If you thought that we are going to explain this summer’s new diet trend, where cookies are prohibited, you are wrong! We will, yes, show the best way for your digital marketing team to prepare for the end of third-party cookies, which has already been carried out by Apple, in Safari, and is scheduled for the end of 2023, in Google Chrome.
Cookies are small text files stored on your computer, whose initial objective was to improve the user experience, avoiding, for example, the need to repeat authentication on some web pages. More recently, a special type of cookies, third-party cookies, have been used to identify your preferences based on your internet browsing history.
This tracking is responsible for appearing online advertisements related to a particular product, after conducting research on that topic. While they may irritate those who are not really interested in the product in question, for example, these cookies have been used to deliver relevant online advertisements.
However, the initial purpose of cookies was never to replace customer data, so-called first-party-data, provided voluntarily, which respects all data protection guarantees, in particular the GDPR in Europe or CCPA in the USA. But those who have accounts on social media or use free e-mail services have already authorized the sharing of their data to companies that sell them to other entities, in a way known as second-party-data.
To mitigate the end of third-party-cookies, Google has been proposing alternative solutions, which aggregate the interests of each user anonymously, who have the possibility to remove them. Data tracking still exists, but is now done by Google.
The online advertising sector, a major beneficiary of third-party cookies, is also proposing solutions based on a unique ID per user, which could be used in multiple browsers, where the guarantee of privacy and control of individual data would be given, and with each one being able to authorize the websites that would follow their preferences.
It is not yet known what solution will be “win” the market. But the best thing for each brand is to implement a first-party-data strategy, using only the data obtained from internal sources, always with a guarantee of privacy and data treatment authorized by current and potential customers. Internal data sources can be email marketing campaigns, questionnaires, promotional actions, cookies from the websites themselves, visits to stores or interactions with the sales force, in addition to the existing ones.
Today’s marketer does not need to be a data scientist, but needs to have tools that enables him to effectively analyze and visualize the data collected, since the best marketing actions result from the creativity of their teams supported by data obtained from their Customer Data Platforms. (CDPs).
These are of special importance because they manage all marketing data obtained by the company, uniquely identifying the customer or potential customer, and can be used daily by the marketing team. They include the customer database, data associated with marketing automation processes, campaign management for different sales channels and real-time marketing interactions.
Marketing decisions are increasingly data-driven and increasingly predictive and sophisticated, some suggested by CDP itself. Their collection should be seen as a continuous process and not as a single request to customers. They increasingly expect personalized experiences, aligned with their preferences. But with the guarantee of privacy and treatment of your personal data. The end of third-data-cookies should be seen by brands as an opportunity to take control of their data, thus reinforcing customer confidence.
Carlos Costa Cruz
Head of Marketing & Partnerships at askblue