Targeting the Right Customer in a Cookie-less World

"The only constant is change" – Heraclitus

When Google announced a two-year plan to kill off third-party tracking cookies for users of its proprietary Chrome browser, it sent a shockwave through any industry which relies on digital advertising to carry out its business – which in this day and age is practically all of them.

Since then, Google has offered cookie support a stay of execution, kicking the can down the road until the close of 2023, but advertisers should not interpret this as a sign that Google has any intention of reversing the decision.

This means brands operating in the ecommerce industry need to find alternative methods of targeting customers with relevant and personalized advertising if they want to continue bringing in new customers.

Cookie-less

With cookies going the way of the dinosaurs, advertisers will no longer be able to leverage data gathered from internet users’ browsing behavior to target them with personalized advertising.

Unfortunately, customers still desire personalized offers and content, and it has still been shown to result in better conversion and click-through rates when compared to ads which are not personalized. Meeting these requirements is causing stress for marketers, with a worrying 70% fearing they lack the resources to adapt to the changes.

However, while the removal of third-party cookie support from the world’s most popular search engine and browser application will mean significant challenges for advertisers, we can look upon this upheaval as an opportunity to wipe the slate clean and dust off some of those classic marketing techniques which have been left by the wayside thanks to the power and ease of cookie-based targeting.

Topics

To go along with the change to cookies, Google has also announced another transformation – the intention to replace the grand sounding Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) with topics.

The problem with topics as a method of tracking browsing data is that the categories it divides websites into are too broad to be effective as targeting data. For example, if you look up CBC News to catch up on the latest developments in Ukraine, the topics algorithm will simply categorize that activity as "News." This means your activity will be logged as news and lumped together with people searching for celebrity gossip, or even a sudoku puzzle.

So, while Topics does improve privacy by eliminating the issue of fingerprinting via cohorts, it results in a considerably reliable targeting solution as the data source will now be temporary and domain based. And Google, of course, still controls the entire process.

Renewed Relationships

With third-party data following the dodo into oblivion, brands will need to focus their attention back to first-party information.

Gathering a database of customer information is not a simple task and takes time but provides a fantastic opportunity to renew your relationship with your customers and get to know them on a more personal level.

By acquiring individual permissions for data sharing which benefits both parties, ecommerce brands can demonstrate trust and transparency with first-party data and create new and meaningful relationships with their customers.

Channels

A cookie-less world means ecommerce brands are going to need to make sure they are engaging with customers through all available channels to give themselves the greatest possible chance of reaching them with on-brand messaging.

Running competitions on social media to gain likes and shares is a terrific way to make sure your audiences on these platforms are playing the roles of advertisers and spreading your messages far and wide and gaining more subscribers in the process.

Customers are more than willing to do some of the heavy lifting in this regard to gain access to some great prizes, creating another quid pro quo relationship which offers everyone involved a reason to participate.

Google Analytics 4

As part of the shift away from cookies Google has also announced Universal Analytics will stop processing hits in July 2023.

In order to remain useful to website owners, Google Analytics has to change the way it processes data and do so without leaning on identifying data. The GA4 update is, among other things, designed to achieve this by GA4 is designed blending data to fill in the gaps using machine learning and other protocols to create reports.

"Because the technology landscape continues to evolve, the new Analytics is designed to adapt to a future with or without cookies or identifiers," said Google in a blog post. "It uses a flexible approach to measurement, and in the future, will include modelling to fill in the gaps where the data may be incomplete. This means that you can rely on Google Analytics to help you measure your marketing results and meet customer needs now as you navigate the recovery and as you face uncertainty in the future."

Final Thoughts

The cookie-less world is going to take some getting used to, but by applying some new and old marketing knowhow and pivoting to first-party data and the reimagined analytics tools being launched by Google themselves, marketers can build new transparent relationships with customers.

Google killing off cookies is certain to be part of the conversation at eTail Canada 2022, taking place in September, at the Hyatt Regency Toronto, ON.

Download the agenda today for more information and insights.