July 23rd, 2024
In a surprising and, in some ways, shocking, turn of events, Google revealed on Monday that it will no longer be deprecating 3rd-party cookies in Chrome. Instead, users will be able to opt-in across their web browsing and adjust these settings as desired. But despite this massive reversal from Google, the proverbial data privacy ship has already sailed. “Consumers don’t want to be tracked. Period,” says New Engen SVP of Advanced Analytics & Measurement Andrew Richardson.
A knee-jerk reaction to this news would be that it spares brands and advertisers from having to adjust for the once-looming cookie-less future. However, the reality is that the culture around consumer privacy has changed dramatically and the wheels are already in motion. Consider, for example, that 33% of American internet users enable ad blockers, or that 46% use VPNs for either work or personal use. What’s more, nearly a quarter of Americans use desktop web browsers that block cookies, like Safari or Firefox. And roughly half of Americans use these web browsers on their tablets. And this share of privacy-minded consumers is only expected to rise as we anticipate changes like Apple’s new Web Eraser tool, a feature of iOS18 geared toward enhanced privacy control.
In a July 23rd article from Marketing Dive, Andrew Richardson perfectly sums up this sudden inflection point between browser tracking and consumer sentiment and behavior. “Brands and agencies may feel relieved by this news, but they shouldn’t let their guard down,” he said. “Even without this development, signals are already eroding. As an industry, we need to prioritize consumer privacy and adapt to a world without cookies rather than trying to circumvent the inevitable decline of these signals.”
Andrew doubled down on this sentiment in a recent Digiday article, confirming that signal decline isn’t just inevitable, it has already begun. So, what does that mean for our industry? It means that, as digital marketers, we have a responsibility to meet the customer where they are on their privacy journey, not to fight them on it. And that doesn’t change just because Google is reversing course on eliminating cookies. Instead, we must continue to find new ways to measure performance media beyond third-party tracking by continuing to invest in first-party data and use it in a privacy-safe way. We can even look to old solutions like MMM (Media Mix Modeling) to achieve this goal. Finally, Andrew Richardson reminds us that, “We must also think about the value exchange that needs to exist for your customers to give you access to their data. Yes, their data.”
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