What Google’s Cookie Announcement Means for Digital Marketers

If you haven’t heard already, Google is saying goodbye to the long-debated cookie. A huge announcement for marketers. The importance of this was reinforced when Google announced that, not only are they removing third-party cookies, but they will not mitigate this change by developing or using alternative individual identifiers across any of their products. With this announcement, their statement is clear: third-party cookies are out and first party-data is the future.

How we got here

While this may come as a surprise to some, the writing has been on the wall for several years. Now that CCPA and GDPR have been in effect for years, consumers are more aware of privacy issues and mass data collection. And they don’t like the idea of a man behind the curtain using cookies to track their whereabouts as they surf the web. Because of this mixture of laws and public opinion, regulators are cracking down on major tech companies over privacy concerns and anticompetitive behavior.

And Google isn’t the first to realize these concerns. In February of this year, Mozilla announced that Firefox 86 will also come with “Total Cookie Protection,” an update that confines cookies to the site where they were created — essentially rendering them ineffective. And, with the Apple iOS 14 rollout, ITP was turned on in all major web browsers, blocking third-party cookies from being served to users on these devices. This alone is incredibly significant considering 50% of America’s nearly 300 million smartphone users claim allegiance to Apple.

Why the cookie falls short

Beyond just the privacy concerns, there are myriad reasons why marketers should look beyond the cookie to first-party data when it comes to their online marketing efforts. Here are just a few key reasons why:

• Third-party cookies do a poor job of tracking consumers as they move across different devices.
• With many consumers moving to mobile devices and apps, web-based cookie-tracking isn’t necessarily capturing an accurate customer journey.
• As more devices update to iOS 14, the size of your retargeting audience may decrease. This is a direct quote from Facebook, themselves.
• Cookie attrition, meaning the time during which a cookie can track a user, can drop quickly. Especially as users become more aware of cookie technology and clear their cache.
• With Firefox & Google banning cookies, not to mention Safari on iOS 14, the ability to reach your customers with this technology becomes increasingly hard.
• AdTech providers that rely on third-party data won’t be able to support your initiatives.

With this in mind, it’s become abundantly clear to many marketers that the answer is to look for a vendor that can help you work beyond a cookie-based marketing strategy by taking advantage of your first-party data to send highly-personalized, one-to-one messages to your consumers.

Navigating a cookie-less world with first-party data

While the banishment of third-party cookies may seem like a win for consumers with privacy concerns, it’s still a bit of a disruption for marketers, as they look at alternate data solutions that allow them to capture consumer’s online behavior.

Luckily, the marketing industry has been predicting this change for years, and there are reliable, sustainable solutions available that capture first-party data to personalize communication with audiences.

Let’s take Wunderkind, for example. Wunderkind doesn’t rely on cookies. Instead, we use an identity resolution to collect high-quality customer analytics that power one-to-one messages on websites, through emails, and in text messages.

With Wunderkind, you know your data is high quality because it comes directly from your site, making it not only accurate, but relevant to your business. You also minimize privacy concerns because you know where the data comes from, since it’s gleaned directly from your customers, and you own the data.

Using these customer insights, you can power high-performing triggered emails and texts, and robust audience identification & capture rates, to retarget your most valuable leads and drive more conversions than would otherwise be possible with only third-party cookies. Here’s proof of the value of Wunderkind’s technology:

• 3.6X list growth rates with behavioral captures.
• 6–11% of total digital revenue driven by Wunderkind’s triggered emails.
• 5–9% of total digital revenue driven by Wunderkind Text Messaging.

Google’s cookie ban opens a door for marketers to explore more effective solutions for targeting their audience. Don’t let the announcement keep you from reaching your customers with personalized, effective marketing messaging. Reach out to us to see how much revenue you could be making with Wunderkind.