How Google’s Decision to Remove Third-Party Cookies will Impact Businesses
Google has recently announced that it will bid good bye to third-party cookies. What are third-party cookies, you ask. Cookies that are set by a website other than the one you are currently on are known as third-party cookies. Take an ad service like AdSense for example; it creates third-party cookies to monitor which websites you visit and accordingly display ads relevant to you.
Google is planning to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome in two years, due to mounting privacy concerns. However, this presents several challenges to the digital advertising world, which is predominantly dependent on cookies to target users. Let’s take a look at the 5 major impacts of Google’s decision.
- Behaviour tracking soon to become obsolete
Google has revealed that itaims to build a new Privacy Sandbox, which will give users more control and choice over how their personal information can be used for ad-targeting purposes online. It will provide anonymity to users, thereby making it almost impossible for advertisers to track their behaviour.
- Challenge for small and mid-sized brands
Mid-sized brands will be most affected by the demise of third-party cookies. Large advertisers will still be able to adapt and continue to develop marketing effectiveness models that can track their spread across channels. It will be more of a challenge for small and mid-sized companies investing in brand building who may not being able to afford brand studies or complicated newer market mix models.
- Possible switch to pay-per-view models
The phasing out of third-party cookies will mean that content publishers and creators need to pace up their models and search other ways to monetise content to stay afloat. If there is lesstargeted advertising revenue opportunity for online publishers, it may drive the switch to ‘pay-per-view’ content models.
- Real-time targeting with AI
Emergence of advanced technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), big data, and machine learning will fuel the process of targeting consumers in real time without using cookies. In fact, AI may soon allow marketers to tailor campaigns based on consumer intent in the moment by gathering real-time consumer data.
- Shift towards reputation building
Elimination of third-party cookies can work in the favour of ad agencies that have been trying to get clients to move away from short-term marketing tactics like retargeting and invest in long-term reputation building activities. A shift has been predicted where digital marketing becomes focused on targeting consumers much earlier in the marketing process, when brands will have the option to change consumer behaviour rather than just catalyse it.
