Everyone has an opinion about the death of the cookie, especially the ones who have something to sell. That something could be a product that will help alleviate the pain of the cookie going away, or targeted media that relies heavily on cookies.
It’s hard to get a straight answer, and as Sarah Sluis and the rest of the AdExchanger editorial staff have learned over our years of reporting, people are happy to talk about what might happen to the industry in general, but deflect when questioned about how their businesses specifically will do.
Sarah wrote a piece looking at the trouble she’s had getting a straight answer. And of course, it’s not just journalists who’ve been frustrated. Vendors, publishers and ad buyers are all having trouble understanding the full implications of what a cookie-less world will look like.
Also, the team looks at TikTok, specifically how the ultra-popular video platform has leveraged its late mover advantage when it comes to its ad products, and learned from the mistakes of its peers. Snapchat, Facebook’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube all went through trials by fire and while they’ve come out the better for it, TikTok has so far been able to avoid many of the early issues that plagued its competitors.
In some cases, it was easy to differentiate. As Facebook and Google scale, their customer service suffers, which is where TikTok can easily seize the advantage. It’s also benefited from the maturation of existing in-app video products. TikTok, unlike Snapchat, doesn’t have to convince the world that vertical video is worth an investment.
Our editor Alison Weissbrot took a long look at how TikTok is currently advantaging itself.
