What the Death of Third-Party Cookies Means for Marketers

People depend on the internet every day for news, information, communication, shopping, media, and more. However, as the internet has grown in scope and depth, users have become increasingly wary of how their data is being tracked. According to Pew Research Center, roughly 6 in 10 Americans believe it’s not possible to go through their daily lives without companies and/or the government tracking their data. This third-party data paranoia has led to a greater demand for advanced privacy features that protect users’ identities online.

In response to this growing demand for privacy, Google made the groundbreaking decision to phase out third-party cookies across browsers — such as Chrome announcing its intent to remove support for third-party cookies last year. Though Google’s ban was planned to launch in 2022, it has been delayed until 2023 to allow time to make sure the changes are implemented thoughtfully and effectively.

Even as these privacy features give more comfort to people browsing the web, they also present challenges to marketers who are aiming for more dynamic content personalization. But all hope is not lost: first-party data (such as customer email addresses, purchase history, and behavioral tracking) is coming to the forefront of digital marketing, and Google’s changes will still allow your brand to target content to your existing customers.

As April Mullen, Director of Brand & Content Marketing at SparkPost, shared in a Blueshift webinar on the importance of first-party data, “Marketing should have always been a long game, and now it’s kind of forcing us to be in this long game.” From email addresses to phone numbers, there are several types of data that senior marketing and publishing executives believe may replace third-party cookies.

Despite the perceived risk that data deprecation will bring a loss of customer trust — 64% of marketers have this fear — the shift to first-party data presents an opportunity to increase customer loyalty. The top of the marketing funnel may be more narrow, but this means the customers your brand does captivate will move through the funnel even faster.

As customers become more selective about the companies with which they share personal data, engaging them with compelling personalized content becomes all the more important to achieve the above-mentioned goal. Now, there is a bit of irony here; how can you personalize content with limited data? We’ll get to that next.