Tag: third party cookies

Weekend Digital Media Round-Up: Broad Targeting To Precision Marketing: How AI And ML Are Transforming Travel Marketing, Data Vs. Findings Vs. Insights In UX, How Agentic AI and Human Collaboration Are Enhancing CX & More…

1.Broad Targeting To Precision Marketing: How AI And ML Are Transforming Travel Marketing

AI and ML are revolutionizing travel marketing by enabling hyper-personalization at scale. Marketers can now create tailored campaigns based on real-time data, breaking down internal silos and enhancing guest experiences. [Source: Forbes]

2. Data Vs. Findings Vs. Insights In UX

Data consists of raw observations, findings identify patterns, and insights provide actionable recommendations. UX designers must argue for statistical significance to ensure their insights are reliable and impactful for business strategy. [Source: Smashing Magazine]

3. How Agentic AI and Human Collaboration Are Enhancing CX

Agentic AI is revolutionizing retail by acting autonomously to enhance customer experiences through chatbots and virtual assistants. Retailers are leveraging AI for personalized shopping, automated checkout, and improved customer service, creating a competitive edge and fostering human-AI collaboration. [Source: Total Retail]

4. Marketing to Gen Alpha: How brands can win over the next generation

Gen Alpha, born between 2010 and 2024, is brand-aware and influential. Brands should focus on interest-based content and community-driven discovery to connect with them and their millennial parents. [Source: Marketing Dive]

5. From SEO to Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): Why the new era of search belongs to AI and how to stay visible

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is emerging as the new strategy for brand visibility in AI-driven search, replacing traditional SEO. GEO focuses on making content quotable by AI systems like ChatGPT, emphasizing relevance and credibility over keyword rankings. Brands must adapt to this shift to stay influential in the evolving digital landscape. [Source: Tech Startups]

6. Why GenAI And Visual Search Are The Future Of Fashion Retail

Generative AI and visual search are revolutionizing fashion retail by offering personalized shopping experiences and enhancing customer engagement. Glance’s app uses GenAI to suggest clothing based on user selfies, creating a unique and tailored shopping experience. Visual search technology is also gaining popularity for its ability to show visually similar products. [Source: Forbes]

7. Reliably Detecting Third-Party Cookie Blocking In 2025

AI-assisted shopping is transforming retail by enhancing and personalizing the consumer experience through tools like voice assistants, chatbots, and predictive analytics. Brands integrating AI into customer interactions are seeing significant benefits, but they must also address risks such as biased data and trust issues to succeed. [Source: Smashing Magazine]

8. How AI-assisted shopping will shake up the retail landscape

AI-assisted shopping is revolutionizing retail by enhancing personalization and customer experience through tools like voice assistants, visual search, and augmented reality try-ons. Brands integrating AI into their strategies can optimize pricing, predict needs, and create seamless omnichannel experiences, but must also address risks like biased data and trust issues. [Source: The Drum]

9. How Can You Create Winning Content In The Age Of AI And CX?

Creating winning content in the age of AI and customer experience involves blending machine intelligence with human empathy to produce high-quality, personalized content. Leveraging AI-driven insights and advanced segmentation can help businesses understand their audiences better and build stronger relationships. It’s crucial to start with a clear strategic vision before implementing new technologies. [Source: Forbes]

10. Revolutionizing Business Intelligence: The Role of AI in Shaping the Future of Data Engineering and Data Science

AI is revolutionizing data engineering, data science, and business intelligence by automating data workflows, enhancing predictive modeling, and improving data quality management. These advancements are streamlining processes, reducing manual efforts, and enabling more informed decision-making. [Source: Analytics Insight]

May 30, 2025
Future of Third-Party Cookies: Preparing Your Digital Strategy for 2025
The digital world is about to witness a significant development: third-party cookies will soon belong only to history books. Now, imagine these cookies as small trackers trailing you wherever you go online. Well, popular browsers like Safari and Firefox have already blocked them. In another twist of events, Google Chrome—a browser used by almost 65% of internet users worldwide—will very soon join the bandwagon and drop the bombshell in the heart of digital marketing. By 2025, marketers will need to shift their strategies to be in the lead within a world where the call for privacy and new legislation is at the forefront. Adaptation toward these changes will be paramount if one wants to stay at the forefront and keep relevant communication going with audiences in this new, privacy-driven world.

The Current State of Third-Party Cookies

Historically, third-party cookies have been crucial in tracking consumer behavior across the web, ensuring that advertisers can then make targeted campaigns. These have of course drawn increasing interest from those concerned with privacy, and the general public has responded with a backlash against such practices. In fact, according to a survey conducted by Epsilon, 69% of advertisers feel that the deprecation of third-party cookies will have much more impact compared to regulations such as GDPR and CCPA. Moreover, 70% believe that overall digital advertising will regress on account of such changes.

Note that, beginning in early 2024, Google began to sunset third-party cookies for small percentages of users. In all, the sunsetting of such cookies is expected before the end of 2024 and will affect some 3.2 billion Chrome users around the world. This pivot not only changes how advertisers track and engage consumers but also begs the question of what becomes of the very notion of personalized advertising.

Why are third-party cookies disappearing?

The move away from third-party cookies is driven most by:
- Privacy Concerns: Pew Research reports that 81% of adults in the U.S. believe that companies are doing a poor job with data usage, while 67% in the same country do not understand what happens to their data.
- Regulatory Changes: Regulations such as GDPR make explicit consent for collecting user data necessary, and this is one of the main reasons hindering the effective use of third-party cookies by marketers.
- Consumer Behavior: Much like when Apple rolled out App Tracking Transparency in 2021, which also generated high opt-out rates, Google’s Chrome will probably see many users declining tracking where possible.
- Put together, these factors portend the imperative need for brands to have a rethink on their digital marketing strategies.
Impact on Digital Marketing Strategies

As third-party cookies start to go, marketers need to take their strategies in the right direction. The focus will be on first-party data, which includes information collected directly from the consumer and where consent has been given to use it. Following are several key areas where the change is necessary.
- Greater Focus on First-Party Data: Brands must intimate with the consumer to gain first-party data for themselves. This requires the optimization of a website for an improved user experience and offering incentives for signing up to receive newsletters or loyalty rewards.
- Adoption of Newer Technologies: Google’s Privacy Sandbox works on providing alternative tracking solutions that do not hamper user privacy. Some of the technologies that marketers can consider include data clean rooms and private marketplaces, which provide ways to share data securely without compromising on consumer privacy.
- Shift to Measurement and Attribution: To be blunt, traditional metrics like return on ad spend will be less reliable without third-party cookies. Marketers will be using methodologies such as Media Mix Modeling for assessing campaign effectiveness sans granular tracking data.
- Creative Targeting Solutions: Unable to carry out proper behavioral targeting, there’s contextual advertising-targeting brands on content being consumed instead of user behavior-is one sure way to go. It can still deliver relevant ads without relying on extensive tracking.
Preparing for 2025: Notable Strategies

To navigate this evolving landscape effectively, consider the following strategies:
- Invest in First-Party Data Collection: Ensure your website is fitted with forms and interactive content including digital forms, surveys, contests, assessments, and other varied tools that request certain user information.
- Alternative Tracking Solutions: Stay tuned for any news regarding Privacy Sandbox and other developing solutions that may replace third-party cookies.
- Update Marketing Metrics: Move away from cookie-based metrics and head toward bigger and broader performance indicators of overall campaign success.
- Educate your audience: Transparency, with privacy top-of-mind for today’s consumer, can engender trust and drive users to be more willing to provide their information.
- Collaborate with Industry Peers: Engage in discussions with other marketers and industry leaders about how to handle cookie alternatives and strategies for engaging consumers.
- Regulatory change monitoring: Keep abreast of changing laws on privacy that could affect your marketing strategies, and follow all regulations.
- Leverage AI and Machine Learning: AI helps in better analyzing first-party data for insights into customer behavioral patterns without infringing on their privacy rights.
- Consumer Experience CX: Focus on providing a seamless consumer experience at every touchpoint. A good CX not only encourages users to fill in information but also fosters brand loyalty.
Conclusion

The digital marketing space is going to be very different with the Third-party cookies fading into obsolescence in 2025. Against this change, marketers would have to focus on first-party data collection, investigate innovative technologies, and revise their measurement models. This transition imposes some challenges on this change; however, it still remains an opportunity for brands to establish a relationship with people based on increased trust and transparency. These changes would eventually favorably place them in the new digital landscape wherein consumer privacy reigns supreme.

In this future without cookies, only those brands that are forward-looking in reimagining their strategies will survive but thrive amidst an environment where consumer trust and ethical data practices become a key differentiator. Understanding this dynamic and putting robust strategies in place today protects business competitiveness for an ever-changing digital marketplace.
November 27, 2024
Strategizing for a Cookieless Future
Cookies have been pivotal in digital advertising and marketing, yet rapid changes and heightened concerns over data privacy are ushering in new regulations. Moreover, the inevitable phase-out of cookies looms on the horizon; Google recently announced a delay in third-party cookie deprecation for Chrome until early 2025, affording advertisers more time to adapt seamlessly.

In this post, we explore cutting-edge strategies and solutions for cookieless social media and Google advertising, ensuring compliance with evolving privacy standards.

Audience targeting without cookies
- Despite Google’s two postponements of cookie deprecation, advertisers are bracing for inevitable changes, grappling with uncertainty about the future of advertising without cookies.
- To prepare for this shift, leveraging first-party data through retargeting and lookalike audiences emerges as a cornerstone strategy. While many advertisers currently rely on third-party data alongside first-party insights, the impending cookie phase-out necessitates exploration of alternative approaches
- Google Topics API: This innovative solution categorizes websites based on user interests derived from browsing history. By selecting from a list of predefined topics, advertisers can deliver targeted ads while safeguarding user privacy with data stored locally on browsers.
- Second-Party Data: Collaborative data exchange through partnerships or mergers offers fresh insights into audience segments. For example, a yoga app partnering with a sports retailer can merge user databases to refine targeting.
- Social Media: Leveraging user-provided data on platforms allows precise segmentation based on demographics, behaviors, and geographic locations, facilitating tailored ad campaigns.
- Contextual Advertising: By placing ads in relevant contexts, advertisers maintain effectiveness without compromising user privacy. Targeting based on interests, events, or seasonal trends enhances engagement.
- Retargeting Strategies: Although more challenging without cookies, effective tools and data enable advertisers to reach desired audience segments with personalized ads, ensuring continued engagement.
Google Ads without cookies

As third-party cookies phase out, Google Ads faces a pivotal transformation towards a privacy-centric approach. Embracing first-party cookies through server-side tracking emerges as the straightforward solution.

Emphasizing First-Party Data

Google Ads is poised to pivot towards leveraging first-party data, enhancing conversion accuracy through innovative methodologies:
- Enhanced Conversions: Integrating user-provided data—such as email, phone numbers, and names—directly into Google Ads amplifies targeting precision.
- Offline Conversion Tracking: Utilizing data sourced from offline channels like CRMs and CMSs enriches insights, ensuring comprehensive campaign optimization.
Privacy Sandbox Initiatives

Google pioneers initiatives like Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) and Topics API:
- FLoC: Groups users based on shared online behaviors, enabling targeted advertising without compromising individual identity.
- Topics API: Assigns weekly topics to users, enabling contextual ad delivery tailored to user interests and behaviors.
Contextual Targeting

By harnessing contextual data, Google Ads serves ads aligned with web page content, ensuring relevance without cross-site tracking. This approach respects user privacy while optimizing ad effectiveness based on keywords, topics, and content themes.

Social Media ads without cookies

In the realm of digital advertising, social media stands resilient amidst the cookie apocalypse. Unlike other platforms, social media ads thrive without relying on cookies, thanks to robust tools and strategies:

Platform Algorithms and User Data

Social media platforms employ sophisticated algorithms to decipher user behavior patterns. Interactions such as likes, shares, and follows provide deep insights, enabling precise ad targeting tailored to user preferences.

Voluntary User Data

Users willingly furnish platforms with valuable data upon signup and throughout their usage journey. This includes demographic details like age, gender, location, and specific interests, empowering advertisers with rich insights for effective targeting.

Contextual Advertising Power

Utilizing contextual cues from viewed pages, social media delivers ads aligned with user interests without intrusive behavior tracking. This approach respects user privacy while ensuring relevance and engagement.

Device and Browser Fingerprints

Platforms leverage unique identifiers such as device characteristics and browser settings to refine ad targeting, maintaining effectiveness without relying on cookies.

Social media’s adaptability to evolving data regulations underscores its capability to deliver targeted ads responsibly. Embracing Comprehensive API Integration (CAPI) types ensures compliance and enhances ad delivery efficacy in a cookieless landscape.

Explore these cutting-edge tactics to elevate your social media advertising game:

Server-Side Tagging Implementation

Harness the power of server-side tagging across major platforms like Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, and LinkedIn. These platforms support seamless integration with our designed tags, ensuring efficient data attribution from ad impressions to conversions on your website.

Utilizing Offline-First Party Data

Maximize campaign effectiveness by integrating offline-first party data. This approach captures conversions beyond online interactions, including in-store purchases, phone orders, and chat-based transactions. By tapping into comprehensive customer insights, you enhance targeting precision and optimize remarketing efforts.

Custom Customer Data Platform (CDP) Development

Unlock the potential of a tailored CDP without the complexity and cost traditionally associated with such platforms. Utilizing Google Tag Manager, build a customized CDP tailored to your specific needs. While technical proficiency is required, this solution empowers marketers to leverage data effectively without additional expenses.

Cookies in affiliate marketing

Cookies are fundamental in affiliate marketing, facilitating precise tracking of user activities and attributing conversions to affiliates. They capture vital data on user behavior, preferences, and interactions, empowering advertisers to refine strategies and enhance targeting.

As the era of third-party cookies draws to a close, affiliate marketing must innovate alternative tracking and attribution methods:

Server-Side Tracking

Opt for server-side tracking over third-party cookies to ensure reliable attribution. Long-lived first-party cookies are pivotal, allowing affiliates to claim commissions for conversions over extended periods, unlike short-lived cookies that expire quickly, especially on browsers like Safari.

Unique Affiliate Links

Employ unique affiliate links or discount codes to accurately credit affiliates for sales, bypassing reliance on cookies. Each link serves as a distinct identifier, ensuring precise commission allocation.

Fingerprinting

Despite privacy considerations, fingerprinting amalgamates device, IP address, and browser data to create unique user identifiers. This method, while effective, requires careful navigation of regulatory landscapes.

User Accounts

Encourage users to create and log into accounts for persistent tracking of activities across sessions, mitigating reliance on cookies while maintaining tracking capabilities.

Innovative approaches ensure affiliate marketing thrives amidst evolving privacy regulations, demonstrating resilience and adaptability beyond traditional cookie-based tracking methods.

Retargeting campaigns without cookies

Retargeting campaigns have long relied on cookies to deliver personalized ads to users who have interacted with specific webpages, driving valuable return visits to websites and apps. However, with impending changes in data privacy regulations, advertisers must adapt and implement innovative, privacy-conscious tracking methods for effective cookieless retargeting.

Cutting-edge Solutions for Cookieless Retargeting:
- Google’s Protected Audiences API: This technology facilitates on-device ad auctions, ensuring remarketing and custom audience targeting without relying on cross-site third-party tracking. By categorizing users into interest groups based on their onsite behavior, publishers can serve relevant ads from previously visited websites.
- Meta Conversion API: By bypassing device-based tracking, this API enables direct event transmission from advertiser websites to Meta. This streamlined approach empowers advertisers to effectively retarget users on Meta platforms without the need for traditional cookies.
- Innovative Ad Solutions: Advertisers are pioneering new cookieless ad solutions such as LiveRamp’s RampID, which offers global addressability while sidestepping reliance on third-party cookies, device IDs, or IP addresses.
- First-party Cookie-based Retargeting: Leveraging first-party cookies remains a robust strategy in the cookieless landscape. Advertisers can optimize retargeting efforts by enhancing the value of first-party data, ensuring precise targeting across various platforms.
Final thoughts: what digital marketers should consider

As advertisers and marketers worldwide prepare for the impending cookieless future, one burning question remains: How can we effectively transition away from reliance on third-party cookies? With these cookies long powering online marketing and advertising strategies, the search for viable alternatives has intensified.

Strategies for Seamlessly Embracing the Cookieless Era:
- Embrace First-Party Data: Shift your focus towards harnessing first-party data over third-party alternatives. This approach allows for nuanced personalization and fosters deeper connections with your audience by leveraging insights from customer behaviors and purchase histories.
- Adopt Server-Side Tracking: Emphasize server-side tracking solutions, which offer enhanced control over data transmission and management. Beyond navigating cookie deprecation, server-side tracking strengthens data protection efforts and enables the creation of privacy-compliant advertising tailored precisely to your audience.
- Value Offline Conversions: Elevate the significance of offline conversions in your marketing strategy. Understanding and measuring campaign effectiveness through offline interactions provides invaluable first-party customer data. This holistic approach bridges the gap between online advertising efforts and offline sales, enriching audience insights and optimizing campaigns with privacy compliance in mind.
Transitioning to server-side tracking presents a straightforward path to adapting to the evolving digital landscape post-cookie era while maximizing your data’s potential. For guidance on implementing cookie-free tracking solutions, reach out to us.
July 11, 2024
Third Party Cookies Have Crumbled: What’s Next for Display & Native Advertising?

The impending death of the third-party cookie on internet’s most popular browser, Google Chrome, has left many digital marketers scratching their heads. After all, for the past few years, these third-party cookies were what advertisers used in order to target their potential consumers.

The new Chrome update, the EU’s GDPR guidelines, ad blockers, and the already existing third-party cookie blocks from Safari and Firefox collectively limit the efficacy of display ads and native ads. Digital marketers used third-party cookies to gather data and build behavioural profiles of online users which it used for programmatic advertising.

Without third-party cookies, this programmatic advertising seems to have lost its strongest pillar. So, what’s next for digital advertisers? Will it crumble without the support of the cookies or will it evolve and use other resources to thrive? Let’s take a look at the options and potential next steps for digital advertisers as the eventual death of the third-party cookie looms over…

Leveraging Privacy Sandbox

Google hasn’t left advertisers in a complete lurch. It has suggested a Privacy Sandbox which allows the advertisers to use 5 different APIs to gather data about conversions and attribution. For example, Google’s conversion API will allow the advertiser to know if a particular user bought the product or service after clicking on its ad. The advertiser cannot track the user across all channels. Earlier, a digital marketer could track the whole behaviour of the user right from when they first saw the ad to when the finally made a purchase. With the new API, the marketer will now only know that a certain number of users have made the purchase or clicked on the ad, without knowing which user it is and being able to track them across the digital world.

Unlike third-party cookies which were stored on the user’s hard drive, the user data received after the Chrome update will be stored on the browser itself. This will ensure the privacy of the user and restrict the unprecedented access to user behaviour that third-party cookies allowed for.

However, Google hasn’t revealed the nitty-gritties of how the APIs will function, so we are yet to fully understand the implications of these APIs for digital marketers.

Leveraging first-party data for contextualised advertising

The online community and lawmakers have no qualms regarding first-party data and its usage. After all, the user has made an informed decision to provide their information to the publisher/website. It is this data that digital marketers will need to leverage for their advertising strategies.

One of the man advantages of using first-party data is its quality. Since it comes directly from the horse’s mouth (so to speak), it can be relied upon. Data such as user’s behaviour on the website, social media profile, answered surveys, subscriptions, CRM are good quality first-party data that can be leveraged.

There is no question that display advertising and native advertising are great avenues for building business. However, to keep the momentum going, digital marketers need to shift their focus on acquiring quality first-party and second-party quality data. They need to establish the trust needed with premium and mid-range publishers in order to get first-party data to improve their contextualised targeting.

If there is one thing the digital marketing is known for, its their creativity and resilience. Our bets are on the industry reinventing itself and taking the effort to find the next big thing.

Keep an eye on this blog to know how the digital industry is handling this cookie-less world and next steps.

March 3, 2020

► Necessary Cookies Always Active

Necessary cookies enable essential site features like secure log-ins and consent preference adjustments. They do not store personal data.

► Functional Cookies Remark

Functional cookies support features like content sharing on social media, collecting feedback, and enabling third-party tools.

► Analytical Cookies Remark

Analytical cookies track visitor interactions, providing insights on metrics like visitor count, bounce rate, and traffic sources.

► Advertisement Cookies Remark

Advertisement cookies deliver personalized ads based on your previous visits and analyze the effectiveness of ad campaigns.