Yesterday evening Google announced it is proposing a new roadmap for its Privacy Sandbox toolset – one which won’t involve the complete sunsetting of third-party cookies.
Google’s initial decision to deprecate third-party cookies over four years ago had a transformative impact on the industry. Marketers and publishers alike rushed to build targeting and measurement capabilities which work without third-party cookies, putting much greater emphasis on first-party data. Data clean rooms, alternative identifiers, contextual solutions, and other cookie-free technologies pitched themselves as the future of advertising, fit for a cookie-free world. The news that the ‘cookiepocalypse’ now seemingly won’t go ahead therefore sparked immediate reaction – celebration from some, bemusement and frustration from others.
The industry will now try to figure out what this U-turn means for their businesses, clinging to any further updates Google provides on the future of Chrome. Today we’re looking at the buy-side: the companies which hold the purse strings, and ultimately decide where ad spend is directed.
Devil in the details
First of all, it’s important to acknowledge that there’s still a lot of uncertainty around the implications of yesterday’s announcement.
For a start, it’s a proposal on Google’s part rather than a commitment, and therefore not guaranteed to happen – though the fact that Google has publicly announced this proposal suggests it is very likely to go ahead.
Assuming Google does put this plan into action, it’s clear that Google won’t completely kill off third-party cookies, but it’s not very clear what will happen. Google’s VP of Privacy Sandbox Anthony Chavez spoke of “a new experience in Chrome that lets people make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing” which they can adjust at any time. This suggests that Chrome users will be given a choice to opt-in or opt-out of third-party cookies via a new, more prominent mechanism.
The exact design of this mechanism, and the subsequent impact on opt-out rates, will be crucial to determining the overall impact on the buy-side. “Google has said it will instead put the decision in the hands of the user, by letting consumers decide for themselves whether they wish to accept third party cookies or not, said Dan Larden, head of media at advertiser trade group ISBA. “As yet we don’t know how that choice will be presented to users.” Larden said that ISBA will work closely with Google to understand what that mechanism might look like, in order to understand the full implications of the change.
Regardless, Google’s new mechanism will likely have some impact on the availability of third-party cookies in Chrome. And cookies already only cover a portion of advertisers’ total digital audiences, given their unavailability in other major browsers. So advertisers are unlikely to simply abandon any move towards cookie-free targeting and measurement.
“Third-party cookies are still not available in Safari, Firefox, and will not be available in Chrome without explicit opt-in, so many ‘cookieless solutions’ will still be applicable”, said Miles Pritchard, partner, data and technology transformation at OMD EMEA. “Many non-third party cookie solutions are future-proof and scalable, and generally represent an evolution in approach, not a ‘neutral’ side step to avoid cookie removal.” He pointed to SSP curation, which has benefits around transparency and trust, and Meta’s CAPI, which allows faster page load times and better data retention, as cookie-free tools which have value beyond simply working in cookie-free environments.
Patrick Zinga, digital media, data, and martech lead at Heineken UK, said that his company is already running many campaigns in a cookieless manner, and that Google’s U-turn won’t change things in that respect. “If anything, the news means we continue on the same path and push to have better one-to-one direct relationships with our consumers as well as our partners, keep investing in our data clean rooms, and incorporate better data partnerships directly with publishers and activation partners.”
A sigh of relief
That’s not to say there won’t be a significant impact for the buy-side.
OMD’s Pritchard emphasised that predicting changes so soon after a major reversal in position is difficult, but said that there will likely be a “sigh of relief” around first-party website retargeting, as advertisers can return to (or continue) using website-based audiences, rather than using a customer-based approach.
Pritchard also said he expects some divestment away from contextual solutions, which have gotten a lot of investment in recent years. Similarly, customer-based solutions like data clean rooms and universal identifiers which have pitched themselves as cookie-free technologies may see a slight cooling in demand – though Pritchard said movement here will be small in reality since “industry talk has always been well ahead of demand and use cases”.
Heineken’s Patrick Zinga meanwhile emphasised that a lot of the impact has already been felt by those whose businesses were massively impacted by Google’s initial decision to remove third-party cookies.
“[Google’s announcement] is a little disappointing from my perspective, because I know of the wider impact to not only our business, but others that no longer exist because of the expected move to cookieless,” he said. “After seven-plus years of back and forth, it seems a little disappointing that a new solution, which prioritises consumer privacy but still allows for effective marketing, is no longer being created.”
Indeed, the roller coaster ride which Google has sent the industry on over the past few years may be another incentive for marketers to not just run straight back into using cookies wherever they’re available. “Yes [Google’s decision is] win for personalisation and targeting, but hopefully it means that businesses still continue to move beyond being so reliant on Google and look for better consumer first-ID solutions,” said Zinga.
