Preparing for the Cookieless Future: What Should Programmatic Experts Know
For many years, third-party cookies have been the backbone of digital advertising, enabling the tracking of user behavior and the delivery of highly targeted ads. However, users are getting more and more concerned about their privacy, and the consequences are not that exciting for advertisers. What`s next?
For many years, third-party cookies have been the backbone of digital advertising, enabling the tracking of user behavior and the delivery of highly targeted ads. However, users are getting more and more concerned about their privacy, and the consequences are not that exciting for advertisers. Safari started blocking cookies by default, and Firefox does the same for known trackers. Additionally, Firefox prevents cross-tracking by creating a unique “cookie jar” for every website a user visits. Google is slightly falling behind but is expected to phase out third-party trackers for all users in the second half of 2024.?
Considering these, as well as the evolving privacy standards like GDPR and the decreasing usage of cookies (less than 42% of all websites still leverage them), advertisers need to revamp their data collection and targeting strategies to get ready for the privacy-focused future. How to do this if you advertise programmatically? Here is the guide.
Adopting the Cookieless Approach
In comparison with traditional digital marketing methods, programmatic advertising offers multiple benefits. Due to enhanced targeting, extended reach, and better flexibility in terms of spending, advertisers can reach their customers much more effectively. However, precise targeting requires a deep understanding of the audience, and third-party trackers played a significant role in obtaining this knowledge. Nowadays, when cookies are fading away (and that’s inevitable), marketers have to adopt other methods.?
Use First-Party Data
First and foremost, advertisers should switch to collecting first-party data — the data received directly from customers, which significantly increases its credibility. These can be information obtained from user registrations (like email addresses) and online behavior, transactional data like purchase history, etc.
As for the ways to collect first-party data, here are several options:
Keep in mind that users are getting concerned about their online privacy, so it is essential to be compliant with data protection regulations, obtain user consent for data collection, and have a clear privacy policy on a website.
Build the Right Partnerships
Using second-party data (basically, the first-party data collected by another business) can be useful, too, especially if it is challenging for an advertiser to obtain their own data at the moment. The solution to this issue is building partnerships with publishers, but the selection must be data-driven.
Advertisers should analyze the performance of their programmatic campaigns and define publishers who help them drive traffic the most effectively — this means that these websites are exactly where marketers’ audiences are. Building such a partnership will be beneficial for both publishers and advertisers. While marketers will be able to enhance targeting with second-party data, publishers will still get high-quality ads and deliver relevant experiences to their visitors.?
Try Alternative ID Solutions
Using cookie alternatives is one more tactic to try. For instance, this can be the Unified ID 2.0 solution (from the Trade Desk) that converts phone number and email data into encrypted and hashed identifiers. It supports cross-channel and cross-device identity strategies and enables transparent and privacy-responsible data transfer. Unified ID also works with Connected TVs and mobile applications and allows for offering opt-out, which is beneficial for users since they have greater control over their privacy.
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Implement Contextual Advertising
Contextual advertising implies delivering ads relevant to the content of a webpage a user is interacting with. For example, if someone reads an article about how to choose a gaming laptop, they may see ads promoting exactly such devices — this is what contextual advertising is. It relies on keywords, topics, and IAB categories, not on personal users’ data, which means that it is more “privacy-conscious”. Therefore, it is not surprising that contextual advertising is expected to have almost 14% annual growth between 2023 and 2030. Another benefit for advertisers is that their ads appear in a safe environment.?
Launch Retargeting Campaigns
Retargeting means delivering ads to users who have already expressed interest in a specific brand or some of its products but have not converted yet. By reminding them about this, advertisers can motivate users to come back and make a purchase or take any other desired action. However, retargeting relied on third-party cookies for decades, which led to some privacy issues. Thus, 54% of users feel concerned when they see such an ad (people usually don’t like being “watched”). The good news is that 29% feel neutral, while 17% — unconcerned.??
At the same time, the end of cookies doesn’t mean the end of retargeting, even though it may become less effective. Slightly sacrificing accuracy, advertisers can launch such campaigns based on first-party data. Solutions like Unified ID 2.0 can also be helpful. Additionally, a lot of programmatic platforms support retargeting, so when choosing one, marketers should find out how exactly retargeting works there.?
Experiment With Direct Deals
Instead of relying only on open auctions, marketers can also try the programmatic direct approach, especially the guaranteed deals. According to this model, advertisers get a guaranteed number of impressions, while publishers can be sure that their inventory will be sold. Therefore, after analyzing the campaigns’ performance and defining the most relevant and effective publishers, marketers can go for one-to-one trading, which will also take place programmatically.?
Choose the Right Solutions
The final recommendation for both advertisers and publishers is to choose the right programmatic solutions — those demand- and supply-side platforms that support alternatives to cookie-based advertising. Since the digital world is getting more and more cookieless, we can expect programmatic platforms to adapt and start offering more features for privacy-conscious advertising.?
To Sum Up
Even though Google still hasn’t eliminated cookies, advertisers need to start switching to alternative methods right away, and the programmatic ecosystem is no exception. Doing so is a way to get ready for the cookieless future in advance and gain a competitive advantage over those organizations that neglected such a transition.?
Currently, the most essential thing to do is to collect and use first-party data, as well as build partnerships with trusted publishers to get second-party information. Launching contextually targeted campaigns is one more opportunity to keep driving traffic, as well as experimenting with new ID solutions that can replace third-party cookies. These solutions can also be leveraged to create retargeting campaigns. Another thing to try is programmatic direct, with a focus on guaranteed deals.?
It is also crucial to use programmatic platforms that are already ready for the world without cookies, at least partially. And remember to keep an eye on the situation — monitoring the cookies elimination process allows for being proactive.
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