Chrome Decides It Will Support Third-Party Cookies After All
At the start of 2020, Google announced that it planned to phase out Google Chrome’s support for third-party cookies within two years. Third-party cookies were the oil that fueled much of the online advertising ecosystem, and Chrome owns 60 percent of the browser marketplace. This was the end of an era of “easy” targeting of consumers across the internet. At the same time, there was no clearly defined new path forward either. As a result, this was dubbed ‘the Cookiepocalypse’ because of its impact on the digital advertising and analytics industry.
Instead of a quick phase-out, Google introduced an annual tradition of delay—pushing the deprecation first to 2023, then 2024, then 2025. Now, the phase-out will no longer occur. In a July 22 blog post, Google’s VP of its ‘Privacy Sandbox’ initiative wrote, “We are proposing an updated approach that elevates user choice. Instead of deprecating third-party cookies, we would introduce a new experience in Chrome that lets people make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing, and they’d be able to adjust that choice at any time.”
Despite the walk-back, digital advertising will not party like it’s 2019 again.
For starters, the indication is that Google will pursue a solution similar to Apple’s “Ask App Not To Track” push notification, which encouraged users to decide up front whether they would like to store third-party cookies. When Apple implemented this in its app ecosystem, opt-in rates dropped to 14 percent in the U.S. shortly after implementation.
If you apply those opt-in rates to that population, tools relying on third-party cookie tracking would target just 9 percent of browsers.
On the flip side, Google’s announcements influenced industry behavior. Platforms like Trade Desk helped lead an industry alliance of Identity Graphs that helped find a universal solution for alternative, cookieless IDs that could be deployed across digital advertising campaigns.
Google itself was pursuing its alternative with the Privacy Sandbox. Indeed, the hope all along was to turn off support for third-party cookies and usher in the use of this new tool. However, the thought of Google providing the solution raised concerns of Anti-Trust and Privacy regulators, ultimately convincing Google of their new goldilocks approach.
So, what will the impact be?
AdTech and exchanges that relied on tracking using third-party cookies to track campaigns and inform placement will still have a large enough audience to matter in retargeting and campaigns.
Bets placed on alternative identity solutions such as ID5, an anonymous ID assigned from participating websites to users on a first-party basis, still look smart in the face of a likely crash in the availability of users opting-in to third-party cookies on their browsers (Safari, Firefox, and Brave already ended support for third-party cookies). These will be necessary to supplement, as Google’s tests found large revenue drops of 34 percent in campaigns after third-party cookies were removed, if Privacy Sandbox was not implemented.
The second half of the 2010s offered a short-lived data spree with cheap internet user behavior access. But aside from third-party cookies, walls have started to go up to increase the cost and reduce access. These were initially spurred by government regulation but were also seen as a market advantage by industry leaders like Apple.
There is no going back to that time, and this recent decision is unlikely to mean preventative efforts made were in vain.
What should businesses have done to prepare?
The demise of third-party cookies was primarily important for web publishers and companies that relied on performance marketing and heavily targeted campaigns. If this was not you, it was mostly just a fun new use of the “-pocalypse” suffix. But for those affected, this should shift your playbook for how you market on digital platforms.
In our first blogs on the subject, we advised focusing on moving more of your digital experiences in-house. Relying on first-party data allows much stickier consent and the ability to build a better digital relationship with your customers, both potential and returning.
The use of digital platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, etc., offered huge reach. However, we have started to see the downsides of that play, where the data and relationship hinges on the policies of a third party.
Too many experiences were farmed out to social platforms to take advantage of their large audiences, but as the web splinters again, it’s time to learn how to build and attract again.
As Associate Director, Data Strategy at One North, Ben supports clients by applying a strong data focus to marketing initiatives across channels and tools. He starts by gaining an understanding of each client’s unique goals and tactics, and guides them toward a strategic analytics program. He focuses on the creation of a meaningful feedback loop to help support and steer decision-making.