This July, Google made official what many in the digital marketing world long suspected by announcing that it would abandon its third-party cookie deprecation plans (the company had intended to eliminate tracking cookies in Chrome this year). However, Google’s turn in no way implies that cookies are here to stay. The company plans to make cookies an opt-in service, effectively putting cookie deprecation in the hands of Chrome users. Judging by the dramatic decline in signals from Apple’s ID for Advertisers when it made a similar move in 2021, we can expect this bottom-up cookie deprecation to happen at pace. Indeed, cookies are already severely restricted in major browsers including Firefox and Safari and will also be restricted on Edge when Google presses ahead with its plans.
What is cookie deprecation?
Until Google announced its (not so shocking) third-party cookie deprecation, third-party cookie deprecation referred to the phased elimination of third-party cookies from web browsers. Today, it’s more accurate to think of cookie deprecation as the obsolescence of cookies resulting from consumer empowerment. This, in turn, results from tech companies giving people more control over how brands and publishers engage with them online with the aim of protecting their privacy.
This relatively new prioritisation of consumer privacy is being driven by a raft of privacy regulations worldwide, as well as growing awareness of consumers around how their personal data is used in digital marketing. Third-party cookies have been widely used for tracking users’ browsing activities across different sites, primarily for targeted advertising and personalised content. The deprecation of cookies will enhance user privacy by limiting this cross-site tracking.
What does cookie deprecation mean for advertisers and marketers?
In response to third-party cookie deprecation, the industry is exploring alternative technologies and methods for achieving similar functionalities. First-party data strategies and privacy-centric tracking solutions are being prioritised to balance user privacy and the business needs of advertisers and publishers.
Telco-verified IDs are a great example of this emerging model for privacy-first digital marketing. These IDs leverage the extensive and reliable data held by telcos to verify users without relying on traditional third-party cookies. By using telco-verified IDs, privacy is maintained as the process involves identifiers that verify users without exposing sensitive personal information. This facilitates the building of addressable audiences and the activation of personalised campaigns at scale, all while adhering to stringent privacy regulations and managing user consent transparently.
How prepared are brands and agencies for cookie deprecation?
While Google’s move may somewhat alter the cookie deprecation timeline, we can expect the technology to effectively become obsolete shortly after consumers are given the choice about opting in (certainly if the Apple / IDFA analogy holds true). Concerningly, however, industry studies suggest that brands and agencies are still largely unprepared.
Indeed, according to a study from this June (one month before Google changed its plans), only 25% of advertisers said that they are ready for cookie deprecation. Another study from May suggested that 56% of marketers are not familiar with ad targeting methods beyond third-party cookies.
More positively, the reaction to Google’s backtracking on its deprecation plans has not impacted marketers’ belief that the days of third-party cookies are numbered. Marketers who had started to prepare for the loss of cookies plan to press ahead with new ways of reaching their audiences without cookies. This is because the overwhelming consensus is that consumers will opt out of third-party cookie tracking in favour of protecting their privacy (it is thought that 70-80% of Chrome users will decide not to have third-party cookies enabled on their browser).
The imperative to act on cookie deprecation
It is forecast that by next year, 80-90% of all web traffic will have no third-party cookies. Marketers who have not yet started to prepare for this future should hurry. Indeed, they may already be falling behind given that this year already 56% of global web traffic lacks scaled third-party cookies for advertising. Solutions like telco-verified IDs offer an existing and proven alternative to tracking cookies that are both privacy-preserving and more effective at delivering accurate audiences at scale. So, why wait? Marketers looking to future-proof their digital marketing campaigns should get started right away.
