criteo

That sound you hear? Alarm bells ringing in Google’s offices. Plus, women’s sports has been an unexpected accelerant for ad sales.

Q2 was relatively ho-um for Criteo. Its revenue ticked up by just 1%, although the company did move from a net loss of $2 million in the year-ago quarter to a $28 million profit.

If Chrome imitates Apple, there may be a de facto deprecation of the third-party cookies, since potentially only a slim percentage of users would consent to tracking. In that case, advertisers would still have to primarily rely on cookie alternatives, including the Privacy Sandbox.

You read that headline right: Google is seriously considering scrapping its plans to deprecate third-party cookies in Chrome. Instead, it’s proposing some kind of TBD opt-out tool for third-party cookies.

Sophia Cao, RTB House’s newly appointed director of private advertising advocacy, knows how to play nice in the sandbox – because, well, she used to work there.

The Chrome Privacy Sandbox team is stuck within a Catch-22. Plus, why haven’t media buyers bought more into alternative currencies?

If Google were to shut off third-party cookies today and implement the current version of the Privacy Sandbox, publishers would see their ad revenue on Chrome tank by around 60% on average.

Fixating on ROAS makes it harder to figure out how certain parts of a campaign perform, especially now that retail media buys often include other, less performance-focused channels like display and CTV as audience extension.

Criteo split out its retail media segment revenue for the first time during its earnings report on Thursday.

In today’s newsletter: Google’s cookie deprecation delay hurts Chrome Privacy Sandbox supporters; mall chains go for broke with their DTC efforts; Warner Bros. Discovery launches a first-party data product.