Google Abandons Cookie Deprecation, but Brands & Publishers Aren’t Out of the Woods Yet
After four years of keeping advertisers and publishers on the edge of their seats with the impending doom of third-party cookie deprecation in Chrome, the world’s most popular browser, Google is scrapping it altogether in a recent announcement.
It seems Google has succumbed to the outcries from advertisers and publishers, their major revenue drivers. So Google is pivoting from a posture of restriction (i.e. blocking the use of third-party cookies) to one of user choice, with their announcement of a new Chrome privacy controls interface, the details of which have yet to be released.
However, it is still unknown how regulatory bodies like the CMA (Competition & Markets Authority) in the UK will respond to Google’s pivot. As Forrester notes, regulatory bodies remain dissatisfied with Google’s competitive practices and inadequate consumer privacy disclosures.
Additionally, Firefox and Apple’s Safari browsers have been blocking third-party cookies by default for years, so advertisers are already missing a significant portion of their intended audience when they are reliant on third-party cookies for campaign targeting, optimization, and measurement. It is also likely that many Chrome users will opt out of many or all third-party cookies if Google gives users better tools to understand and control who is collecting data on them.
So what does this announcement actually mean for brands and publishers? And what can they do to future-proof their business in the midst of so much uncertainty?
What does it mean for publishers?
In the short term, publishers can breathe a sigh of relief that they won’t see a significant and sudden hit to their advertising revenue with the deprecation of third-party cookies in Chrome. But they’re not out of the woods just yet, given the uncertainty around this announcement. This is why many publishers are investing in their own infrastructure, commonly referred to as customer data infrastructure (CDI), to satisfy advertisers’ campaign analytics and optimization expectations without a third-party intermediary.
By implementing their own CDI, publishers can build a proprietary, first-party data set (e.g., search, scrolling, and viewing behaviors, devices, browsers, opt-in preferences) to intelligently segment their audience and maximize ad revenue by offering segments their advertisers most highly value. A CDI allows publishers to work directly with their advertisers to build custom audiences, measure campaign performance, and optimize advertising in real time.
What does it mean for advertisers & marketers?
Similar to publishers, Google’s announcement means advertisers can also breathe a sigh of relief that their advertising campaigns’ performance won’t tank overnight. But they’re also not out of the woods yet, for the reasons mentioned above.
Advertisers would be prudent to use this time to explore first-party alternatives to measuring and optimizing campaign performance in their own centrally governed environment. Similar to publishers, advertisers and their marketing counterparts are collaborating with their data engineering teams to implement a CDI, which will enable them to build their own proprietary, first-party data set to understand the value of their customers on a deeper level, as well as leverage privacy-centric solutions for data sharing and federation (e.g., data clean rooms).
Implementing a CDI provides safeguards against third-party cookie deprecation while also improving data governance and unlocking richer insights to fuel AI-driven experiences and improve business outcomes.
What does it mean for data engineering, analytics, and data science teams supporting their marketing & advertising teams?
Now is the time to fortify the bridge between the data teams and the business teams in your organization. For too long, marketing and advertising teams have been entirely dependent on third-party tools to track, measure, and optimize audiences and campaigns.
Owned and operated by the data teams, a customer data infrastructure (CDI) can absolve business teams’ dependence on these third-party tools, enabling the business to build and take ownership of its proprietary, first-party behavioral data and fuel AI-driven use cases across marketing and advertising, product, customer service, and fraud business teams, all while adhering to consumer privacy preferences.
Reach out to learn more about how data-driven companies around the world are adopting Snowplow customer data infrastructure (CDI) to fuel AI, analytics, and personalization.