The thorny issue of “third-party cookies” was addressed by Roger Kamena, vice president of analytics and data science at the digital marketing agency Adviso, during the Connexion event, the digital transformation summit organized by Les Affaires last September.
Kamena’s message to marketers was unequivocal: let go, get used to the idea that third-party cookies will disappear in the medium term. The time has come to exploit “first-party data”.
As a reminder, “third-party cookies” are what allow web giants and digital companies to track a user’s browsing history. Companies use these cookies to do advertising retargeting. For example, showing a user a watch ad shortly after they mention the word “watch” in a comment or search engine.
“Third-party cookies will look for very personal data, in terms of personal tastes,” admits Kamena. A user looks at a product one day, then the next day, that product is retargeted on another website. It was becoming very intrusive, and it still is! But now, that’s changing.”
So far, Apple and Google have been leaders in a movement to eliminate the use of third-party cookies from their respective platforms. Google Chrome has given itself until mid-2023 to reach an understanding with the Web community. Apple has started to put pressure on Facebook, via its application store, to limit ad targeting on its application.
“Information will continue to be accumulated, but it will be boiled down,” summarizes Roger Kamena.
Apocalypse… or opportunity?
To understand the mood of marketers in the face of this change, one only has to look at the title they have given to this movement towards greater user privacy: “the third-party cookie apocalypse”.
“I see marketers avoiding the issue. We have to accept that it’s going to go away, it’s just a matter of time. The drug of third-party cookies is over… We have to get off it,” he says.
Kamena recognizes the challenge this poses for businesses, but he also sees it as “a blessing in disguise”. Companies that get “100% of their leads” from Facebook will have to go back to dealing with customer databases in-house.
“As a marketer, we can no longer depend on these players to get all our customer data, as we did before. We will have to start using our customer data ourselves. It’s a shift we have to make. [Companies] will no longer have the crutch of Google and Facebook; they’ll have to work a little harder to get the data and exploit it. At the end of the day, it’s a blessing in disguise: it’s going to make them more self-sufficient in leveraging their data.”
Among the strategies discussed to regain control of its customer data, Adviso speakers mentioned the relaunch of a loyalty program, as well as the creation of bridges between internal databases and advertising platforms.
