With the impending deprecation of third-party cookies, marketers find themselves at the crossroads of innovation and adaptation. As we bid farewell to this identifier, the emphasis shifts to forging deeper connections, understanding customer needs, and navigating the marketing landscape with data-driven precision. At Experian, we stand as your trusted partner, committed to guiding you through this transition. In this blog post, we’ll explore:
- How third-party cookie deprecation is impacting digital advertising
- Six alternatives to third-party cookies and where they fall short
- How Experian can help you navigate a cookieless world
Four ways third-party cookie deprecation is impacting digital advertising
Third-party cookie deprecation is causing significant challenges within the AdTech industry, manifesting in four key areas:
- Reach: Advertisers and demand-side platforms (DSPs) will face difficulties in reaching their target customers due to the absence of third-party cookies.
- Understanding audiences: Advertisers will find it challenging to understand the demographics and behaviors of their customer base without third-party cookies. Similarly, publishers are struggling to identify their audiences accurately, resulting in less addressable and appealing inventory.
- Measurement: Measurement providers may encounter obstacles in accurately assessing the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. Additionally, DSPs are finding it hard to measure the impact of their ads without the assistance of third-party cookies.
- Matching: Data providers may experience challenges in matching users with the appropriate audience segments, leading to difficulties in delivering targeted advertising.
Six alternatives to third-party cookies
As the deadline approaches for Google’s removal of third-party cookies from Chrome by the end of 2024, marketers are scrambling to discover alternative methods for delivering effective advertising. Fortunately, various alternatives are emerging. However, the abundance of options can create confusion rather than clarity. Which alternatives are worth considering? Here are six compelling alternatives to third-party cookies:
1. First-party data
Acquiring consented first-party data directly from users is becoming increasingly vital as it can lay the groundwork for more precise targeting.
2. Universal IDs
Alternative identifiers like The Trade Desk’s UID2 and ID5’s Universal ID are becoming increasingly important, offering the ability to maintain a comprehensive consumer view across channels and platforms, leading to enhanced personalization and addressability across various channels, even in cookieless environments.
3. Identity graphs
As browser-based IDs shift and digital signals decline, the need for an identity graph grows, with companies adopting a “graph-of-graph” strategy by combining their own robust first-party data with licensed identity graphs, as highlighted in recent announcements by industry giants such as Disney, VideoAmp, and Magnite.
4. Contextual targeting
Contextual targeting aligns publisher content with relevant ads, ensuring ad delivery based on content rather than individual identifiers. This privacy-respecting approach is less dependent on third-party cookies, providing effective audience activation.
5. Data collaboration
In a cookieless world, it becomes more difficult for companies to “communicate” with one another. We expect to see more pick up of data collaboration in the market, using addressable IDs and identity resolution to power connectivity between partners and their data sets.
6. Google Privacy Sandbox
The primary goal of Google’s Privacy Sandbox is to continue to deliver valuable consumer information that yields relevant marketing and media strategies, while protecting a user’s privacy.
How these alternatives to cookies fall short
While it’s promising to see numerous alternatives to cookies emerging, it’s essential to recognize that each alternative has its limitations and is not a perfect one-to-one replacement for third-party cookies. Let’s review the shortcomings of these alternatives, and then we’ll walk through how Experian can help you navigate these alternatives to cookies.
1. First-party data
First-party data, which is data directly collected from your users with their consent, is highly valuable. However, you will likely face limitations in terms of the number of consumers in your database, the identifiers linking them, and the insights into their demographics and behaviors. To overcome these limitations, it’s essential to expand both the quantity and quality of your first-party data.
2. Universal IDs
Universal identifiers are valuable for tracking users across different devices and websites. However, no single universal identifier has enough reach to fully replace third-party cookies. Universal IDs are most effective in terms of scaling, when they are combined with other universal identifiers or alternative addressable identifiers.
3. Identity graph
Identity graphs excel at connecting digital audiences. However, establishing an identity graph from scratch is a significant accomplishment, demanding expertise, financial resources, and more.
4. Contextual targeting
Contextual targeting and advertising aim to place your ads next to relevant content. However, there’s a risk that your ads might appear alongside misaligned content, reaching audiences who are uninterested or unintended.
5. Data collaboration
Data collaboration is beneficial for enhancing your consumer data and informing your strategies. However, it can introduce potential data security risks, if not done in the right framework, and may lead to subpar matching results due to issues like data hygiene or discrepancies in identifiers.
6. Google Privacy Sandbox
Google’s Privacy Sandbox aims to balance effective advertising with consumer privacy and data security. However, it lacks transparency and has yet to prove its effectiveness, raising concerns about whether it meets industry standards.
How Experian can help you navigate a cookieless world
As an industry innovator and leader in data and identity, we’ve developed solutions to address the challenges posed by the shift away from third-party cookies. Our products are designed to adapt to these changes and ensure your success. We’ve anticipated industry shifts and proactively prepared our offerings to support you through this transition. Below we outline how our products are ready to support you through the transition away from third-party cookies.
Graph
The Experian Graph facilitates connectivity without relying on cookies. Our Graph helps ensure connectivity by supporting a variety of addressable identifiers, not limited to but including universal IDs, like Unified ID 2.0 (UID2) and ID5’s universal ID. Whether you have first-party data or not, our Graph can be used to expand the reach of your first-party data or provide you with access to the full scope of our Graph’s 126 million households and 250 million individuals.
Activity Feed
Supported by our Graph, Activity Feed can help you deliver digital connectivity and resolution in a cookieless environment. Activity Feed can resolve disparate activity to a single, consumer profile. It can expand the quantity of addressable identifiers associated with your first-party consumers. Additionally, Activity Feed, by joining disparate activity and identifiers, provides clearer insights, more addressable targets, and more holistic measurement.
Our Marketing Attributes and Audiences
In a cookieless environment, our Marketing Attributes and Audiences provide valuable information and insights about who your consumers are, like their demographics, shopping patterns, and more, to facilitate more informed decision-making. You can use our Marketing Attributes and Audiences to enrich your first-party data, giving you crucial insights into your customers so you can make informed, strategic decisions. They can be matched to universal identifiers, expanding their utility. Additionally, our Marketing Attributes and Audiences are sourced from non-cookie dependent offline and digital sources, ensuring they are unimpacted by third-party cookie deprecation.
Collaboration
While third-party cookies have primarily served to connect data in the industry, many companies are turning to data collaboration in lieu of having third-party cookies. In doing so, they can connect data with key partners, which they can use to make better media decisions.
Experian Collaboration helps make data collaborations better, powering higher match rates by using the various identifiers supported in our offline and digital graphs. Through our current support of collaboration in three environments, within Experian, through crosswalks, and in clean rooms, such as AWS, InfoSum, and Snowflake, we ensure that you only share the data you intend to share, while the sensitive information remains secure. This way, your partner and you can focus on how to use the data to benefit you and not on anything else.
Get started with alternatives to third-party cookies today
While many view the deprecation of third-party cookies as disruptive, we see it as an opportunity for the industry to embrace a new era of advertising while prioritizing consumer privacy. Achieving this balance is crucial, and Experian’s solutions are here to help you navigate it effectively. As the AdTech industry gravitates toward a few tactics to effectively advertise in the cookieless future, Experian is here to understand your core needs and recommend products that will help.
In a rapidly evolving marketing landscape, Experian stands as your trusted partner, offering expertise in data-driven and identity solutions. Connect with our team to seamlessly transition into these alternatives to third-party cookies, ensuring your marketing strategies remain effective, privacy-compliant, and focused on meaningful connections.
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Experian Marketing Services Consumer Expectation Index shows positive outlook for 2012 holiday season Today we released the newest Experian Marketing Services’ Consumer Expectation Index (CEI) analysis of the first half of 2012. As noted in the release, during the first six months of 2012 we reported that consumer optimism has reached an all-time high over the last four years, beating 2008 by 8 index points. The CEI provides us with unprecedented insight into our economic outlook by who we are; men versus woman, age, household income and employment status, to name a few of the 60,000 variables that we have access to. What’s most striking about today’s release is that optimism is up across the board among men and woman and all age groups; even the unemployed increased their economic outlook from an index of 87.6 to 88.0 from the first half of 2011 to the same period this year. As we approach the holiday season, the latest CEI figures indicate a strong seasonal performance for retailers. The CEI figure for the week of Sept. 3, 2012, (the most recent single week for which data is available) was 7.4 points higher than it was at the same point last year and higher than it has been heading into the holiday season since 2008. This holiday season also could be very good for brands and retailers with big-ticket items to sell Further, key consumer groups are even more optimistic. On Sept. 3, the CEI of those adults who made an online purchase in the past year was 2 percent higher than the national average and 8.1 points higher than the CEI recorded for online shoppers at this time during 2011. This holiday season also could be very good for brands and retailers with big-ticket items to sell, since the CEI among adults planning to make a big-ticket purchase hit 117.9 the week of Sept. 3, 2012, compared with 103.5 the same week in 2011 and 100.5 in 2010. In fact, a CEI above 100 indicates that consumers are more confident than they were during the base line period, which was the first half of 2004, years before the recession began. Perhaps it’s all the talk of the looming fiscal cliff that makes today’s release appear to be counter-intuitive. In fact searches for “fiscal cliff” increased over ten-fold comparing last week to the week ending November 3rd. However, if we look for what people were searching for using search term variations, the top searches were “what is the fiscal cliff” and “fiscal cliff definition,” showing that consumers are still learning what the fiscal cliff is and what it means for them. Hitwise "Fiscal Cliff" Search Term Variations Rank Search Term Percent Volume 1 fiscal cliff 48.07% 2 what is the fiscal cliff 6.74% 3 fiscal cliff definition 6.58% 4 fiscal cliff 2013 6.28% 5 obama fiscal cliff 2.83% 6 what is a fiscal cliff 2.40% 7 the fiscal cliff 1.13% 8 what is fiscal cliff 1.06% 9 fiscal cliff looms 1.03% 10 fiscal cliff defined 0.77% Note – data is for the 4 Weeks Ending November 10, 2012 Source: Experian Marketing Services As the population becomes more educated on the looming crisis, we’ll keep tabs on any resulting changes to consumer optimism, specifically which demographics are most concerned. Learn more about the CEI here.
It is time for us to polish off our crystal ball and give our predictions straight from consumers’ fingertips for the hot products of the 2012 holiday season. Gadgets will reign across many ages Tablets including LeapPads, Tabeos, iPads, Kindles and others will continue to be a popular gift this year, with more choices than ever. On the list of top product-related search terms driving traffic to the Retail 500 category of sites, Kindle Fire HD and Windows 8 top the list as new products. Additionally, Meep!, a child friendly tablet appeared in the top fifteen. Accessories for both phones and tablets will also be popular, especially as the variety grows for iPhone 5 and iPad Mini. A reoccurring favorite gift for the holidays is UGGs which shows a decrease year over year. However, another brand with a similar product is Bearpaw, which is in the top ten searches and has seen big growth year over year. Source: Experian Hitwise Dolls, video games and Furbys, oh my! To identify the popular toys for gifts this year, we researched product-related search terms driving traffic to ToysRUs.com compared to last year’s holiday season. We uncovered trends in the doll category, Doc McStuffins as number one on the list, along with the classic Barbie, which saw a growth in searches year over year. The Furby is making a strong comeback at the number two spot with a reboot and new features. Another trend here is tablets, from branded searches like LeapPad and Kurio there is also the generic term ‘tablets for kids’. In the video game category, the new Wii U that is debuting just in time for Black Friday and should be a big gift this year, along with searches for PS3 games and the Nintendo 3ds xl are all in the top 20 searches. Source: Experian Hitwise Keywords of the consumer to identify demand Beyond product names, it is important to understand the actual way people search, using key phrases and questions. Last year, for example, there was a lot of activity around ‘in-stock’ products, such as the LeapPad explorer, which was hugely popular and quickly sold out in many stores. Retailers and marketers should monitor this throughout the season and make sure to optimize for in stock if there is a popular product that they have available. Source: Experian Hitwise Consumers also focus on what is the ‘best’ – so we see search activity around ‘best place to buy’, particularly around electronics. Questions such as ‘where to buy a’ specific product are also common, such as ‘where to buy a kindle’. These phrases offer opportunities to boost search campaigns by considering how consumers phrase their questions to ensure to capture these searches. Source: Experian Hitwise Quick tip: In the retail category there will tend to be a lot of retail branded store terms but to keep up with holiday search behavior and help make analysis quick, create portfolios of branded terms to easily exclude those from a certain category. When you strip out all the variations of that term you are able to gain insight into product searches that are most popular to a certain site or category. For more insight on the hot product trends for this year from our Hitwise trend-spotters, watch our webcast.
The holiday season – a most wonderful time of the year for retailers – is underway and marketers are tweaking their campaigns for better customer engagement and enchantment. There are many channels in which to reach top customers and prospective customers, and the new holiday season is a great time to refine strategies and tactics to ensure success. To help marketers in their quest, Experian Marketing Services recently conducted a market research study and learned that email marketing trumped all other tactics as the most successful initiative during the 2011 holiday season. Of the 84.2 percent who used email marketing, 95.8 percent reported that their campaigns were successful. Ninety-three percent said they planned to increase or maintain the same level of investment for the 2012 season. In addition to email, the study showed that paid search and online display advertising were the next most successful marketing tactics of the 2011 holiday season, with 48.9 percent naming search and 34.8 naming online display advertising as extremely or very successful campaign tactics. Our internal experts are currently looking at real-time data around these and other marketing channels and will present what they’ve learned during a live webinar on Thursday, October 25th at 1:00 p.m. EST. This information should prove very helpful to marketers who want to improve their campaigns based on current trends and results. Register for the holiday webinar and you’ll receive all of the survey data in the form of a 2012 holiday marketing white paper. Here’s to a joyous and profitable holiday season!