Legal Notice After Cookies
Google Chrome Announces an End to 3rd Party Cookies
What
Google officially announces plan to phase out 3rd-party cookies by 2022.
Most people knew this was coming, but Google Chrome accounts for over half of all downloaded web browser Investing time and energy into maintaining an ad-supported web.
Why
Data privacy has been at the forefront of consumers’ minds for years now.
Aiming to protect consumer data from data leaks.
Response in part to lack of transparency in where personal data streams go across advertisers, networks, and other touchpoints
Implications
First-party data becomes incredibly valuable for targeting, but are companies willing to give up?
Log-ins, newsletter sign-ups, etc.
Addressable user volume continuously drops
Contextual targeting is increasingly relied upon
Companies like comScore
Potential bottom line impact
In Germany, a similar action by Firefox blocked third-party cookies by default, causing a 23% decline in CPM alongside a 45% decline in revenue.
Why are cookies so important?
Legal Environment Snapshot
Campaign Planning
Plan budgets accounting for upcoming changes in media cost throughout the year
Consider your audience, stay on top of available capabilities in order to reach strong leads
Keep the momentum going! While there will be changes in how media is run, testing will not disappear, leverage new strategies to continue growth and awareness
Allow for flexible audience planning taking into account the potential for reduced inventory
Live Media Monitoring and Optimizations
Hands-on daily optimizations & close monitoring to ensure campaigns goals are being met & audiences are being reached.
Test & Learn media strategy implemented
A|B Creative Testing with closely monitored results
Continued research & detailed definition of ideal lead/audience
Reporting
Transparency! Changes will impact the way media is planned & run, making comprehensive reporting essential
Metrics such as viewability, clickthrough rates, completed form fill-outs/ downloads etc. will still be available
Creating custom dashboards to share a better understanding of media performance across teams is more important than ever
Impact on Digital
Targeting
IMPACTED
3rd Party Data (Data Exchange Platforms and Data Providers) Advertiser 1st Party Data outside of the advertiser own website requiring DMP to DSP match
NOT IMPACTED
Geo-Location Targeting
Device Targeting
Contextual Targeting
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
Audience targeting volumes will decrease
Precision marketing will be challenged
The ability to use 1st party data (CRM/DMP) will be limited
Campaign Delivery
IMPACTED
Campaign optimization based on users’ data like websites visited or previous exposure to a given campaign Frequency Capping which requires 3rd party cookies to understand number of exposures.
NOT IMPACTED
Campaign optimization not based on the users:
Using the delivery context of a current ad opportunity such as data about the website, the placement, the device of the user
Using the ad itself such as industry of the advertiser, length of video, size of image, etc.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
Campaign performance will decrease. Guaranteed outcomes are key!
Programmatic Flows
IMPACTED
Without cookies – DSPs cannot run targeted ads
DSPs cannot provide frequency capping capabilities
NOT IMPACTED
DSPs can still run contextual ads, geolocation, etc
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
Inventory that does allow cookies will be saturated and more expensive.
Figures: Globally, this reflects 25% lower bid prices and 3x less bidding from DSPs
Measurement
IMPACTED
Multi-Touch Attribution: the 3rd-party cookie maintains an aggregated view of the user history and events for MTA
Cross-Channel Reporting: Without cookies, each of the channels used to track a user will provide different reports in a silo
NOT IMPACTED
Single Touch Attribution: Only single action (e.g.: last-click) is possible since no user history is used
Media Reporting: Metrics such as viewabilty, clicks, completed views, etc. at time of ad delivery
Audience Accuracy: Measurement of audience accuracy like DAR or VCE via panelist/profile data with a percentage remaining cookiebased
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
Following the customer journey will be more challenging, inhibiting attribution or proper reporting
The Next 12 Months: Trends & Predictions
Publishers are likely to
Provide incentives for users to create accounts
Require users to turn on cookies to visit their websites
Spend time in trying unique ID solutions in vain
Data providers are likely to
See a drop in their revenues, proportional to the cookie-rate
Start investing in new solutions: Contextual targeting, InApp data, Signed-on data
Programmatic
The cookie-based inventory will become more expensive & competitive
DSPs will be increasingly challenged to deliver cookie-targeted campaigns
Programmatic is likely to flatten and benefit actors having logged-in traffic (e.g.: Facebook) or end-to-end solutions (supply to buy side – like Teads)
Ad managers and DSPs
Will propose new targeting solutions (e.g: welcome back contextual targeting)
Lower-funnel/perf will be more & more challenging – especially re-targeting & attribution (less
volumes). Upper-funnel / branding will be a strong focus.
InApp & logged-in traffic will be heavily used
Alternatives to cookies
Fingerprinting techniques will develop
IAB is likely to propose a new standard
Browsers will lead the way to new changes (e.g.: Chrome)
Brands and DMPs
Advertisers 1st-party data will be mostly used for prospecting (lookalike) rather than to directly target the customers/site-visitors
References
https://www.adweek.com/programmatic/google-chrome-will-phase-out-third-party-cookies-by-2022/