investigating during browsing sessions. Cookies are the reason why many people think their smartphones listen to them for tailored ads.

Going "cookieless" describes a marketing strategy that relies less on third-party cookies and instead targets customers with other, more open-book, privacy-conscious strategies.

What to expect from the cookieless future?

Every time you visit a website, at least one first-party cookie is stored on your computer to keep track of your common activities. Unless you specifically refuse all cookies on your initial visit, nothing will change in that regard.

For retargeting, third-party cookies track your online activity to assist businesses in enticing you back to their stores to make a purchase. For instance, every brand advertises on a website may set its third-party cookies. The platforms that power these adverts can monitor your online habits and ensure their ads appear on other websites you visit.

Although retargeting advertisements, such as a well-timed, hyper-relevant ad, can make you uncomfortable, you may like the customization and the added push to complete your transaction. However, you won't have the prompt, personalized user experience you're used to once cookieless marketing becomes widespread. Your experience will instead totally depend on the site's owner's adaptation to a cookie-free world.

On the opposite side of the table are some alarming numbers and presumptions about what the future holds for publishers that have relied on third-party cookies. For instance, Google's experiment predicted a 52% decline in average publisher revenue.

That doesn't necessarily mean hardship for everyone; instead, it offers a chance to investigate strategies devoid of third-party cookies.

First-party data gathering and stewardship will be prioritized in a post-cookie era, and consent-based marketing transparency will be encouraged.

In other words, marketing will return to the fundamentals as the message and the creative reclaim the spotlight. By gathering their data, companies will gain insight into their audience and maximize channels with the broadest reach.

Measurement blackout

Most advertisers continue to rely on third-party cookies. This change is tough because of that. When third-party cookies are deactivated, you'll be in the dark if you don't embrace cookieless marketing. No matter where they are in the customer journey, you will be forced to give everyone the same information because you won't know what your potential customers want or how they'll respond.

Measurement blackout, or the incapacity to calculate the results of your marketing activities, is the term used to describe this situation. Measurement is essential for calculating marketing ROI and selecting the initiatives that merit additional funding.

Cookieless marketing 101

To facilitate comprehensive, multichannel measurement techniques that protect consumer privacy, the granular measurements you use will change once cookies are deprecated.

The "walled" gardens in which businesses like Google and Facebook operate are heavily commercialized. As a result, as you use these platforms more, you will understand your clients and their journey less.

Although it's crucial to advertise in these places, there are other options as well. The best strategy is a balanced, healthy marketing mix that offers more transparency.

To compensate for the loss of third-party cookies, you will gather additional first-party information. As a result, managing metadata and adhering to data standards are essential for maximizing its value and getting insight into your clients' journey.

Everyone will speak the same data language and use the same methods for storing, distributing, and understanding data if there is a single set of data standards. Furthermore, metadata management will arrange your expanding data repositories, facilitating information discovery for analytics-based judgments and marketing measurement.

As long as advertisers and publishers adapt and use alternative data kinds and cookieless strategies, the cookieless future isn't entirely negative for them.

For example, they can use location, context, and weather information to send relevant ads to customers or employ predictive analytics to estimate a customer's propensity to act. Thanks to rapidly improving artificial intelligence, ad tech platforms can also fill in gaps formerly covered by cookies.

Alternatives to third-party cookies

Cookieless digital marketing requires a broader, less precise approach to marketing, but it doesn't require you to sail blind or go back to traditional techniques. Fortunately, you have many reliable solutions for showing relevant ads.

First-party cookies

First-party data, which includes email addresses, purchase histories, demographics, and other details, is information you have directly about your prospects and customers. Considering that you gather it yourself, it is extremely accurate.

The websites that users visit automatically save first-party cookies on their browsers. Their main job is to identify repeat visitors and their preferences, but they also assist site owners with analytics and the creation of online advertising campaigns.

In a post-cookie era, the value of first-party data cannot be emphasized; it is essential to your success. If you use it wisely, you can confidently correlate touchpoints and get a 360-degree perspective of your target market.

However, without their permission, you cannot merely store or access information on their devices. You must set up a cookie policy, present an opt-in choice, and display a cookie banner (sometimes called a cookie notice) on the user's first visit.

Make it clear that particular cookies enable you to maintain data like login credentials, settings, and favorite items and offer a more seamless purchasing experience.

Zero-party data

Zero-party data is likely the most valuable and challenging to get of all data categories. It can be gathered in various methods, but the user is solely responsible for providing it.

Zero-party data enables you to offer a more individualized experience to foster long-term client relationships, whether you ask questions during a registration process, solicit preferences for email marketing, or run social media surveys.

Universal IDs

Universal IDs (UIDs) are unique identifiers that permit publishers to show relevant ads without the need for cookie synchronization across various advertising platforms. Once cookies are no longer supported, some options with a third-party component will need to switch to using first-party data (like CRM) and offline data. Depending on your demands, there are some promising UIDs to consider, such as Unified 2.0, ID5, and more.

Cohort marketing

Using cohort marketing, you divide your audience into smaller cohorts that share your target audience's traits, preferences, and experiences. Cohort analysis enhances your marketing performance by determining what connects people who execute similar actions and then developing your advertisements appropriately.

Contextual advertising

Instead of following the user, contextual advertising places adverts depending on the page's content using keywords and topic targeting. For instance, you could dynamically display your whipped cream advertisement when a user is on a page containing a recipe for pumpkin pie.

Offering you control over the material you'll appear with offers personalization without violating privacy and maintains brand safety.

APIs

By detecting topics of interest based on users' browsing histories, browser APIs like Google's proposed Topics API provide insights akin to cookies. The top interests that Chrome determines over three weeks are displayed in tailored advertising on websites that have chosen to participate in Google Topics.

For instance, a user's topic might be "Outdoor Recreation" if their Week 1 browsing behavior was dominated by visits to websites that offer ski equipment. For weeks 2 and 3, other topics, such as "Live Music" and "Books & Literature," can be selected, believing they mirror their browsing preferences.

Browser APIs allow you to deploy interest-based marketing. Still, since users will have control over their topics and be able to turn them off entirely, their willingness to engage with your content is essential to your success.

Clean rooms

Secure software platforms called "data clean rooms" enable parties to exchange and compare anonymized user-level data without disclosing raw data or personally identifiable info. (PII). They enable brands and advertisers to do attribution and performance analyses for specialized, privacy-conscious advertising campaigns.

Unifying marketing data

Choosing the best combination of cookie-free marketing strategies to reach your target demographic won't be simple or quick. But you need to do it correctly to succeed in a cookie-free world.

Those who excel at cookie-free marketing will have in common that they will have established systems, procedures, and tools for managing and unifying their data throughout their marketing ecosystem. Making data a strategic goal will also enable them to comprehend the efficacy of their marketing efforts and guarantee that their martech stack is productive, profitable, and cookieless future-proof.

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