After several announcements from Google delaying the deprecation of third-party cookies in its browser, the tech giant finally announced this past Monday, July 22, that it will not be deprecating third-party cookies in Chrome. Instead, users will be asked to choose, if desired, a Chrome experience in which third-party cookies will be blocked.
Despite the many reactions elicited by this news in recent days, here at adviso we remain convinced that companies need to continue working on evolving their marketing practices in order to keep the best ROI but also towards respecting consumer privacy. Here’s why.
Attention! Chrome holds only half of the market share
Chrome has an approximate 50% market share in Canada and in the United States. For some companies, the portion of visits to their site from Chrome can be as low as 20%. Since Safari (32% market share in Canada) and Mozilla (4% market share in Canada) already block third-party cookies, businesses still need to learn how to operate without this data. Furthermore, Google hasn’t entirely let go of the idea of removing third-party cookies in Chrome, but is instead leaving the decision in the hands of users. Odds are that a significant portion of these users will not agree to share their data with the platform.
The deprecation of third-party cookies in a few dates
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Maintaining marketing performance depends on adapting to these changes
Changes in consumer expectations as well as legal and technological changes in recent years have sometimes required significant investments from many companies. These investments have allowed them to take a giant step towards marketing that respects their customers’ privacy and to adapt to an increasing lack of certain types of data.
In order to maintain this advantage and continue to generate performance from their marketing budgets, we recommend companies continue the work they have begun, including:
- First party data acquisition strategies based on a value exchange that is relevant to the customer
- Unification and value maximization of data to obtain a better understanding of the customer and facilitate the delivery of a better customer experience
- Strategic integration of artificial intelligence into the marketing tool box to increase marketing performance and customer experience
- Use of new features in media technologies or performance measurement:
- Automatic import of consented first-party data to improve targeting
- Automation of advanced conversion tracking (eg., Google enhanced conversions, Google consent mode, and Meta’s Advanced Email Matching)
- Server-side tracking to increase the quality and reliability of performance analysis
Respect for privacy is a fundamental trend
Law 25 in Quebec, the GDPR in Europe, the CCPA in California, and the gradual deprecation of third-party cookies in a variety of technologies in recent years are responses to a growing demand from consumers to have more control over the information collected about them when they interact with brands. The fact that Google has finally decided not to conclude its plan to remove third-party cookies in Chrome doesn’t affect the major underlying trend to which all businesses need to adapt.
63% of consumers would be inclined to choose a brand that prioritizes respect for their privacy
- ATB Ventures survey
The essential takeaways
The fact that Google is back-pedalling on the total deprecation of third-party cookies seems to us to be more of an issue with the development of its Privacy Sandbox and should in no sense be interpreted as a reason to discontinue work on achieving a marketing solution that respects consumer privacy.
Companies therefore need to stay on course with their recent initiatives to become less and less dependent on third-party cookies while maximizing the value of their own data in order to differentiate themselves from their competitors and ensure optimal marketing performance.
