By Saurabh Gupta, Founder & CEO, VeriSmart AI
There’s reason to rejoice, and also worry. The end of cookies on the internet is near. Google declared that it would stop supporting third-party cookies on its Chrome browser in 2022, following Apple, Safari, and Mozilla Firefox. These platforms account for almost 85% of all online browsing, therefore big change is on the horizon. Adding to that, India announced the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA) last year, which makes it mandatory to seek consent to process users’ data online. Reputable businesses stand to gain when they incorporate privacy concerns into their long-term planning. The business models of those that don’t are going to face more and more difficulties.
What is a ‘cookie-less’ world?
Over 90% of marketers use cookies to deliver customized services based on their ever-evolving needs. They also help advertisers track visitors, as well as their device type, location and user behaviour. Third-party cookies are used by advertisers to build attribution models, enhance campaign performance, and profile and target their viewers. Since tracking cookies are now used for data tracking, cross-site optimization, and tuning, campaign planning and targeted advertising will not function as intended if browsers block them but moment of rejoice will be that user’s will feel more secured as their privacy will not be infringed in the name of hyper-personalization.
After the cookies are deleted, marketers won’t be able to connect their efforts to conversion events like demos, registrations, purchases, or sales. Real-time user-level data will therefore be insufficient. Therefore, in order to determine how much this update may affect their data or business, organizations need to assess how dependent they are on third-party cookies. To effectively reach their customers and work with first-party cookies, marketers and advertisers will now need to adapt their business models and implement new technological solutions. Businesses need to revitalize their marketing strategy in order to survive as major browsers begin to phase out third-party cookies and privacy restrictions gain traction. Adopting moral data practices, reorienting attention toward first-party data solutions, and giving innovation and data compliance top priority are the keys to the future.
What should marketers do?
Only 4% of marketers are prepared for the cookie-less future. Businesses should not rely on just one option, but rather on a combination of options tailored to their specific needs..
1. First-party data – One strategy that marketers and advertisers might use is first-party data. To create focused marketing efforts, they can still make use of in-app data, foot traffic, and CRM capabilities. First-party data has a greater conversion rate than third-party data since the consumers who have expressed interest in the product or service will assist you in gathering more pertinent information. It is crucial to prioritise data compliance policies here to ensure that advertising companies adhere to the strict data regulations, to cultivate trust and improve customer relations.
2. Contextual advertising – Sometimes people are always amazed by old-fashioned methods. Similar to targeted advertising that shows up on websites or other platforms is contextual advertising. Marketers may thus target the right users at the right moment by employing relevant keywords, creating contextual advertising, and using helpful website content to advertise your product or service. Companies will have a higher click-through and conversion rate when users click on the adverts or content.
3. Leveraging ‘clean rooms’ –Although Data Clean rooms has been a proven approach of past to have cross data intelligence sharing between the two parties, but at the same time it’s to scalable too, As doing a one to one match for 1000’s of First party platform is practically not feasible. Thus new avenues are being explored for tech automation and achieve scalability, Recently through blockchain frameworks, multiple parties can combine data sets for analysis and cooperation in a secure, privacy-compliant environment without exposing personally identifiable information (PII) thanks to the data framework and protocols which goes in such decentralised infrastructure. Since data resides in a decentralised infra with the blockchain framework you can still query the data intelligence in real time, without exposing any set of data value to each other By doing this, enterprise clients, publishers, and media platforms may work together more easily to enhance audience comprehension and campaign targeting without depending on third-party cookies. Decentralised Data Framework will become more and more important in a cookie-less future for protecting privacy and facilitating efficient data collecting and teamwork, while also establishing trust among all the stakeholders involved
4. Data consolidation – Making sense of your data may be difficult if your sources are varied and unique. To gather full, accurate, and current data, consolidation is necessary. This is a function that Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) excel in, enabling users to combine and centralize data from multiple sources, and also helps implement consistent data collection standards across channels.
5. Content marketing – Content marketing is still a very effective strategy for raising audience engagement and brand exposure. To become thought leaders in their field and to gain the trust and devotion of their audience, businesses should invest in producing high-quality, relevant, and entertaining content. Success in the post-cookie era will be facilitated by smart content marketing in conjunction with ongoing optimization and monitoring of marketing initiatives to determine what works and what doesn’t.
6. The role of AI and ML – Without the crutch of cookies to track user behaviour, first-party and zero-party data are analyzed by artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, which extract valuable information. AI-powered platforms are able to forecast preferences and future behaviours by identifying trends in user interactions. This means that marketing campaigns are successful even in the absence of meticulous historical tracking. Today, AI and ML can empower brands to create hyper-personalized experiences by leveraging their existing data. AI’s advanced predictive capabilities allow for the anticipation of consumer needs, ensuring that each customer feels that the marketing message speaks directly to them.
If this evolution has taught us anything, it’s that change is not only unavoidable but also a chance for development and innovation. Not only is cookie-free marketing feasible, but it’s the way of the future. And as we get closer to that horizon, it’s obvious that the marketers who can see past the cookie jar and into an infinitely promising future will be the ones who succeed.
