Media Monday

Google Delays Cookie Deprecation Until 2025

By Kerry Anderson, Situation Paid Search Manager?

Google has announced another delay in its plan to phase out third-party cookies, pushing the deadline back to 2025. This delay marks the third time Google has postponed the removal of third-party tracking cookies, having originally planned to eliminate them in 2020, then further delaying to 2023, and subsequently to 2024. With the recent announcement, Google is now aiming to proceed with the removal of third-party cookies early next year, pending an agreement with the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The agreement seeks to ensure that Google’s proposed tool to replace cookie tracking - which they call the Privacy Sandbox - and measurement capabilities are not anti-competitive.

YouTube Introduces More Ad Targeting Options for Shorts

By Mara Milgrom, Situation Media & Development Manager

YouTube first launched ads for its short-form video format in 2022, but as of late last year, the ability to buy exclusively Shorts inventory was only available to a small group of advertisers and most advertisers could only buy Shorts ads as part of a bundle.? Last week, however, YouTube announced a new feature that allows advertisers to buy ads within YouTube Shorts specifically, within specific content categories. If a brand wants to sell soccer jerseys to sports fans, for example, it can choose to run ads between sports-related Shorts content. Other available targeting categories include gaming, food and recipes, automotive and beauty, fashion and lifestyle.

The Shorts push comes ahead of YouTube’s upfront ad sales show in May, Brandcast, which is where the platform typically touts exclusive ad inventory. With Shorts, YouTube tweaked its “select” program, which is considered a premium tier of ad inventory that runs next to a controlled group of top creators. YouTube will not reveal how it determines what content makes it into the “select” category for Shorts—but the program is an outgrowth of the one on YouTube proper. YouTube made that a premium level of advertising partly in response to major brands wanting more control over how they appear on the platform and assurances about higher-quality programming.? Read more here.