30-second summary:
- Ever since Google made the announcement in January that Chrome would phase out the technology in two years, marketers, publishers, agencies, and data owners have been scrambling to prepare for this sea change.
- Many marketing tech companies are built on the faceless calculations of cookie-based tracking, targeting, and attribution.
- Michael Hussey, President of StatSocial, discusses how the demise of the cookie presents opportunities for consumers and data-dependent organizations.
COVID-19 is still dominating business headlines, but inside the digital marketing industry, the biggest story remains the coming demise of the third-party tracking cookie. Ever since Google made the announcement in January that Chrome would phase out the technology in two years, marketers, publishers, agencies, and data owners have been scrambling to prepare for this sea change.
It was always imperfect, but the cookie developed into a currency that allowed various marketing stakeholders to make sense of online and offline behavior and do business based on it. For example, being able to prove that a digital ad campaign led to a lift in brand awareness, new sales, store visits, and the others were made possible by syncing cookies across different data providers (for example, did the household who saw a Yoplait yogurt ad actually purchase more yogurt?). In turn, this gave confidence to marketers to invest in campaigns that were proven to provide sales and brand lift.
Many marketing tech companies are built on the faceless calculations of cookie-based tracking, targeting, and attribution. But as the general public came to understand how their data is being traded and used, their concerns sufficiently inspired regulators to come up with ordinances like GDPR [1]and CCPA[2]. Google’s decision to eliminate the cookie[3] will make its own dealings with regulators easier, but it