Google intends to completely stop supporting third-party cookies in the Chrome browser by the end of 2024. Victor Wong, Senior Director of Products at Privacy Sandbox, admitted that the deadline could be delayed due to approvals from the British regulator, but urged market participants to prepare for the shutdown within the previously announced timeframe.
CEO of the Mera agency argentina whatsapp number database Maria Silkina and Mera expert on digital product development Artem Saraev discuss what this step means for the advertising market, what advertisers will lose, what this will lead to and how they will adapt to the new reality.
Regulators and brands are responding to rising consumer expectations around privacy, and this is a global trend. Although Safari and Firefox have long restricted the use of third-party cookies, Google Chrome, which has the largest share of users (63.39% globally according to SimilarWeb and over 40% in Russia, according to Yandex Radar estimates), has yet to take such measures.
Cookies are small text documents that a web server (site) saves on a user's computer using a browser. Almost any information about a site visitor can be recorded in these files: what time and from what device a person visited the page, what products they were interested in, etc. It is important to note that Google planned to abandon the use of cookies as early as 2021, but the deadlines were postponed several times. The corporation plans to completely stop supporting cookies by the end of 2024, but already in the first quarter of this year, Google plans to transfer 1% of all users to Privacy Sandbox and disable third-party cookies for them. In turn, Privacy Sandbox is an initiative launched by Google in response to growing demands for user privacy on the Internet. The technology is a set of solutions aimed at ensuring a balance between user privacy and the needs of advertisers in collecting data for targeted advertising.
As a result of blocking, advertisers will lose accurate data about user preferences and interests collected using cookies. This will reduce the available interest segments and limit the ability to target and personalize advertising. The absence of third-party cookies will also affect retargeting, as advertisers will not be able to accurately determine which users visited their site and set up retargeting campaigns. Finally, the removal of cookies will complicate attribution, which will lead to a decrease in the quality of analytics and the ability to optimize advertising campaigns based on accurate conversion data.
Direct data
However, the advertising market is actively adapting to the new environment, blocking cookies will benefit the industry, as it will push it to improve its methods of data collection, targeting and analytics. Advertisers themselves are interested in this. In addition to increasing the accuracy and relevance of advertising campaigns, clients expect their practices to be 100% compliant with the new privacy standards.
The main working alternatives to third-party cookies are first-party data (that is, personal data that the user voluntarily provides) and contextual targeting. The effectiveness of the latter will be "driven" by artificial intelligence - primarily machine learning technologies and algorithms.
In the absence of third-party cookies, the best way to improve the effectiveness of advertising campaigns and personalize offers is to use first-party data. That is why advertisers who want to maintain their usual approaches to personalization and targeting turn to walled gardens — IT giants, owners of closed platforms with huge volumes of user data. Access to them is controlled by Internet services, marketplaces, banks, retailers, telecom operators. In Russia, the largest suppliers of first-party data include Ozon, Sberbank, Yandex, VK, MTS, Beeline, M.Video-Eldorado, X5 Group.
Marketplaces and retailers collect data on customer purchases and preferences, user behavior on the site, banks can additionally analyze transaction data. The collected information is used to personalize services and offers, display relevant advertising and content. Ultimately, a competent data strategy helps increase loyalty and sales.
What are the benefits of working with walled gardens? Data voluntarily provided by ecosystem users can be used to find existing and similar customers. Ready-made audiences without additional costs: walled gardens provide various segments for free. Accurate cross-channel measurements: platforms like Yandex and VK measure the effectiveness of advertising on various devices throughout the entire buyer's journey.
The importance of using your own data is confirmed in practice. For example, our analytics for one of the FMCG clients showed that placement on segments based on our own CRM data gives an increase of up to 50% to CTR (the ratio of the number of clicks on an ad to its impressions). In addition, revenue per visit increases by an average of 9% compared to placement on pre-set segments.