Industry Trends
Paid Media
As you’ve likely heard, Google will eliminate third-party cookies by 2022. What does it mean for the advertising industry and your business?
First — here’s a quick refresher on third-party cookies, which are different from first-party cookies (codes stored by a website owner on their own domain).
Third-party cookies are tracking codes generated on a website by another website that is not the website the user is browsing (e.g., Google generating third-party cookies on HGTV.com). This is set up by the web server or a scripting program such as JavaScript, which creates the code. The code, in turn, tracks information from the visitor’s session and provides it to the entity that created the third-party cookie. A user can find a cookie on a page, or the tracking code, by viewing their settings in their web browser.
Note: This is an evolving issue. Please check back periodically for updates.
How do advertisers commonly use third-party cookies?
1. Targeting
This data provides an understanding of consumer behavior including frequently visited websites, purchases and interests. It allows advertisers to target the right consumer and serve them the most relevant message. For example, if a consumer visits three different travel websites within seven days, an ad tech vendor can safely assume this consumer is planning a trip and deliver travel-related advertisements to them.
2. Measurement and Attribution
Third-party cookies also give advertisers the ability to enhance measurement for attribution capabilities, which allows for campaign optimization. For example, third-party cookies help track users across different platforms to create a holistic view of what goes into a conversion. As third-party cookies are phased out, these multi-touch attribution models will become less reliable.