Google has canceled its cancellation of the third-party cookie. Advertisers: You may resume your baking. Marketers: Hang back a minute…we’ve got something to chat about.
Third-party cookies are stuck to us like we forgot to use the Silpat before popping the last batch into the oven. After all these years of fretting over a cookie-less tomorrow, we are now stuck with them. Or is this an opportunity to right size the cookie into a more appropriate position in the overarching world of marketing and experience? Can we finally stop following which way the cookie could crumble?
For years now we have rethought and rearchitected our data strategies to more intentionally and directly amass a better understanding and record of our customer. And let’s be clear…this record is so much more than the transactional history we once coveted in CRM and extends beyond the golden profile in our CDPs.
We didn’t just think about a cookie-less world, we architected how to deliver more robust, profitable and creative worlds where third-party cookies got put in their place. That’s not to say we banished every cookie. In fact, those first-party cookies started to taste a bit sweeter. Instead of stalking our prey across the Serengeti we call the internet, we got smaller, more focused and more intentional to understand what our customer did with us. We focused our gaze to settle on “our” crowd instead of watching the whole crowd. We enriched and expanded strategy on creating moments for customers to share their preferences. We rewarded them with going above and beyond those volunteered requests with consistency of purpose and respect of relationship.
We stopped talking about if we were too close to the creepy line. In fact, we banished creepy to the relief of our customer. We got back to the business of marketing and the opportunity of experience to purposefully craft durable, profitable relationships with our customers. And now, thanks to advancements in AI and more pointedly with GenerativeAI, we can now apply customer data in new and even more creative, contextual and personalized ways to advance those hard-won relationships.
So why go backwards? Why lean back into the thrill of the third-party cookie?
I would argue we have plenty of reason to be glad that advertising teams have access to tried and true tools to bring precision and accountability to the table. The third-party cookie, when used responsibly and in line with overarching experience and relationship building strategies are a great tool. But can we afford to revert to bad behavior, tracking for tracking sake?
Instead of moving backwards, let’s spark these conversations instead:
Rightsizing the Third-Party Cookie: This is the first line in the sand. For today’s CMO, this is where we say that the third-party cookie is a tool in the advertising tool kit. It is NOT the backbone of marketing or experience strategy. We built its replacement and should continue along that path. The reintroduction of the third-party cookie should be rightsized into the tool and tactic for optimization and visibility that it is. It is one signal source of many. And don’t assume this is just a conversation for B2C marketers…you B2B leaders can’t afford to allow ABM to return to the land of retargeted advertising as its one-trick pony. Account based advertising can rejoice, but account-based marketing needs to continue to advance the analytics and intelligence around account-based buying and influence centers to create those impact and growth opportunities that true ABM can deliver. Stay the course.
Draw Clear Lines in the Privacy Sand: In this cookie-rich future, it will be critical to fully understand the difference between privacy and safety. Privacy puts the control of engagement and the value exchange of customer data in the hands of the customer. It expects that a brand will do more with less data about the customer. Safety is the promise that the data that is exchanged is secure and used responsibly and to the benefit of both parties involved in the exchange. With a focus on the first-party data we now rely upon to have first party relationships with our customers (aka the second party), the third-party cookie becomes a responsibility we must maintain and respect to stay within Digital Safety boundaries. For those striving for true digital privacy as a strategy, we may need to make the hard call to do away with the third-party cookie all together. No matter your brand’s decision, make it, state it and then stick with it, repeatedly proving your dedication to that pact consistently and over time.
Never Be Stuck with a Single Point of Panic Again: If there is any lesson I hope we all come out of this with is that regardless if you ever used a third-party cookie in your advertising or marketing initiatives, the proposed crumbling of the cookie sent our industry into shock. Products and whole companies have been lost to this chaos. The panic-driven campaigns to hype the horror of a cookieless tomorrow remain seared in many minds. For some, that capacity to track across the web was their only view into the behaviors and journey of their customer…without it they felt blind. In this age of data, automation and AI, we can’t afford to have a cookie be our definition of the customer. We can’t afford a single point of panic while we are supposed to be architecting growth.
So…go ahead. Go bake a batch of cookies. Mix up the flavors. But don’t forget that the marketing and experience toolkit is far more diverse than the cookie-monsters of the past several years would want us to remember. We have built that depth of first-party understanding and knowledge. We don’t have to revert or settle back into bad behavior. Cookies are delicious…but bake them in moderation…and choose wisely when you decide to dine on them before your actual meal.
Image Credit: Image has been AI generated using Adobe Firefly Image 3 model and further edited in Adobe Express.
