By Michael Dobson, Global Chief Digital Officer

With Google’s recent announcement reversing its stance on third-party cookies in Chrome, Michael Dobson, our Global Chief Digital Officer, explains what advertisers should expect going forward and how they can adapt their strategies. 

With summer travel and back-to-school shopping in full swing, you may have missed Google’s announcement that it ended its plans for the depreciation of third-party cookies to move forward with a new approach. This comes as no surprise for many advertisers since Google’s biggest source of income is their ads. While this approach will allow consumers to own the right to what they share, there is a large impact to Google and partners dependent on paid advertising sources.

Instead of completely eliminating third-party cookies, Google will now provide Chrome users with the option to manage their data settings more transparently. Users will be empowered to make informed choices about enabling or disabling cookies across their web browsing and adjust these settings at any time. This shift is part of Google’s broader Privacy Sandbox initiative, which aims to develop privacy-preserving alternatives to third-party cookies. This move is a crucial step towards balancing privacy concerns with the practicalities of consumer choice and data usage for advertising. This approach not only aligns with privacy regulations but also respects consumer autonomy, allowing them to control their data sharing preferences. This is a step in the right direction, ensuring that privacy concerns are addressed while maintaining a user-centric model (from an advertising experience).

The rollout of these settings will be critical. How Google moves forward in giving consumers the option to manage privacy/data settings will be a very important piece of what drives opt-in. We have seen from Apple’s introduction of App Tracking Transparency that the way options are presented to users can significantly impact their choices. If users are given clear and transparent options, the transition can be smoother, and the impact on data sharing might be mitigated. It is essential for Google to implement these changes in a user-friendly manner to prevent a large-scale opt-out scenario that could drastically affect advertising efficacy.

From an advertising media standpoint, this delay and shift mean several things:

• Continued Reliance on Third-Party Cookies (Temporarily): Advertisers will have more time to adapt their strategies and continue leveraging third-party cookies while they transition to new technologies/options available for scale.
• Investment in First-Party Data: The importance of first-party data strategies remains paramount. Brands should continue to build robust data collection frameworks that rely on direct consumer interactions.
• Testing Privacy Sandbox Alternatives: Google’s Privacy Sandbox offers new tools and APIs designed to replace third-party cookies. Advertisers need to actively participate in these tests to understand and optimize the use of these new technologies.
• Consumer Trust and Transparency: Building consumer trust through transparent data practices is more important than ever. Brands should focus on clear communication about data usage and provide easy ways for consumers to manage their preferences (ie. Email opt-in with specific preference of shopping preferences).

Advertisers have been preparing for the restrictions on data for years. Most brands have focused on how to overcome a restricted amount of data that is provided by cookies but may not be as broadly available. By using first-party data and partnering with third-party data providers, brands will continue to have opportunities to reach consumers with data that is not dependent on cookies. By Google not fully deprecating cookies, more data should be available versus no option to opt into sharing data. The details in the timing and rollout of the UI opt-in will be very important to further understand the implications.

From a consumer standpoint, the relevancy of ads will be an option for Chrome users to allow brands to reach them with relevancy connected to their product/service. As technology and data advance, the advertising industry reaching consumers should not go back in time. Allowing the consumer to connect and share in a data-safe approach is truly a win for the user experience as well as the brand.

How should advertising agencies handle this?  I recommend they continue to work with brands on building first-party data and leveraging opportunities to model audiences off that data. Strong partnerships with third-party data providers will also be essential, allowing agencies to build custom audience segments, providing highly relevant audience options for their clients.

At the end of the day, it’s the cookie that will never fully crumble.