What are third-party cookies? Well, think about it like this, you’re thinking about buying yourself a new pair of work boots. You research on the internet with search engines and end up on some of your favorite boot makers websites. Now every time you open up your browser you’re seeing ads for work boots everywhere. This is no coincidence and there is a reason you are now seeing these ads. It’s called third-party cookies. Third-party cookies are set by another website, not the one you are currently on. They are stored under a different domain than you are visiting (Cookie Script). This is how advertisers track website visitors to collect data in order to send people targeted ads. This data includes what websites people frequently visit, their purchases, and overall interest, etc. (Hub Spot). That being said, the recent Google announcement of their third-party cookie phase out has the advertising industry a little shaken. Some advertisers rely on third-party cookies to make large sums of their revenue, but not all. Browsers such a Safari and Firefox have blocked third-party cookies since 2013 so it’s nothing quite new and first-party cookies will still be allowed. Advertisers are now seeking solutions to fill this gap in a cookieless-ish environment. But how and what does that mean? One option is being given by Google itself with their Privacy Sandbox. This is something that will target groups of people with similar interests instead of individuals. This way the users are individually protected and results from testing show this could be an effective replacement for third-party cookies. Chrome has also proposed technologies to measure campaign performance without third-party cookies. It will be useful to bring back contextual advertising, which places ads on certain websites based on the contents of that website. This makes sense. If someone is looking at a hiking blog then they could benefit from a good backpack so an ad from, let’s say REI, backpacks would be appropriate. There will be more ideas coming out in the coming months on how advertisers can deal with this new cookieless ad space. We recommend getting a head start on brainstorming ideas now for ways to keep revenue up without the reliance of the digital space. Digital marketing isn’t going anywhere and it will increase confidence on sales when online policies change.
