The digital marketing world is on the brink of another shake up. Having spent years facing growing concerns about privacy, third-party cookies will be a thing of the past soon. If it all goes through as planned, we’ll have to change how we attack all kinda of marketing strategies, whether that be for campaigns, conversion or CRM.
So let’s go back to the start, what exactly are cookies? .. and no we’re not talking about the kind a certain blue monster eats... we’re talking about the ones that your web browser munches on.
In digital marketing lingo, a cookie is a tiny piece of data that a website stores on a user’s browser whilst they’re visiting. These serve as a memory for the website, allowing it to remember and recognize the user and their preferences, whether they’re signed in or what’s currently in their shopping cart.
Cookies are broken down into 3 types:
First-Party Cookies
These we like. These are the ones that are generally on the site you visited and they can make your stay a bit nicer. They remember things like language preferences, what’s in your cart or even if you’ve logged in. They are respectful of your privacy, and generally are created and stored by the same site (and they don’t track you across the web.)
Second-Party Cookies
Better defined as ‘second party data’, these gather the same information as first-party cookies; but the big difference is your data might be shared with another site. For example, let’s say you’ve booked a stay at a ski resort through booking.com, they might share this data with a partner selling snow gear.
Third-Party Cookies
The first two cookie types are inoffensive enough. But these are the ‘gossipy neighbours’ of the digital world. These cookies are created by sites other than the one you are visiting. Yep, they’re the ones that follow you round because they enable ad targeting, cross-site tracking and retargeting. Ever bought that toilet seat on Amazon and all your sponsored Ads seems to be of more toilet seats? That’ll be a third party cookie. Thanks Amazon, we only need one loo seat.
Why the long face?
Third-Party cookies have been a bit of a sticky subject for a while now. Chances are, you feel a bit queasy when you realise Big Brother is tracking your every move online - usually without asking. So with more people aware of what info they’re sharing online, third-party cookies have come into sharp focus. Remember a couple of years ago when you got an email from every single website on the planet? Well, that was because of GDPR laws (General Data Protection Regulation in case you’re an acronym fan)… And that all kicked off because of third-party cookies.
Big players
So when is this all happening? Erm. Now. For a while the move to end third-party cookies was all talk. But now Google are making big moves. They’ve started a year long plan to phase out third-party cookies, on top of the changes they’ve already made to Google Analytics (GA).
As you can imagine, this won’t be an instant on-off switch, more like a gradual change. Like waiting for a delayed train, we could be here a while as third party cookies go through their transformation. Here's the timeline so far.
2018 –GDPR came into effect, setting new standards for user consent and data protection.
2020 – CCPA was enforced, giving Californian residents more control (and yes, this also effects businesses in the UK that don’t have US offices)
2022 – Google announced its plans to phase out third-party cookies from Chrome by 2023
2023 – Google pushed the date back to late 2023 with GA4 replacing Universal Analytics
2024 – the clock is ticking, the end for third-party cookies is slated for this year.
Either way, it won’t be long before third-party cookies are no longer part of the marketing toolkit, changing how we generate leads, retarget ads and understand user behaviours. The shift will push us to evolve which is never a bad thing.
But what does a ‘Cookieless Future’ actually mean?
It might sound more like a diet plan than a marketing thing, but a cookieless future is probably better for everyone. By weaning ourselves off tracking data, we can focus on collecting first party data (with consent of course) that actually helps us serve people better, rather than solely to target them irrelevant ads.
We can expect new, privacy-first technologies and tools that redefine how we understand and engage with our audiences and create stronger customer relationships. We protect our own data, and we build more respectful customer relationships. What’s not to like?
