After a long period of ambiguity and diversion Google yesterday announced that their browser Chrome will in fact continue to handle 3rd party cookies into the future. The industry and regulators on both sides of the Atlantic, the CMA & ICO in the UK specifically, broadly consulted and fed-back on Google's Privacy Sandbox. In turn Google has decided to adopt an approach which 'lets people make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing'.
For marketers the past 4-6 years has have been defined by a range of tectonic shifts and ambiguity - With Google's recent decision there is arguably one less unknown. With this in mind we wanted to reflect on where we have got to as an industry and what we have learnt:
Chrome is 51% of browser us in the UK & US
Whilst the press often refer to a 64% share this is actually based on global figures in which Asia and Africa markets impact the overall results significantly. Beyond Chrome's share the market is dominated by Apple's Safari and the Webkit based Firefox which have excluded 3rd party cookies for years.
Takeaway: For marketers in the UK and/or US 49% of your addressable market is not targetable or measurable via the use of 3rd party cookies
***An excellent comment from Cari Lesh, COO of our partner Leverage Lab, commented on this article with the below***
"Currently 3rd party cookies can only track less than half of the worldwide site traffic. The remaining 50% in Chrome will be reliant on people who allow it. Using Apple's Privacy Feature Opt-Out as a projector, more than half of that population will opt out of tracking"
Social, CTV & advanced programmatic advertising
Meta, TikTok, Snap, MiQ, ITV, Sky, Disney+ and many more have been accelerating their approaches to receiving powerful first-party data signals from brands as advertisers have sought effectiveness and efficiency gains. The incrementally achieved from leveraging first-party data is re-defining media plans.
Takeaway: All advertisers must think beyond Google and increasingly the game in how you bring your owned intelligence to advertising platforms
First-party data outperforms cookie based targeting
Google's own Stephen Yap perfectly articuated the gains that advertisers and publishers are achieving, stating that they are 'seeing 4X times the performance, vs that of Cookies'. These results are demonstrable, with AUDIENCES clients most often out-performing this quantum across social, programmatic, search and CTV.
Takeaway: Brands and publishers have learnt how to leverage first-party data and many are already seeing the outsized performace vs. cookie based
Omnichannel needs first-party data to function
Cookies, 3rd or 1st party, never have and never will bridge on and offline channels. For retailers, telcos, financial services and many other verticals the concept of targeting and measurement existing in an online silo is unthinkable. These businesses sell and service across multiple engagement points and need real customer data to inform interactions.
Takeaway: Grown-up organisations know that they must leverage their first-party data in advertising for genuine benefits, real customer data = real results
Real addressability requires 'persistence' & 'interoperability'
Cookies are only set on a specific browser and have a finite and often short life span. Marketers need addressability they can trust and first-party identifiers such as email, phone number and post/zip code provide this. Whilst persisting for as long as a people chose to use them they are also usable across all advertising mediums enabling huge planning, optimising and orchestration opportunities.
Takeaway: First-party identifiers win over cookies in all dimensions, advertisers and publishers are already pushing these identifiers to gain quality incremetal reach across all advertising platforms
For sure the learnings go deeper and broader than the above with an industry and all it's adjacent players working for years to find a path through which caters for the needs of advertising and the preservation of people's consent for their data and wider behaviours processed. We can rely on the journey continuing to develop as the regulatory, economic and political landscape evolve.
Leading advertisers & publishers are already using AUDIENCES to accelerate activation of 1st party data across advertising with zero compromise to privacy or security.
Contact AUDIENCES to discuss how to accelerate activation of your 1st party data.