Everything brands need to know about the crumbling cookie

With Google Chrome finally starting its gradual phase out support for third party cookies, brand marketers are looking to understand the ramifications of this move from a digital advertising point of view.

Third party cookie deprecation refers to the planned phase out of browser support for tracking technologies that rely on a 3rd party cookie to collect data about users across the web. The primary goal here is to make the web more privacy friendly and consent driven. Here’s a quick
breakdown:

Chrome: Google has announced that it will phase out support for third-party cookies by 2024, although it has recently delayed the transition due to industry feedback.

Safari: Apple has already blocked third-party cookies by default in Safari, although advertisers can still use alternative tracking methods such as fingerprinting.

Firefox: Mozilla has also blocked third-party cookies by default in Firefox, and the company has pledged to protect users’ privacy by continuing to develop new privacy-enhancing technologies.

No. Brand websites and D2C sites will continue to use first party cookies to support use cases like personalisation and better customer experience. This will also not affect the ability to collect consented customer data via transactions or other value exchange scenarios.

We are happy to share that Shopalyst powered micro-site/landing-page experiences do not rely on third party cookies to record user actions – so brands can continue to measure effectiveness of their campaigns through shopper actions. Shopalyst is built to operate as the brand’s own
digital asset (or an extension of brand.com), so the audience data collected is first party and exclusively owned by the brand. Also, Shopalyst has native support for consent compliance mechanisms (GDPR/CCPA/Others), and integrates seamlessly with popular providers like OneTrust.

Brands and advertisers that rely on 3rd party cookies for targeting, optimisation and attribution will need to review and update their ways to target and measure their advertising.

While 3rd party cookies serve as an effective means to support the digital economy, they have left room for privacy abuse and hence it is appropriate that we relook at protecting individual privacy and still make the digital universe work. Also, popular platforms like Google and Meta rely on advertising as their primary source of revenue – it is natural that they are building alternative means that are privacy friendly.

Google is spearheading an initiative called the Privacy Sandbox which includes a set of new standards which will work without 3rd party cookies and are designed with a lot of privacy considerations. Apple also has a set of proposals under its privacy initiatives to make marketing attribution work without individual tracking. Meta supports alternate means that use first party data from brand websites via the pixel or the conversions API.

Please checkout the following URLs for details –
Google – https://privacysandbox.com/ and https://webkit.org/blog/category/privacy/
Apple – https://webkit.org/blog/category/privacy/
Meta – https://developers.facebook.com/docs/marketing-api/conversions-api

Shopalyst is by design built for brands to engage with shoppers in a consented and privacy friendly approach. Our no-code widgets help brands acquire data for targeting, optimisation and attribution at scale.

Zero Party Data : Create meaningful value exchange that encourage users to proactively share their intent data. Guided sales, polls, quiz, games, surveys, contests are examples of Zero Party use cases that your brand can readily activate on Shopalyst.

Example of zero party data acquisition

First Party Data : Encourage your shoppers to sign in for a transaction that helps acquisition of consented audience data for your brand. Instant checkout, sampling requests, coupon codes are examples of use cases that your brand can activate using Shopalyst widgets.

Example of first party data acquisition

Second Party Data : Data partnerships with retailers, content providers and influencers are other ways for brands to acquire audience data. Shopalyst offers native support for API integrations with such partners, and also supports popular providers like Liveramp.

Example of second party data acquisition

Contextual Data Signals : Shopalyst supports targeting solutions that do not rely on user identity, but their context. Our Brand Knowledge Graph tracks web signals on what shoppers buy and browse across shopping categories, and uses AI to translate them into targeting signals like keywords and URLs (Google), interests (Meta) or hashtags (TikTok).

In addition, Shopalyst will be among the first to update our platform when media platforms make changes on their end. Examples include our support for Meta’s first party cookie adaptation for pixels, or our early participation in the Privacy Sandbox initiative.

The need for brands to own audience data and a direct relationship with consumers is timeless. Deprecation of third party cookies has given adequate motivation for brands to hop on this journey sooner.

Shopalyst makes it easy for brands to test, learn and scale their audience strategy without any barriers. Our widgets make it easy to activate with no code, and are by design built to engage with shoppers in a consented and privacy friendly approach. Talk to us to get started on your audience data journey.