How to Market Your Online Brand without Online 3rd Party Cookies

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Creating customer profiles across the web has never been easier with the invention of 3rd party cookies. But with Google’s target date of 2023 to eliminate one of the easiest ways to target consumers, it’s time for many online retailers to formulate a solid plan to re-engage with their customers through other means of advertising and marketing.

We’ve been using cookies to sell products online for years. With many consumers not really knowing what they agreed to when seeing the notification that the site they’re on is using cookies to track them. It’s been easy for online retailers to build unique consumer profiles to create some of the most amazing hyper targeted ads I’ve seen within the last decade.?

As we’re almost halfway through 2022 and with 2023 around the corner the end of the era will soon be upon us. Let’s get ready for the renaissance of online advertising and marketing. With “How to Market Your Brand without Online Cookies.”

The Renaissance of Advertising & Marketing?

Change is something many of us hate to accept but realize is usually for the better. We can thank industry titans like Google for giving us the chance to understand our customers on a whole new level through this upcoming cookie-less world of eCommerce.

But this renaissance also gives us a chance to see what our customers truly value, which is trust and privacy above all things. Here’s our blueprint to generate more sales, better online customer experiences, and increased customer LTV through our cookie Renaissance.

Why First Party Cookies Are Key To Sales

Companies have spent billions of dollars each year on advertising and marketing with the hopes that their target audience will see their ads enough to finally convert. The use of first party cookies almost completely eliminates the need of spending this much money on marketing alone.

Why? Because user experience is everything today, and eliminating the use of 3rd party cookies gives online retailers the opportunity to increase their focus into utilizing first party cookies. The data first party cookies provide give insight into creating higher quality user experiences through analyzing customers user behaviors allowing for continual improvement of eCommerce websites to increase sales and revenue.

Generally speaking, people trust first-party cookies more than third-party cookies because they improve the user experience of a website. First party cookies also allow marketing teams to analyze user behavior which can result in improved brand messaging, stronger call to action (CTA) results, and a better understanding of your audience’s needs.

To some this up putting more focus into providing a better quality online user experience through the data collected from first party cookies can yield higher sales and conversions.

Contextual Advertising Is Back & Here To Stay

As the years pass we’ve had a tendency to overlook how efficient keyword targeting can be or just Contextual advertising in general. In case you aren't familiar with this form of advertising;

Contextual advertising is basically ads that are relevant to the other content on the screen. It’s like beer ads in a bar: go where your customers are. From the average non-marketer consumers’ perspective, contextual ads are more relevant and far less creepy feeling than cookie-based behavioral retargeting.

In my opinion it doesn't get more hyper targeted than contextual advertising. Shifting the focus back to relevant content for the target audience. But in order for this form of advertising to work effectively, producing relevant and creative content will be the key to success. Let’s face it no one likes being sold to. Studies have shown us that consumers prefer to consume content over a pushy sales advertisements.

The easiest way to get started with this form of advertising is through Google AdSense. Which allows you to place image, video, and text ads on the pages of participating sites online. This enables you to put dynamic content in front of people who aren’t necessarily searching for you but are searching for a product or service you may offer leading them right to you.

Gaining the trust of the consumer should always be a standard practice and from the consumer perspective it's less intrusive and makes more sense. They only see ads that are relevant to the content they are currently consuming, so they are more relevant and in turn, more likely to feel invited to the party.?

Start Using People Based Advertising

Getting real time data of the consumer can take your marketing campaign to a whole new level. Introduced to the marketing world by Facebook, people-based advertising relies on a unique identifier that is related to the user, not the device. People-based marketing is defined as “a means to create a customer-centric, cohesive marketing system that revolves around customers and their real-time behavioral data. Creating a people based marketing strategy comes down to these key elements.?

Identification

Brands need to identify their customers and connect them correctly to their various devices. The goal here is to ensure persistent, cross-device recognition for a single view of the customer. If this single customer journey is not tracked well, it could lead to incorrect assumptions about customer behavior, thereby causing inaccuracies in data which ultimately cause ill-designed marketing campaigns. To avoid that, brands must be able to identify their customer across channels and devices.

Data

Today, brands have a plethora of data on each of their customers; from purchase data to email engagement to device information. The identification-first approach for customer data gives brands an upper-hand of targeting them effectively. Not just historical data, brands should also refer to real-time behavioral data like their device, their interaction with your website, their carts as well as the products and categories they visited while browsing. Linking together these data points allows brands to get a singular view of the customer.

Automation

Instead of relying on cookie-based data, People-Based Marketing automation relies on people-based targeting. It helps brands unlock a singular view of the customer, anchoring all of the data to a single source. As a result, brands can automate an omnichannel marketing approach across all devices under a single cohesive marketing strategy.

The combination of using first party data with people based marketing is a surefire way to not only create unique highly personalized user experiences but to also truly engage with customers at a much higher level from the very beginning of the sales process. Combining these strategies requires less time for nurturing and will push your customers through your sales funnel at a much faster rate than with current marketing methodologies.?

Don’t Underestimate the value of first party data

With the elimination of third party cookies the first party data you acquire will become more important than ever before. With so many direct to consumer retailers in the market many of them have more first party data on hand than they think. Not to mention with trust and privacy being one of the reasons for elimination of 3rd party cookies it’s always easier to market to consumers who have already shown proven interest in your brand. This means spending less money on ads and marketing, increasing customer LTV, and movement through the sales funnel much faster than before.?

Understand that lack of trust has cost online retailers billions of dollars but also caused the fall of third party cookies. When acquiring first party data always understand that it’s a value exchange. Consumers are already trusting brands with a purchase, but to carry this trust forward you need transparency by not only asking for permissions but also explaining clearly what data you are collecting and what it’s being used for.

Building profiles with first party customer data

There are many tools to help with building customer profiles with first part data. The best place to start is Google analytics. Google analytics analyzes your online traffic and gives insights about your customers in amazing detail, combined with the information collected through your website during checkout this information becomes invaluable.

These profiles will be more targeted and accurate than ever before. First and third party profile data may seem similar? but the accuracy of this information will be far more superior than that of third party. From first party data points and other data collected through your website, you can build segments such as:

Demography - Age 18-24

Interests - Political News

Purchase Intentions - Women T-Shirts - White

Demography - UK

All this information can be used to create hyper personalized online user experiences. Gathering first party data makes it easy to know your users and divide them into specific groups. You can analyze your web traffic and create audiences who are looking for specific products or are interested in a particular topic, such as sport or automotive. It enables you to create highly personalized messages and increase the effectiveness of your marketing efforts

Smooth Transition?

The elimination of third party cookies will require shifting the marketing and advertising dynamics like we’ve never seen before. But this shift will require a balance between personalization and privacy. That forces many companies to now think outside of the box when it comes to creating marketing campaigns. This new era will place more reward on hyper personalization of user experiences and marketing than it does on the amount of money being spent on ads. Metrics like click through rate, bounce rate, and conversions will all be of more importance than the amount of ROAS.

In my opinion as a web designer I think this shift is for the best. Making advertising more relevant and less invasive consumers will likely see the value of it. Personalization and trust are the new things to make sure your company is at the forefront of. So ask yourself, is my company ready for the renaissance of marketing and advertising?