The Cookie Crumble Challenge: How to prepare for 2024’s cookie redaction trend

Pass the cookies. Keep the customers.

With Google’s planned phaseout of third-party cookies in Chrome by the end of 2024, marketers are seeing an ongoing push to eschew third-party data collection and ad tracking in favor of zero-party data collection. This may be sweet relief to many consumers, but what does it mean for marketers? Maybe a rich new opportunity. ?

Here are some steps you as a digital marketer can take to get (or stay) in your customers’ good graces and position yourselves to make zero-party data collection work for you.

Maximize your databases

The first step is to save and secure the data you already have from your current customers. Depending on the generosity of your CFO and volume of data, it can be stored in applications ranging from spreadsheets to CRM databases. To build on your database, ask new and existing customers to offer their data in exchange for value, such as access to paywalled content. For example, tiered complimentary services can let people wet their feet before they’re funneled into paid options. You need to demonstrate that providing value to consumers is your first priority: What’s in it for them?

Define your audience with AI?

Use AI and ML-based algorithms on social media, OTT platforms, and broader consumer apps to help you identify user segments, behavior patterns, and likely preferences by just about any characteristic imaginable: age, gender, occupation, education, geographic location, and so forth.

Use discretion though and apply the right parameterization. This may sound like a cliché but King Charles & Ozzy Osbourne were both born in 1948, live in castles and are filthy rich, but are not necessarily the same persona when it comes to demand patterns.

Using artificial assistance platforms such as Amazon Rekognition - will likely need to experiment with several to figure out which works best for your team – will help you develop a vetting process that weeds out synthetic data. Synthetic data encompasses images, videos, sounds, blogs, and other forms of bot-generated content that can be misleading and dangerous, misrepresenting real-life identities and preferences.

Personalize your customer experience (CX)

As your marketing team hones the skill of evaluating who and what is legitimate, build in micro-experiences tailored to the demographics you want to incorporate. These experiences can be surveys and quizzes, shopping wish lists, demos of new tools, free trials, or community-driven micro sites, to name a few.

Short feedback and survey mechanisms initiated from customer websites, ad-based surveys, and customer service interactions are effective ways to understand customer sentiment. Automation-driven feedback reminders such as a feedback-loop tool also derive meaningful insights into performance and error, and they can even be used to assign and prioritize tasks for improving CX.

Expand your offerings through collaboration?

Strategic partnerships can offer value to customers in exchange for the information they consent to share. Utility providers such as cellular companies have already been known to join forces with entertainment names -T-Mobile with Hulu and Spotify, for example to give existing customers extra value and draw new customers in with package deals. As these examples suggest, select partners that complement your service and provide a glimpse of patrons’ relevant tastes and preferences.

Gather intel on the blockchain

Take advantage of blockchains as public, open-source repositories that transact data in a secure manner: They reduce the risk of data being concentrated within one party. Digital marketing teams can analyze customer data on the blockchain through those customers’ ownership of digital assets and currencies. Use the information gathered in that analysis to customize the CX services mentioned above.

Explore the metaverse

Beyond the metaverse’s impact on the aesthetics of the user experience, the avatars of its users can be a rich source of demographic research as you assess your audiences, both present and prospective. Be sure to look at the membership of DAOs to help identify categories that have potential as a customer base. The metaverse is full of dilettantes, but active community members constitute a vital source that you’ll want to tap into.

Be candid about cookie use

While doing all the above, it is essential to incorporate robust data safety measures to protect your customers' information. Transparency is key, so it behooves you to tell your customers how you’re using their data, and with which partners. You can say something along the lines of, “We may add a partner like XYZ, but we’ll always ask your permission to share data before we go to them.” Users have some say even now in the sort of cookies they permit a website to use, and some don’t merely click “accept all.” You never know how many of your customers are so keen on privacy that, given a choice, they would ?opt for a provider that prioritizes zero or first-party reliance. By implementing robust data safety measures and being candid about data usage, you can further foster trust.

The destination isn’t fixed

Regulating policies around user privacy is going to take some effort, and the landscape is constantly changing. But as we work to create a smarter, more individualized internet experience for our customers, we should remember it’s the journey that matters. Making data collection a painless process that benefits both marketers and consumers demands creativity and transparency, as we find new ways to organize the information we need and that will be of true, additional value to them.