Top 7 Questions To Ask Your First-Party Data Provider: What Is the Impact of Losing Third-Party Cookies?
by Julia Giacoboni, Director of Product Marketing
As the cookiepocalypse swiftly approaches, marketing teams turn to strategies that don’t rely on third-party cookies. Using first-party data is important. However, in order to collect first-party data to scale, you might need a data provider.
We suggest asking these questions when deciding which provider to partner with. In this article, we will focus on the question, “What is the impact of losing third-party cookies?”
Why Is This Important?
It is important to understand the impact of losing cookies and what it means for advertisers, brands, publishers, media companies, etc.
Before you begin to make your first-party data collection plan, you want to know what you’re looking for and what you’re getting into. So, it is worth asking the data provider their perspective on this impact.
Some Follow-Up Questions
- What is going to happen?
- What is the impact of losing cookies?
- Do they understand it?
- Do they have an answer?
Cookies Are Everywhere
For now, most of the industry is still using cookies. Several people, companies, and vendors are using them. Cookies are everywhere.
It’s easy to say you’ll go on a diet tomorrow, while you’re still eating pizza and drinking beer. However, what happens when the big day comes? What’s your plan? How are you actually going to go on a diet—and how are we going to live without cookies?
You will want to find a vendor that understands the struggle that will come with ripping this Band-Aid off and making the switch. The cookiepocalypse is coming and the death of retargeting as we know it is going to create mass panic, if you don’t have a plan. You might be surprised how many products and vendors and sites still rely on cookies. Granted, they are not the most accurate; however, they are tied into everything.
The idea of cookies going away has been scoffed at for a long time. It has been kicked around; it’s been pushed out. Right now, we are looking at 2023 as the actual end. These cookie audiences we’ve all thrived on for so long to bring in new traffic will run dry with this change. This is coming due to data concerns with personal information, with CCPA, with more privacy regulations and registrations.
The cookiepocalypse doesn’t have to be as scary as it seems, as long as you plan ahead. If you continue banking on cookies until the bitter end instead of targeting new people and measuring in-market shoppers, the demise will become harder than it needs to be.
These Changes Will Impact a Few Major Items
- Scale: Brands that use third-party cookies for an audience and that’s all they are using are only reaching, at most, 50% of their shoppers, with that number steadily declining. This loss needs to be supplemented with different data.
- Targeting: Cookies are easily activated—all you need to do is click accept and instantaneously, as a marketer or a company or a website, you have tabs on visitors. However, when they go away, you’ll have to rely on something more unique and specific to identify and market to these visitors.
- Reporting: The new Google Analytics does not support IP addresses. It only makes sense to power your audiences with actual households for a more refined, specific, complete loop reporting view.
- Growth: There will be a lot of data loss with the new privacy laws as it gets easier for people to opt out of your marketing. You will need to dedicate more effort to building a strategy to keep people engaged.
What Does fullthrottle.aiTM Think the Impact Will Be?
We believe the efficiency of your targeting through your marketing will be greatly impacted. Reporting is going to change, as Google Analytics starts sunsetting its program and creating a new Google Analytics that will not support IP addresses. Even so, Google Analytics leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to tracking your metrics.
Although losing cookies will cause a dramatic shift, ultimately this will be a good thing, as now we will have more accurate information to report and run marketing campaigns on.
How fullthrottle.aiTM Helps
Our technology has the unique ability to transform previously programmatic audiences into first-party, household data, by incorporating propriety patented methodologies. With fullthrottle.aiTM on your side, you won’t have to worry about the impact of losing third-party cookies—we never used them to begin with.
Schedule your demo today and find out how we can help you overcome the impacts the industry will inevitably see.
To read more in this series, check them out here:
Top 7 Questions To Ask Your First-Party Data Provider
What Kind of Data Are You Providing Me?
How Much Work Is This Going To Be for Me?