Are marketers ready for the cookieless future?

The past few years have seen data regulators tighten their grip around big tech companies, making once–easy user tracking more challenging by the day. 

Third-party cookies—a cornerstone of such tracking—are also going away. 

When? Nobody knows, as Google delayed the cookie deprecation again. But the writing is on the wall. And companies have taken the hints quite seriously.

Ever since, we’ve been hearing about “cookiepocalypse,” and less doom-ey buzzwords which forecast hard times for online advertisers. 

Is it justified? Are there any alternatives in place? Let’s check the data.

Reduced cookie access is one of marketers’ biggest challenges

Color us impressed, eh? 

It seems that most marketers are aware that your highly-targeted, highly-performing ads would be rendered useless without an effective data tracking system:

As you see, cookie deprecation is the third biggest challenge for US marketers.

It is just slightly behind ads being delivered alongside risky or fake content, which appears to be the biggest problem for both ad buyers and publishers—which was somewhat confirmed by advertisers pulling out of X.

Nevertheless, cookieless advertising appears to be more troublesome than ad fraud, for instance. 

This can tell us that there’s awareness that things might turn sour.

Are marketers prepared for cookie deprecation?

This one is a clear no.

But this survey from the end of last year is interesting:

While 70% of respondents think cookie replacement is crucial, there’s still no clear consensus about a potential solution.

On top of that, 65% say they’ve already felt a negative impact due to blocked or rejected cookies. 

Not only that, but 38% aren’t fully aware of the solutions available, or aren’t aware of how it will impact their marketing at all, and 31% don’t trust walled gardens.

The Crew’s opinion: Turns out that without a suitable cookie replacement, there’s not only a huge risk of your ads not performing, but you also won’t be able to measure the actual impact it has on your ads. Which might be even worse.

DTC marketing is still heavily reliant on third-party cookies

It’s well known that DTC advertising is heavily reliant on third-party cookies for efficient online advertising. 

As such, it is the most prone to negative impacts of deprecation.

Just see this:

At the time this survey was conducted, cookies were supposed to be deprecated sometime in 2024. Yet, most DTC brands still relied heavily on cookie-based advertising. 

We can guess the situation is probably the same today. 

So if you’re a DTC brand that falls into any of these industries—and you’re still heavily reliant on cookies—you’re not alone. 

But you should probably start thinking about ways to mitigate that heavy reliance.

On that note, here are some ways B2C marketers acquire their data:

As you see, website data—which cookies are part of—are still ranking highest when it comes to data sources.

However, you can also see survey data, email data, and CRM data all being ranked high, which can be a way you can gain some autonomy from over-reliance on third-party cookies.

There’s one downside to it, though. But first, let’s see what users think about data collection:

It’s more or less aligned with the previous chart. Users would also prefer consensual data collection—with only 19% saying that they are okay with third-party cookies. 

On the other hand, interactive surveys, loyalty cards, and online forms are all more viable forms of data collection. 

The big downside: Collecting first-party and zero-party data is that it’s mostly aimed at targeting consumers who somehow already got in touch with your brand.  

Therefore, this type of data is a great way to retarget or retain existing customers, but it won’t really help acquire new customers out of the blue without some third-party data sprinkled in. 

What are the alternatives to third-party cookies?

If you’re in marketing, you’ve probably gotten in touch with some.

Even the likes of Meta with Advantage+ campaigns or Google Ads with Performance Max are integrating AI to help mitigate the damage cookieless features might cause.

However, Google’s main cookieless alternative Privacy Sandbox has recently come under scrutiny, with experts saying that—if implemented today—would decrease publisher revenue by 60%.  

Even worse, the overall adoption of the feature is predicted to be around 55%.

And here’s a chart that might confirm it:

It looks like Google Analytics 4 is the most popular, most reliable, and the most well-known of all alternatives. In that case, having a good GA4 tracking system set up seems to be a must.

Contextual advertising is also high on the list and is often mentioned as a good alternative to third-parties. This includes placing your ads where your target audience might reside—niche newsletters, communities, keywords, and similar.

Some shady practices like digital fingerprinting and buying third-party data are also mentioned, but due to ethical concerns, they aren’t the best possible alternatives.

What’s interesting is that 27% of respondents have no idea about Google’s Privacy Sandbox. The same percentage of marketers that are actually using it. 

That’s not a good look for Google’s supposed “cookieless” solution. 

And here’s how it looks like when it comes to budget allocation:

It seems that contextual data and first-party data are alternatives on which advertisers are actually willing to spend the most, followed by demographic identifiers.

The Crew’s opinion: Contextual data might not be as effective as tracking and targeting with third-party cookies, but it is emerging as a good way to target new online users interested in your product, without breaching any privacy regulations.

Finally, here’s a chart that can tell us more about the pulse of the industry:

A quarter of all respondents are already testing first- party universal identifiers—a tech that essentially tracks a single “identifier,” (your encrypted email address), across different platforms. 

Yes, it’s similar to third-party cookies, just more privacy-compliant and less accurate. 

Only 15% are testing contextual only, which tells us that it is a viable alternative, but not on its own. 

And once again, we can see that Privacy Sandbox is a solution least likely to be tested or taken into account. Partly due to users not being familiar with the feature, partly because Google released it for a select number of browsers.

Marketers are spending more due to signal loss

Some advertisers are already feeling the much-needed, yet negative effects of privacy laws on advertising.

And due to the signal loss, some of them started upping their spend on different channels:

According to this report, CTV seems to be the channel to pay attention to post-cookies. And it is something we’ve actually noted in a Data Story we’ve done recently—give it a look.

Furthermore, creator marketing and paid search are all seeing a rise in share of ad spend. And unlike zero and first-party data marketing, these channels can acquire users who never got in touch with your brand. Sounds like you can use them in combination.

Social media is an interesting addition—but with the ability to incorporate first and third party data and use machine learning features to target similar audiences tracked within their platform might also be a recipe for success.

Main bottlenecks when it comes to implementing cookieless solutions 

…besides not having a defined cookieless solution, of course.

Let’s take a look:

The biggest barrier is ensuring data privacy and security. In fact, that’s one of the reasons Google has an issue implementing its cookieless solutions, so it makes sense.

However, another big reason is that customers don’t want to share information. You’ll have to be pretty persuasive, and trustworthy, or offer incentives for customers to share data.

Among other bottlenecks you can find a bunch of technical issues—inability to sync cross-platform data, poor quality, metadata issues, and more. 

What you can do: To prepare for a cookieless future as a DTC brand, you might want to:

• Have a first-party data collection strategy that’s based on brand trust and incentives
• Educate yourself on the technical and logistical side of cookieless alternatives, implementation—such as setting up conversion APIs, website analytics, and more
• Find ways to connect the data dots between different platforms and implement an omnichannel strategy

Do users trust brands collecting their data?

Not quite. But it might not be as bad as you think.

Here’s the breakdown: 

According to this report, 16% are not confident in brands’ responsible use of their data.

But combined with those that are “hardly confident,” that’s still less than half of respondents who don’t trust brand data tracking at all.

There are still around 16% who are completely confident, while 37% are on the fence. 

So while customers are opposing giving away data due to privacy concerns—as we mentioned earlier—you can still provide an ethical and reliable way to share data. 

Chances are, most users will be willing to share their information in such a case.

The cookie jar is emptying

And the question is—how ready are you?

With no clear consensus on replacements, the industry remains uncertain—and all you can do is try to embrace privacy-compliant solutions and build trust with your customers. 

This proactive approach and a willingness to embrace new technologies could help you keep thriving, despite the obvious hiccups… But still, the time to act is now. 

There isn’t much left in that jar.

Sources:

• Statista
• Relay42
• ID5
• Porch Group Media
• Twilio
• IAB
• Attest
• Braze
• Comscore Inc