Before trying to speculate on what the near future of cookieless digital marketing will look like , let's focus on the context so that we're all starting from the same point.
What are cookies and what are they used for?
A cookie is basically a text file that is created in the user's browser when he or she browses through different web pages on the Internet. These files contain the information that these websites have stored during your previous visits so that, the next time you access the site, you can be recognized as a user who has previously visited the domain.
Thanks to this recognition, websites can make it easier for you to navigate within their environment. How many times have we started a purchase process and left it halfway? Surely many times, and you have always been grateful that, when you return again several days later, the shopping cart was exactly as you had left it. Blessed miracles... or is it thanks to cookies?
Initially, cookies were created to identify a user, allowing the website to provide a more personalized service or functionality, such as allowing access to restricted areas or remembering previous logins. Ultimately, they were designed to improve the experience within a website.
Third-party cookies, the fine line between user convenience and privacy
But not all cookies are used to personalize websites, remember abandoned carts or make your stay more pleasant. There are so-called third-party cookies , files that accompany self employed phone number list the above but whose information is collected by domains or platforms external to the site you are visiting at that time (by plugins that are installed on those websites, functionalities related to the various platforms, the tracking pixels themselves, etc.). The purpose of this type of cookie is none other than to record your activity in order to offer you advertising that, thanks to your browsing history and actions on the different websites, can be personalized in a very accurate way.
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Photo: Primakov / Shutterstock.com
This ecosystem is very favorable for us, the marketers, and the platforms that use this information to ensure that their advertisers are satisfied with the results of their targeted advertising campaigns. However, there is a growing awareness among users that, under the current framework, many actors are profiting from a privacy that they have not chosen to sell.
On a personal level, I prefer advertising that impacts me to be focused on interests or needs that I have at specific moments in my life, rather than what happens when I'm watching television, where in 7 minutes of commercials, it's likely that none of them will give me information that I really need at that moment.
Safari, Firefox… and Google Chrome? When?
In light of social awareness and laws that are increasingly on the user's side, Firefox and Safari have already taken the lead by blocking, by default, the installation of third-party cookies in their browsers. The brand with the bitten apple was the pioneer in taking this decision, followed by Firefox, and now it is the turn of Google Chrome, which has the obligation to adapt to these new demands that the environment has pushed for in favor of a better relationship with its users.
It is a difficult situation for the latter, since its main sources of income come from third-party advertising, but if it wants to keep up with the trend, it will have to invent new ways of collecting this valuable information without making users feel that their privacy is being used for profit. The first step has already been taken with the creation of Google Analytics 4, the evolution of its measurement tool that will work without the need for cookies.
What will the future of digital marketing look like without cookies?
The answer: unknown.
Hard work is underway to reach a consensus that will allow technology players, brands, agencies and media to adapt to a paradigm that does not rely on third-party cookies. An adaptation that will have to be carried out throughout this year and that, at this point, is still open to viable alternatives that all the players in the environment can find. The IAB Europe has created a guide that is constantly updated and that focuses on presenting the current problems, while showing us all the options that are emerging as the wheel continues to turn.
Google is already taking its first steps towards a world without cookies with the creation of Google Analytics 4 , the evolution of its measurement tool that will work without the need to resort to these files.
Justin Schuh, Director of Engineering for Google Chrome, commented: “ Our goal is to make the web a more private and secure place for users, while supporting advertisers .”
Towards this goal, they have presented FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts), a tracking technology that focuses on serving relevant ads to a “large group of people with similar interests.”
The most significant change is that user information is processed on the user's own device instead of being transmitted over the web. Additionally, it anonymizes the data and groups it by interests, thus aggregating each user's information to create cohorts, with certain common patterns that will serve to target advertisers' advertising.
This technology will open its doors in March, a period from which we will begin to see the first results. What is clear is that it will not leave anyone indifferent, both advertisers and users will have a crucial role in the future of the new environment without cookies. At the moment, it is impossible to draw any conclusions about the results, but what is undeniable is that busy times are coming in the digital marketing sector .
