Delaying the 3rd party cookie deprecation is bad for publishers

In a week where it couldn’t be clearer that Chrome’s APIs in their current form will cause great harm to publisher revenue, there is surely no sound argument that we need to hurry up and get on with the 3rd party cookie (3PC) removal, is there?

The harm to our industry when 3PCs are gone is by this point indisputable. The impact will be felt in all corners of the ecosystem, and I think most of us are coming to realise, thanks to the pioneering tests from the likes of Raptive and Criteo, that we’ll do incredibly well to lose only 25% of current open auction revenues.

My immediate response in April, however, when Google announced that, once again, they’d be delaying the sunsetting of 3rd party cookies (3PC) was one of weariness and frustration. Hear me out.

Short-termism

The problem with welcoming these persistent delays is that it reveals something potentially concerning: a short-termism that is failing to plan for the future. I used the word “potentially” because, as always, there is nuance. Some organisations are going all in on building their future around Chrome’s APIs (which comes with its separate set of risks) and therefore understand the technical flaws that need addressing before they are ready to be shipped to general availability. I understand, to some extent, why these organisations may welcome further delays.

For others, however, I’ve noticed a relief that appears to come from a different place. One in which any additional delays are viewed as a good thing as it’s another quarter or two in which open auction revenues can be preserved. This relief, it seems, has no regard for the second-order effects associated with these delays and primarily focuses on the short-term outcomes.

The boardroom of your business should understand by now the transformative shift that is coming and be clear on the extent to which this could impact the business. This should have cascaded down to reflect the revenue targets that were set at the start of 2024 insofar as that when Google announced the delay (again), there shouldn’t have been such a huge, uniform sigh of relief. The endurance of 3PCs shouldn’t be the make or break of businesses in 2024.

Colleagues and I of late have felt a little like the boy/girl(s) who cried wolf and others have told me they feel the same. Every 12 months or so, we have to head back to our senior executives, tail between legs, explaining, “we’re really sorry but actually that thing we said was going to destabilize our entire digital business, yeah it’s not happening, again, for the time being.” Credibility is undermined, momentum slows, and the narrative amongst sales and in-market weakens. I can’t imagine how hard it is for those on the ad tech side trying to plan for and build around such uncertain grounds.

The 3PC delay camps

I think that most of us, on the publisher side at least, are falling into one of three camps with respect to our positions on Chrome’s repeated delays.

Camp 1: This is good news because right now, we just need that open auction revenue. Every month that the 3PC lights are still on is another that enables us to find a way through the year.

Camp 2: This is good news because it gives us just a little more breathing space to continue building those alternative strategies we’re working on.

Camp 3: This is bad news because it only slows alignment and support from our leadership team and its perceived immediacy and also slows market adoption and receptiveness to our alternatives.

Camps 2 and 3 are more closely positioned than camps 1 and 2 are. There are probably more camps and factions within camps, but you get the point, hopefully.

Is this not like turkeys voting for Christmas?

An obvious and understandable response to my core argument is likely something along the lines of, “hang on, as a publisher why on earth would you welcome the very thing that will negatively impact your revenue? Isn’t this like turkeys voting for Christmas?”

Publishers welcoming the removal of 3PCs isn’t like this because, unlike the poor turkeys, when Christmas comes there are alternative options to being put in an oven at 200 degrees for 4 hours. Sure, the short term doesn’t look net positive, but other areas of our business will continue to flourish, new technologies and capabilities will emerge, and the industry more broadly will adjust in ways we don’t yet precisely know.

We also often fall into the subconscious trap of thinking the future of the online audience is on Chrome alone. Yes, we see higher yields on this inventory than on Safari, and yes it makes up perhaps ~60% of inventory, but it is sometimes as though the entire web is built on Chrome alone. Crude fag packet maths will reveal that when you take the Chrome inventory (60%), layer over the percentage of inventory where the primary ads APIs will apply (~90%), the percentage of inventory that is consented for advertising (~85%), and those who don’t have ad blockers in place (~85%) - we are talking about maybe 39% of web inventory. It’s a big number. But not everything.

We’ll never be ready

With so much time having now passed since the original deadline, the unease around the post-cookie world has almost reached fever pitch. How can it be that the latest research from Adobe this week reveals that marketers feel less prepared now than they did 2 years ago?

It’s like the climb of a terrifying rollercoaster. The higher you go, the greater the anticipation and anxiety. The fear and regret worsen progressively, and you end up convincing yourself, usually as you reach the peak, that this was the worst idea of your life and rue that it will indeed be your final one. The descent itself rarely meets the horrid expectations. (This analogy only really works if you’re petrified of heights like me, but you get the point either way, fearless readers.)

I’ll finish by reiterating what is hopefully an obvious point. I know that Chrome’s removal of 3PCs will have a very negative impact on parts of our industry and will, at least in the short term, be harmful to publisher revenues. I know the topic is very complex and can’t be reduced to either just good or bad news for our industry, which is why I wished to bring more balance to this topic. And I know that not everyone has the privilege of a receptive and supportive leadership team. I do believe, however, that the more time that passes now, the less ready we will all feel, and the more we will talk ourselves into a mindset that this industry change just cannot go ahead (if we haven’t already).

We have to think very critically about when we would be happy to move ahead and enter a new chapter in which 3PCs no longer exist while accepting that the promise was never that these APIs would A) be the future of our industry alone and B) be the perfect like-for-like replacement for the cookie.

What if Google adjusted the APIs so that publisher revenues declined by only 20%? Do we think we would honestly be happy with moving forward with this? Knowing also that this improved effectiveness would have come at the cost of consumer privacy?