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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In our upcoming 2011 Digital Marketer Report, we will cover what influences purchase decisions. While you'll have to wait to read the report to see the entire list, when ranking influencers to purchase decisions: 54% of U.S. adults identified old-fashioned Word of Mouth (WOM), while information from webpages (47%) ranked second and online consumer reviews (31%) ranked as the third most important. It's nearly impossible to measure old-fashioned WOM, and “Information from a website” is a very broad category. Gauging the uptake in online consumer reviews is another story, however. Visits to online review pure-play Yelp.com is a good proxy for the uptake in online reviews in the service sector (restaurants, dry cleaners and dentists to name a few). Over the past two years, visits to Yelp.com have increased over 136%. Given such impressive and steady growth since 2009, you might assume that Yelp and other sites like it have become ubiquitous. Your assumption, however, would be incorrect. While age demographics of visitors to the site show that use of the online consumer reviews has reached maturity (Internet users over the age of 55 make up the largest age bin at 25%), geo-demographics, or visits by DMA, tell a completely different story. The top five cities by representation; San Francisco, San Diego, Monterey, Los Angeles and Sacramento reveal the first skew, that Yelp.com visitors favor the West Coast, where the company was founded. So it seems that, by percentage, the largest U.S. cities also figure significant. When looking at visitors to the site by Mosaic™ segments, Americas Wealthiest, Young Cosmopolitans and other affluent types figure heavily in the site's traffic. Taken all together, the numbers reveal that while Yelp.com continues to grow, its participants continue to be a very distinct subset of U.S. Internet users. This niche set of users might explain why traditional WOM continues to show more significance in influencing purchase decisions. Want to learn more about other purchase decision influencers? Click here to request a copy of Experian Marketing Services highly-anticipated 2011 Digital Marketer Report, launching in late March. The report features an editorial by Bill Tancer as well as unreleased data spanning email, social, mobile, search and more.
College basketball mania is here. First round NCAA tournament action tips off this week leading up to the Final Four in Houston and Indianapolis for the men and women respectively. With March Madness just around the corner, Experian Marketing Services' data team started to wonder — how do TV viewers of the men's tournament differ from viewers of the women's tournament? The women's game has come a long way since the first women's collegiate basketball championship in 1972. This will be the ninth year that all 63 games of the tournament are televised nationally. Looking back to 1982 when the finals were contested in Norfolk, Virginia, only 37 media credentials were issued. This has increased 14 fold when compared to the 530 media credentials issued in San Antonio last year. The men's game is as popular as ever drawing impressive TV ratings, especially during tournament time. Remember Butler's drive to the Final Four last year and their near upset of Duke? CBS reported that 48 million viewers watched at least some of the championship game. According to viewership data from Experian Simmons, men's tournament viewers outnumbered women's tournament viewers by a ratio of 3.7 to 1. That's nearly four men's tournament viewers for every viewer of the women's tournament. So who might be watching this year? Using Experian's Mosaic consumer lifestyle segmentation system combined with last year's tournament viewership data from Experian Simmons, we took a closer look. Men's Tournament Viewers Rise Above The Rim On Affluence The men's tournament draws a significant share of viewers from affluent households. Nearly half of viewers have household income of $75,000 or over. The ten most affluent Mosaic segments have an over-representation of men's tournament viewers compared to their corresponding share of U.S. adults. This includes Dream Weavers (well-off families with school age children, living an affluent suburban version of the American Dream), Enterprising Couples (married couples with children and childless duos living in upper-middle-class commuter communities), and New Suburbia Families (young, affluent working couples with pre-school children concentrated in fast-growing, metro fringe communities). Nearly half of the men's tournament TV viewers have household income of $75,000 or over. True to its name, the Dream Weavers segment is a college basketball advertiser's dream for home electronics, home furnishings, home improvement and home office supplies. All of these home-centered categories are near and dear to Dream Weaver householders many of whom will be following the men's tournament very closely in a variety of media formats including online, in HDTV, and on their smart phones. Brands and retail stores that have particular appeal to Dream Weavers include Nordstrom, Ralph Lauren, Nike, Eddie Bauer, Sephora, Dick's Sporting Goods and Banana Republic. But that's not to say that only affluent consumers are watching the men's tournament. Other segments with an above average concentration of men's tournament viewers include African-American Neighborhoods, Minority Metro Communities, America's Farmlands, and Young Cosmopolitans. Men's tournament viewers participate in a wide range of leisure and sport's activities (most notably golfing, football, softball, racquet sports, and weight training), have a preference for driving Cadillac, Acura, and Lexus automobiles, and have a high concentration of readers of such magazine titles as Golf Digest, Sports Illustrated, ESPN The Magazine, Barron's, and Black Enterprise. Women's Tournament Delivers Younger, More Ethnically Diverse Audience The audience for the women's tournament is decidedly different from the men's. About six out of every ten viewers have household income below $75,000. Mosaic segments with the greatest over-representation of women's tournament viewers include Struggling City Centers (young, single and single-parent minority renters living in low-income city neighborhoods throughout the South) and Minority Metro Communities (married couples and single-parent minorities with above-average incomes working in a mix of service industry and white-collar jobs). These two segments alone account for nearly 20% of the women's tournament viewing audience and contain about 2.5 times the concentration of viewers relative to their corresponding share of U.S. adults. Women's college basketball advertisers should note that the tournament delivers a less affluent audience compared to the men. Using Minority Metro Communities as an example, brands and retail stores that have particular appeal to this group and to the broader women's tournament audience overall include 7-Eleven, Ace Hardware, Hallmark, Sam's Club, Kmart, Dollar General, Big Lots, and Marshall's. Women's college basketball advertisers should note that the tournament delivers a less affluent audience compared to the men. Only four of the ten most affluent Mosaic segments have an over-representation of women's tournament viewers. When comparing a segment's share of the overall women's tournament viewing audience to its corresponding share of the men's tournament viewing audience, three of these four segments account for a higher share of women's viewers. These are America's Wealthiest, White Collar Suburbia, and Affluent Urban Professionals. Advertisers will be pleased to know that interest in the tournament from these segments helps lift the viewing audience into a higher income demographic. Using White Collar Suburbia as an example, retail stores that have particular appeal to this segment of the population include Brooks Brothers, Costco, Gap, J. Crew, Kohl's, Lord & Taylor, and Victoria's Secret. Other segments that contain a significantly higher share of women's viewers compared to men include Small-city Endeavors (a mix of lower income singles, families, and single parents living in older homes and small apartments in working class towns) and Professional Urbanites (upper-middle-class empty nesting couples and older singles in metropolitan areas). Men’s Tournament Viewers Compared to Women’s Tournament Viewers Men’s Tournament Top Ten Most Affluent Mosaic Segments Women’s Tournament America’s Wealthiest Dream Weavers White Collar Suburbia Upscale Suburbanites Enterprising Couples Small-town Success New Suburbia Families Status-conscious Consumers Affluent Urban Professionals Urban Commuter Families = Index of 100 to 125 = Index of 126 to 150 = Index above 150 The index shows the concentration of viewers for the men's and women's tournament for a segment compared to the segment's share of U.S. adults. For example, an index above 150 means that adults from the segment are 50% more likely to watch the tournament compared to U.S. adults overall.
Along with death and taxes, the third certainty as an online marketer is change. When we combine the rapid rate of online innovation with consumers' relentless pursuit of finding the best possible price, a pursuit that kicks into overdrive with economic uncertainty, it's critical to anticipate changes in consumer behavior and the adoption of new buying modalities. Here are three things that you should know about the group coupon phenomenon. By now, most of us are aware of Groupon, the privately held Chicago group couponing-company that rejected Google's $6 billion dollar acquisition offer in late 2010. Since it's founding in 2009, Groupon has grown to over 5 million visits per week to take the #25 spot in the Experian Hitwise Shopping & Classifieds category1 for the week ending January 29, 2011. But is Groupon, or more generally the category of online group buying, a fad or a significant change in the way we buy online? Here are three things that you should know about the group coupon phenomenon. Group Buying Has Reached Mainstream Adoption If you think that this new social buying trend is fueled by early adopters of technology, the young and hip technocrats, you may have been correct in January 2010. Today, you would be completely off the mark. According to Experian Hitwise for the four weeks ending January 29, 2011, the largest age-bin for visitors to Groupon.com are those Internet users over the age of 55 (37.5%). There is Applicability to Local and National Retailers While group coupons were heralded as the perfect solution for local online commerce, successful deals with national retailers (both bricks-and-mortar such as GAP and online pure-plays like Amazon.com) indicate that this movement will take its place alongside email and search as a key channel for marketers to consider. On January 19, 2011, LivingSocial.com, a Groupon competitor, offered a $20 Amazon credit for $10 (it should be noted that Amazon invested $175 million in LivingSocial.com). According to PC Magazine, over 1.3 million certificates were sold at a rate of over 100,000 per hour. The Race to Dominate the Space is Heating Up LivingSocial's Amazon play did more than just put up impressive numbers; it was a clear sign that the site is a viable threat to category leader, Groupon. According to Groupon CEO Andrew Mason, Groupon has over 500 competitors in the marketplace and growing. Have you considered group buying for your business? Along with anticipating this trend, with the growing number of competitors and offers you should think one step ahead – will consumers succumb to daily deal fatigue? Want to learn more about digital marketing in 2011? Click here to request a copy of Experian Marketing Services highly-anticipated 2011 Digital Marketer Report, launching in late March. The report features an editorial by Bill Tancer as well as unreleased data spanning email, social, mobile, search and more. ——— 1 Shopping and Classifieds Category: 28,586 top sites that specialize in online shopping, auctions and classifieds