End of Third-Party Cookies: What Does It Mean for Your Brand’s Online Marketing?

Google’s decision to phase out third-party cookies sent shock waves across the digital marketing and advertising industry. Why not? Third-party cookies are critical enablers of targeted online advertising, a USP of digital marketing. And since Google controls 60% of web traffic, phasing them out may mean a tectonic shift in online marketing.
The jargon must be confusing if you are a business owner just starting out. How does this ‘tectonic shift’ affect your brand?
Well. We have you covered in this blog if you are looking for answers.
Today with inputs from our digital marketing experts at Samskriti Business Solutions, we give you a layman’s intro to cookies and help you understand their importance in online marketing. Read on:
Third-Party Cookies vs First-Party Cookies – A Brief Intro:
A cookie is a tracker that observes a user’s activity. It is a small tracker (code) placed on the user’s computer while they browse the web. Now, who puts the tracker (cookie code)? And what the tracker does is how we differentiate between them.
First-Party Cookie:
As one lands on the website, it sends a piece of code to the browser. After the user accepts the cookie, the code observes the user’s activity and stores necessary information about the user. Information like language preferences, page views, sign-in information and more are stored in the local file on your website. They are used to improve and customize the user experience.
For example, without accepting first-party cookies from an e-commerce store, you must log in every time you visit the website, the cart resets every time you log in, and the website owner may not know your preferences.
Third-Party Cookie:
First-party cookie only observes user activity and collects the data when the user is on that particular website. But a third-party is more ambitious and capable. It contains the user activity across the websites and store information about the user across different websites.
The work of first-party cookies starts and ends on the specific website. But third-party cookies follow you around the internet and observe your online activity across websites to know your online history, demographics, preferences and interests. Ad tech companies use this information to build a virtual profile for a user and then serve ads that click better with the user’s like and intent to improve sales and conversions.
A third-party cookie is not set by the website owner but by a third party to which the owner may have subscribed. The third party could be an ad platform like Google AdSense, which puts a code onto your browser and then collects the information to serve ads.
Google phasing out third-party cookies would mean that Google Chrome no longer collects the third-party cookies that collect the information that identifies a user at an individual level.
End of Third-Party Cookies: Impact on Online Marketing
The data from third-party cookies is critical for assessing the buyer’s intent to serve the tailored and targeting ads. This is also why the most powerful online marketing techniques, like remarketing/retargeting and programmatic advertising are powered by third-party cookies. An end of third-party cookies means less relevant targeting and increased spending.
The end of third-party cookies will mean ineffective ads, increased ad spend & investment in new digital marketing avenues to drive sales.
“An estimated 90% of advertisers use third-party cookies in one way or the other. The end of third-party cookies will mean less effective targeting and decreased reach. A/B testing, frequency capping, and multi-ouch attribution will become more challenging. The revenue of ad publishers may take a hit as advertisers pay less. So online marketing agencies in Hyderabad that execute marketing campaigns will have to develop new strategies for better customer targeting and conversion”, says one of our in-house digital marketing executives at Samskriti Business Solutions.
However, Google’s decision to end third-party cookies comes with a catch. While the third-party cookies are being phased out, the tracking will stay with FLOC. This new alternative to third-party cookies divides users into groups and targets them at a group level, protecting their privacy. Despite the newly proposed choice, it must be said that the hyper-targeting facility provided by third-party cookies will be missed.
End of third-party cookies: The need for better digital marketing strategies is paramount:
We are at the tip of entering a new world where customer experience and privacy take the front seats. So digital marketers need to find alternative ways to attract better prospects to improve their conversion and sales.
So what steps can a digital marketer take to prepare for a cookie-less future?
End of third-party cookies: Ways to improve your brand’s online marketing
Build and rely on first-party data:
Brands must find new ways to collect and build the first-party data straight from the users. Asking for logins before sharing information, post-purchase surveys, and offering new incentives in exchange for personal information are common ways today’s brand uses. One can also rely on email newsletters, events, and landing page contact information to build databases.
Bet on contextual advertising:
Serving ads based on the relevancy of the content is contextual advertising that reaped the rewards for the advertisers before the foray of third-party cookies. Contextual advertising is the obvious alternative when behavioural targeting is not possible. But contextual advertising will need the production and distribution of high-quality content, so our following advice is to invest in content marketing.
Focus on content marketing:
No incentive is as powerful as the value you can give through valuable and engaging content. In the long run, content marketing is the best way to draw in more users and generate high-quality leads without relying on outside factors.
Content marketing is the most effective way to know the user and collect first-party data. And more importantly, it is critical if you want to leverage contextual advertising. This is precisely why content marketing is a pillar of any brand’s digital marketing efforts.
Partnership with large and powerful publishers:
If your ways to collect first-party data are limited, the simplest way is to partner with large publishers who collect within your industry. Platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn or Google store tons of first-party data, which can help brands to improve their marketing efforts and campaign measurement.
So partnering with publishers your users visit or trust to make their decision is an easier way out. For example, an e-commerce brand can partner with Facebook/Instagram for social media marketing ,whereas a SaaS business can seek help from review platforms or other publishers in SaaS.
That said, only a few brands have enough resources or expertise to execute the above strategies to improve their conversion and sales performance. If you are one of them, Samskriti Business Solutions is the best digital marketing agency in Hyderabad that can power your digital marketing efforts with customized digital marketing services.
Whether you are looking for paid search marketing, social media marketing or content marketing, or mobile app marketing we are equipped with dedicated personnel who can improve and scale your sales performance in a short time. For more information on our services, you can contact us here: https://www.samskritisolutions.com/