On January 4, 2024, Google began phasing out support of third-party cookies in Chrome, joining Apple and Firefox in ending a tactic that has annoyed consumers, wasted marketer’s budgets, and earned the ire of regulators across the globe.
Cookies were always far from perfect. Their one advantage is they offered a standardized way to purchase inventory across multiple publishers. Want to reach potential car buyers? Purchase a prebuilt audience segment of auto-intenders.
But to build those audience segments, companies dropped cookies into the consumer’s browser, tracking their behavior and grouping them into segments without permission. The consumer knew what was happening, and complained vociferously. Tracking led to significant mistrust in digital advertising, prompting widespread use of ad blockers, which threatened a vital source of funding for publishers.
Implications of Third-Party Cookie Deprecation in Chrome
Before we crow too loudly, we need to consider the implications of Google’s move. In many ways, the removal of third-party cookies can further solidify Google’s dominance. After all, Google still sits on a massive first-party dataset it collects from Google Search, YouTube, and Gmail, while other advertising players may have limited access to user data.
Buyers still have very good options, including contextual advertising, retail media, and using your own first-party data. The problem is that these strategies are often more expensive than third-party cookies. They also don’t have the same reach as third-party data, which means combining multiple data strategies which is time consuming and introduces increased complexity.
Digiseg: Household Targeting & Measurement for a Post-Cookie World
Marketers need a standardized, scalable and accurate approach to cookie-free household targeting and measurement. This is exactly what Digiseg offers.
We rely on public data available from national statistics offices, which allows us to segment the anonymous web without the use of personal information. Because it focuses on the household, not IDs or devices, our data is truly omnichannel.
Key features include:
- Immediate global availability, covering 50 markets from your DSP of choice
- Highly scalable — covering 70% of all bid requests
- Supports all formats: display, mobile, CTV, audio and in-game
- Reaches all users, including those who go incognito
- Standardized — target and measure via the 196 audiences across all markets, channels and formats
Have any questions, need an audience recommendations or something custom? Our audiences experts are ready to help. Get in touch.