Our Chief Strategy Officer Dora recently took part in The Marketing Society’s Global Conversation on a cookie-less future - read on for our 8 key takeaways from the event.
As the one of the most progressive global communities of senior marketing leaders, The Marketing Society is a powerhouse for pushing boundaries and tackling taboos. It’s no surprise then that they have also been interrogating one of the most talked about topics in digital advertising today - the cookie-less future.
Earlier this month, our CSO Dora joined Sophie Devonshire, CEO of The Marketing Society, for the community’s latest Global Conversation centred on this topic. Joining the panel to debate the cookie-free future were Timothee Semelin, Senior Corporate Director of Digital Marketing and Transformation at the Rosewood Hotel Group; Kristal Ireland, Digital Director at UK Coaching; and Beverley D'Cruz, Chief Brand Officer for Pizza Hut META at Yum! Brands.
When it comes to the third-party cookie, its final death blow was dealt last year when Google announced it would be phasing out support for them in Chrome - a move already made by Safari and Firefox. For marketers this will significantly impact how they plan, deliver and measure their digital advertising, yet at the same time may also be the move that helps restore public trust in advertising that has been blighted by message bombardment, data misuse and intrusive ads following consumers around the internet.
Following this session packed with actionable advice from the panellists, here are our eight key takeaways for today’s marketers:
NOT ALL COOKIES ARE BAD: It’s critical to remember the difference between third-party and first-party cookies. The former are the ones that are disappearing and are the subject of many despairing headlines, with the latter being very useful for improving your website user experience for visitors.
THERE’S NO SILVER BULLET: Despite what you may read or you may be told, there is no consensus on a replacement for the third-party cookie - in fact many avoid the idea of a direct replacement for the fear of maintaining the status quo in digital advertising. In addition, as consumers take back more control of their own digital data, this means its use in advertising will need to be more transparent, accountable and ethical.
EDUCATE YOURSELF (AND GET YOURSELF A COOKIE GENIUS!): These changes may all seem a bit complex or specialist, but don’t be afraid to ask questions and interrogate what things really mean. Speak to your agencies, trade bodies, your media partners and follow Timothee’s top tip and get yourself ‘a cookie genius’... that someone you can ask any question to that will explain it to you in a way you’ll understand.
SEE THE CONTEXTUAL OPPORTUNITY: Remember that it doesn’t take a third-party cookie to know what consumers are reading, watching or listening to online, as this can be done through categorisation at site domain level. Segment-wide patterns of consumption can also highlight other clusters of user behaviours in rich content environments.
TAKE STOCK OF YOUR OWN FIRST-PARTY DATA: You may have a lot of your own first-party data, so make sure you know what it means and that it’s usable - consumer consent is critical. If you don’t have that much, you may want to think about tactics to generate the types of data that will help you understand your customers better.
MATCH YOUR FIRST PARTY DATA WITH OTHER FIRST PARTY DATA: Structure your customer data correctly and understand what your customers are doing on your website in a way that can be translated and (legally and ethically) matched with other first-party data sources when customers leave your website.
GET READY FOR A MORE CREATIVE FUTURE: When you take-away the third-party cookie, you take away a lot of the fuel for the often unnecessary, hyper-personalisation of advertising - something that consumers tend to find creepy. Instead, this frees up a lot of space for big creative ideas, the kind that grab consumers’ attention and entertain and inform them.
CHANGE PRESENTS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR PROGRESS: While many companies will be incredibly challenged by the changes of a third-party cookie-free world, it also presents a great opportunity for the digital advertising industry to fix some of its more persistent issues. This ‘growing-up’ will allow the three most important pillars of the advertising exchange to be placed at its core - consumers, advertisers and publishers of all quality content - and create an ecosystem where all three can thrive.
