We say goodbye to cookies and hello to first-party data

Wondering what this means for your business? Find out in the following lines

The most confusing yet exciting thing about online marketing is the constant change. You've just got the right approach and it stops working. Challenges are lurking everywhere, but there's always salvation because innovation leads to better results for advertisers and a better experience for consumers.

Today, we'll focus on cookies and the changes that are coming to their use for advertising purposes.

What are cookies?

We're not talking about Sesame Street's favourite treat, the Cookie Monster, but small text files of information that websites use to collect data about their users.
They are of two types, so-called first-party and third-party. Read down to find out what each type is, what function it performs, and what will change in the future.

What is the difference between first-party and third-party data?

First-party cookies

They are placed by the website owner to collect information to improve the user experience and are considered essential to the user experience.

First-party cookies, for example, remember a user's chosen personalisation settings, the products they have added to their basket, their login details, language choices and more.

Third-party cookies

These are also called trackers and are used by someone other than the website owner. These files are saved on the user's device to collect information for third parties and are most often used for advertising purposes.

As with first-party, the idea of third-party cookies is to remember something about the user, but in this case we are not talking about their personalised settings, but their interests and internet activity.

Third-party data collects information about the user from various websites and paints an overall picture of their behavior.

These cookies track, or to put it in plain English, track, the user's browsing history and activity so that they can then show them personalised ads for products and services.

For example, if you search for children's shoes, it is very likely that you will then see ads for children's shoes on various websites as well as on social networks such as Facebook.

Third-party cookies, however, are soon going away. Read below to find out why.

Why will I soon have to say goodbye to third-party data?

Because online privacy is becoming increasingly important these days and many companies are taking steps to protect it as best they can. Firefox and Safari have already stopped using third-party cookies in their browsers, and Google has announced that it plans to do the same by the end of 2024.

While third-party data is useful from an advertising point of view for businesses investing in targeted online advertising, some users do not like their movements on the web to be "tracked". The goal of this change is not to make it harder for marketers, but to improve the online experience for consumers.

There is already more and more talk about the so-called "cookieless future". The good thing is that the transition is smooth, and marketers have time to adapt their strategies to the changes.

What are the alternatives to third-party data?

1. Make the most of the opportunities that first-party data provides

Through first-party data, you can collect information directly from your website visitors, such as demographic data or information about the device they use, as well as their behaviour on your website (how much time they spend, which pages they visit).

This type of data will continue to be collected without issue, even after the demise of third-party data.

2. Use your customer touch points to gather more information

While useful, first-party cookie data doesn't paint the whole picture of consumer behaviour you need for a successful marketing strategy. To reach the minds and hearts of your potential customers, you need to understand their intentions, preferences, and lifestyles.

A good way to do this is by persuading users to share this information themselves in exchange for something attractive - a promo code, free samples, extended warranty or early access to new products.

3. Experiment with contextual advertising and interest-based targeting

• Contextual advertising usually relies on keywords, but often they are not enough to understand the overall context of a website. New tools based on natural language processing and image recognition allow algorithms to understand the context of a website quickly and reliably, resulting in the display of relevant and successful ads.
• Interest-based targeting is a Google idea that aims to replace third-party cookie targeting. The internet giant calls this concept Topics. In it, the browser learns about users' interests as they browse the web. The websites visited are separated into around 350 topical categories, which do not include personal information such as race, religion or sexual orientation.

The browser selects up to three of the most popular categories of websites that are visited on the device the user is using and shares this information with other websites for advertising purposes. As a result, you see ads for the product categories you're currently interested in. And relevant ads = better results.

Topics gives greater transparency and protects users' privacy to a greater extent than the third-party cookie targeting we are used to.

Whatever the future of cookies and online advertising, there will always be solutions and innovation. And if you're struggling to navigate the changing marketing landscape, we at ADvantage Digital Agency are always here to help. Book a consultation now.