The work of a marketer never ends when it comes to digital marketing. Something's always new to figure out, try out, or deal with. For a while, data protection laws had been hanging over us. We're heading into a new era of cookieless tracking - it's time to leave the golden days of cookie-based tracking behind.
Whether it's Apple's Intelligent Tracking Prevention, Mozilla's Enhanced Tracking Prevention, or Google's Tracking Prevention, they all have the same aim: kill third-party cookie tracking, comply with regulations, and make users feel safe.
There's a good reason for it, but it makes marketers' lives harder. Cookieless tracking is the preferred road to ethical marketing, but it seems to be a bumpy one with low visibility. Let's try to navigate it together.
What are cookies? How have the marketers been using them?
Cookies were designed with the user in mind. Cookies made websites faster by storing information on users' hard drives and retrieving it later. As websites got more complicated and focused on giving better user experiences, cookies became more important. The cookies also started to play a big part in establishing user journeys by tracking their online activities.
Marketing companies use cookies to track your activity and preferences, which can help with personalization, targeted advertising, and website improvement. Have you ever looked at shoes on a website and then started seeing shoe ads everywhere? Yeah, that's cookies! Cookies tell marketers what you like and show you ads that are more relevant. Also, marketers started using cookies to build a profile of your interests. By doing this, they could target their ads to a specific audience rather than just throwing them out there. Using this method made the ads more effective and less annoying for users. Cookies have also helped marketers figure out how people use their site. It helped marketers improve the site's design and functionality by providing relevant information.
What's the problem with cookies?
Those marketing use cases don't sound so bad, do they? So why do cookies have a bad reputation? It's not that cookies themselves are bad, but there are ways they can be misused, especially when it comes to privacy. This is mostly due to third-party cookies. Sites other than the one a user is visiting can place these cookies on their browsers. As a result, a profile is created that tracks a user's activity across multiple sites, collecting a lot of data about their interests, browsing habits, and purchases. As users often aren't aware of this widespread tracking, it can feel intrusive.
Earlier, there wasn't always clear information about how cookies were used. It left users in the dark about what data was being collected. Some websites and apps start collecting data through cookies that's very detailed, like demographics, health interests, and political views. Some people find this unsettling because it paints a pretty comprehensive picture of a user's life.
There's also a risk that cookie data could be used for malicious purposes, like identity theft and financial fraud. Although this doesn't happen often, its impact is quite significant.
These are some reasons why cookies, especially third-party cookies, raise privacy concerns. As a result, regulations like GDPR were developed to give users more control over their cookie data and make websites more transparent about their cookie policies. In response to the regulations, tech companies like Google and Apple announced cookieless tracking initiatives. Alternate way to protect users while also keeping advertisers happy.
So, what does cookieless tracking mean?
So, what is cookieless tracking? Basically, it's a way to collect user data and website interaction info without using traditional cookies. So far, there are 5 routes that allow trackability without raising privacy concerns.
One way is to collect first-party data. Marketers can collect first-party data from people who have already shown interest in their specific product, then store it in their CRM or data warehouse. Using this data, they can target and re-engage these users.
Marketers who collected first-party data will also need to store it in one place and build centralized customer profiles. This is where customer data platforms can come in handy. In an earlier episode, I talked about CDPs.
Consent-driven marketing is another way to get new customers, and the safest way. Getting consumer consent before contacting them makes them feel safe, heard, and respected, as well as protecting advertisers from privacy issues.
Server-side tracking is another option. Instead of the user's device, data is processed on the website's server. Cookies don't need to be installed on the user's device, and the website has more control over data collection.
There's also contextual targeting through ads that are served based on the content of the webpage that the user is on, not their browsing history. For example, a news website might display ads related to what's being reported. Even though this approach protects privacy, it might limit the ability to target users with highly specific interests.
What are the benefits of cookieless tracking?
Although cookieless tracking is relatively new, it doesn't mean that it only creates challenges for marketers. There are some benefits to this new path to targeting customers. Since cookies can be deleted or blocked, cookieless tracking gives you more reliable data. Cookie-based tracking can be less reliable for tracking user journeys from that perspective.
Since cookies are typically device-specific, tracking users across multiple devices can be tricky. With cookieless tracking, marketers can track users better. In addition, cookieless tracking makes data collection and analytics even more powerful since it's independent of cookies and devices. It's a cherry on top because it doesn't cause any privacy issues.
Cookieless tracking that prioritizes user consent and first-party data can build trust. By respecting user privacy, brands can build stronger relationships and boost brand perception. Targeting and campaign performance will also be improved with more accurate tracking data.
Regulations that prompted tech companies, social media platforms, third-party user tracking providers, and brands to move towards cookieless tracking will continue to evolve as the digital marketing landscape changes. This road to user tracking makes marketing strategies more secure and future-ready.
A cookieless tracking system that focuses on context, like the content a user is viewing, can still deliver relevant ads. This is just as effective as cookie-based targeting, but less intrusive. There's also an added benefit of not relying on third-party data that might be unreliable or incomplete.
The road to a braver and better new world of marketing
The uncertainty associated with taking the new cookieless tracking approach has been the subject of numerous blogs and webinars over the past year. When I step back and look at the whole picture, I sense a bit of fear-mongering. A lot of these blogs and webinars are hosted by companies that provide analytics, tracking, and other services. In order to push their services, they need to create a sense of urgency. There's a perception of fear and uncertainty created by that. It's a sales pitch, I get it. However, the more I read, the more I admire what companies like Google and Apple are doing.
Cookieless tracking is not a perfect road to marketing heaven. There's no such road, and there's no heaven. There are some actual business challenges behind the perceived fear-mongering. There's realignment of marketing strategies, figuring out how consent-driven marketing works in a particular industry, re-calibrating the martech stack, switching to new attribution strategies, and probably the hardest one, getting management to buy in.
Marketers have their work cut out for them when it comes to taking the road to a cookieless future. It's worth taking the road less travelled to have better and more reliable customer understanding, comply with data protection norms, and be future-ready. It seems to take marketers to a braver, better world of marketing where brands and customers co-create a win-win scenario.
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