Google Still Supporting Cookies: Five Things Multicultural Advertisers Need to Know

In a rather stark turnaround, Google is no longer ending support for third-party cookies in its Chrome browser .? Portada asked digital marketing experts on the agency and media side about the impact of Google's decision.

1. Google Now Supporting Third-Party Cookies: Multicultural Advertisers Say They Are Not that Useful to Begin With

"From a multicultural marketer’s perspective, I almost see this as a bit of a “leveling of the playing field”. As multicultural practitioners, there’s always been a lag in the value of third-party cookies, mainly driven by their inability to fully capture the essence and intricacies of the increasingly sizable multicultural audiences in the U.S," Ana?Crandell, Vice President of Media Services, Lopez Negrete Communications, tells Portada.? 'This void has always required that we didn’t become too reliant on data, or at least not as much as ‘general market’ practitioners have. The interrogating of the data – looking beyond the numbers, validating sources, quantifying sample sizes, and things of this nature, have always been additional steps that we’ve had to incorporate into our processes. This being the case, I’m of the opinion that the adapting to this cookie less world will not be as drastic as it may be to others – in particular, practitioners who tend to operate through the lens of one homogeneous “general market” world.

"There’s always been a lag in the value of third-party cookies, mainly driven by their inability to fully capture the essence and intricacies of the increasingly sizable multicultural audiences in the U.S."

According to Hernan Zungri, SVP Sales & Operations, Digo, "multicultural campaigns are able to run independently of cookies. About 50% or less of Hispanics can be targeted by only using data, so contextual is key to run a multicultural campaign. By Google keeping cookies publishers and brands will be able to overlay behaviors on top of multicultural media buys."

"About 50% or less of Hispanics can be targeted by only using data, so contextual is key to run a multicultural campaign."

2. Google Cookies: Will Contextual Advertising Get a Back Seat? Not Really

So does the preservation of third-party cookie support mean that contextual advertising will become relegated in digital advertising? Not really, at least when it comes to multicultural, for reasons explained above. Dentsu's Figoli says that "this may be a primary reaction,? but the ad space of relevant content continues to be very important." In this sense,? Stephen Paez, Publicis' EVP Cultural Investment and Innovation, ?comments at a recent Portada Live event come to mind: "In the multicultural space, we were doing contextual advertising before it became a thing."

"In the multicultural space, we were doing contextual advertising before it became a thing."

3.? Advertising Attribution Measurement Outside of Walled Gardens Not Imperiled

One point that practitioners asked by Portada see as a positive about Google's decision of not ending support for third-party cookies, is that frequency and attribution measurement outside of walled gardens will continue to be available. ""Measurement of campaign frequency and attribution outside of the walled gardens and apps basically depends on Google cookies and third-party cookies.??Measurement and sales attribution of open web properties, while not ideal today, is something that is far from being solved," says Cristian Figoli - Chief Product Officer LATAM - dentsu. "The upcoming lack of attribution measurement as a result of the expected cookie deprecation is something that clearly was going to impact open web publishers, which currently are already being hit by many performance driven issues. That is why they were turning to econometric models to measure attribution. With third-party cookies carrying on, at least there continues to be a proxy to understand the impact of media (display advertising) on performance beyond the last click," Figoli adds.

4. Google Cookies: Slowdown of the Adoption of User Centric Solutions

"While Google's decision clearly draws attention, it does not really represent a huge change in the practical sense. There were many questions about how Google's cookie deprecation would take place. We already saw that due to the constant delays of Google, many digital media properties and networks were looking for ways to utilize unified IDs that were not Google cookie dependent. They also looked at probabilistic or deterministic? solution approaches," says Figoli, about the way publishers and marketers were preparing for the post cookie era.

"Google's decision just slows down a bit the change to appropiate user centric solutions. These are still a must since we are getting into a business where the quality of the signals needed to enhance the work of algorithms are dependent on quality data. To be safe, companies should keep their efforts and invest in first-party data, it's not only safer it's also better for business decisions", says Julian Chadwick, CEO of performance marketing agency Zenda.

"I believe cookies are staying because the replacement of user tracking has been a lot more complicated than expected for companies, and there is a huge amount of money depending on tracking which no one wants to put at risk."

5. Its The Money Stupid, But Also Tech Challenges

The experts asked by Portada also cite financial reasons to explain Google's decision not to end the deprecation of third-party cookies. "I think that Google has built a walled garden based on cookies, and loosing them will have a huge impact on revenue. Most companies started long ago to undercut Google and gain an advantage, and at the end the market leader decided not to go that way and keep the advantage it always had, "says Digo's Zungri.

Another factor explaining Google's announcement are the technical challenges.? "I believe cookies are staying because the replacement of user tracking has been a lot more complicated than expected for companies, and there is a huge amount of money depending on tracking which no one wants to put at risk. And together with this, the privacy "issue" of web tracking has shifted its focus to AI models and tools, being way more concerning, which enables Google to avoid taking an abrupt solution," Zenda's Chadwick concludes.