The cookie is already gone. The budgets have shifted. All the howlers screaming about Chrome’s road map for deprecation are akin to the last soldiers standing on the battlefield clinging to the flag of a fallen nation. In short, it’s over.
But we can’t measure the downfall of cookies by looking at the bidstream. There is still plenty of cookie-based buying going on. The old user-sync systems are still playing pixel ping-pong with cookie-enabled browsers.
Mapping tables at SSPs, DSPs, DMPs and other XXP systems are getting updates with new users and refreshed IDs. It’s all still happening, but due for retirement.
The real metrics showing it’s over are in the feature releases, the engineering budgets and the marketing messages. None of these signals show any sign of life in the third-party cookie. No one is building or selling tech based on a dead feature.
Instead, investments are going to alternative identifiers, such as ID5, UID2, Lotame, Audigent and others. These signals are growing in popularity among media owners, SSPs and DSPs, while the cookie’s future dims.
The cookie’s fall from grace
Take a look at a company like Criteo. It built its business on the back of the third-party cookie. It was synonymous with retargeting. In 2020, it began what is, perhaps, one of the biggest pivots away from 30-year-old cookie tech. The move has not been seamless, but, four years later, Criteo is still committed.
Apple took the first step in 2012, limiting third-party cookies in Safari. Since then, the cookie has slowly become demonized for symbolizing a rampant privacy hole in the open web.
In reality, there are other persistent data leaks or “distributions” that are tangibly more harmful – a far cry from tracking an anonymized identifier and targeting it with relevant advertising content. But the privacy and technology hype cycle cannot be stopped when two ogres like Apple and Google are beating each other over the head with it.
Google introduced more uncertainty when it proclaimed that it would drop the cookie. Markets don’t like uncertainty. Hundreds of companies started to slowly pivot. As each deadline approached, the pivots sped up.
Today, no company is putting effort toward the cookie. Uncertainty prevailed in doing what overt declarations could not. Our ecosystem has moved on.
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Securing buy-in on promising alternatives
While the noise about signal loss got louder, so-called alternative IDs have finally started to gain traction.
Companies are tracking the discrete demand against each ID. They’re getting bids. And not just a few test bids or from boutique DSPs. These IDs are showing value in the open market and PMPs. And they’ll continue delivering audience-based demand to publishers by capitalizing on the sales and marketing efforts of the ID providers.
That said, these alternative identifiers will have to prove themselves in other ways. Users must have a choice in whether or not they are being tracked. They’ll need to understand the value exchange taking place.
We’re still not adequately educating media consumers that anonymized behavioral tracking can offer benefits, usually freely, in exchange for seeing ads that are more targeted and therefore more helpful. Privacy advocates are making choices for people who don’t understand the choices already available to them. But one could argue that media owners and marketers have been doing the same thing.
Alternative IDs will also have to show value through partnerships. It can’t just be data onboarding and targeting for a handful of campaigns. Identity frameworks will have to be woven into the fabric of the identity systems. And vendors can’t expect advertisers to opt in for a fee. That won’t bring the market to you. It must be efficient and inexpensive.
There are some basic legal requirements that each ID provider must adhere to, but there is also an opportunity to coalesce around codes of conduct and technological protocols. The IAB Tech Lab launched its Data Deletion Request Framework to handle user requests. Incorporating thought leaders from identity providers into the working group is a good starting point.
Finally, ID providers must become outspoken advocates for user privacy in the ecosystem and in front of privacy governing bodies. Missing this opportunity will run us down the same road the cookie is currently taking.
In the same vein, we need ID providers in the room with platforms as well. Currently, that means engaging with Google’s Privacy Sandbox team, teams at Apple and, if possible, Samsung, Roku and others. If there’s a hard conversation to have, have it.
We should welcome the opportunity to be part of identity’s path forward, now that we’ve released ourselves from the shackles of the cookie.
“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.
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