Advertisers Unfazed by Google’s Latest Cookie Removal Delay

Google first announced its decision to sunset third-party cookies in 2020, but just last week, pushed its plans again until 2024. To keep advertisers happy, the company plans to expand its Privacy Sandbox trials, which promise a level of audience targeting. Although Google’s cookie delay may be a reprieve for some advertisers, many are already thinking beyond third-party cookies. The delay also gives other solutions beyond Privacy Sandbox, such as World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) distributed ID proposal, an opportunity to develop. “This decision is largely irrelevant,” said data clean room technology solution InfoSum’s CEO Brian Lesser. He added he does not expect Google’s cookie delay to impede InfoSum’s business growth. However, according to Jamie Seltzer, global managing director, mar tech and data strategy at Havas Media Group, the delay allows advertisers to determine what alternatives work best for them. iOS Continues to Hold Onto Market Share Despite Privacy Changes, New Report Finds An industry ready to move on Most advertisers are dependent on their ad-tech partners to figure out how much they should rely on third-party cookies for targeting ads. However, a small group of advertisers have taken an independent stance and are developing their own predictive models that don't use user IDs, according to Adam Heimlich, co-founder of ad-tech company Chalice. “Cookies were never the best way [to target ads],” Heimlich said. “Regardless of what Google does, our clients and competitors are moving forward.” But agencies like Havas Media Group and Kepler are maximizing the delay by experimenting with alternate solutions in addition to still using cookies. For a year through different partners, Havas has tested cookie against cookieless solutions on similar campaigns run across different platforms to understand reach, impression and click-through rate benchmarks. Although Seltzer did not divulge specific figures, she said “cookieless audiences are performing better than the cookie audiences.” On a similar note, Peter Rice, associate vp of marketing systems and strategy at Kepler, is advising clients to make the most of the cookie delay by experimenting with different solutions like second-party data. Kepler is trying solutions such as contextual ads and UID 2.0, which are both available through combinations of buy-side and sell-side platforms. (Disney, in a partnership with The Trade Desk, has also tested out cookie targeting alternatives through UID 2.0.) “Just because Chrome represents a large percentage of the ecosystem doesn't mean that the rest of that ecosystem hasn't progressed,” he added. Alternate solutions join Privacy Sandbox For some time now, Google has experimented with its Privacy Sandbox, though results have been inconsistent, to say the least. Opening trials to developers this year and expanding to Chrome users globally throughout the year and into 2023 is an attempt to salvage its solution. “It’s clear that the technology that is needed is not ready yet,” Rice said. “Brands should be testing [Privacy Sandbox], but there’s a disincentive to test it because of tools not being perfectly ready.” With its latest Topics experiment, Privacy Sandbox is now enabling advertisers to target people based on 350 different topics, such as news or sports, where the topics are automatically deleted and replaced with new ones every three weeks. But marketers are concerned that this type of segment-level targeting may seldom work and not get the necessary results. To add on, Privacy Sandbox is will not replace cookie’s ability of opting-in addressability, thus, creating a gap between the two concepts. For this, the industry should look at alternate solutions such as W3C’s distributed IDs, according to Andrew Frank, an analyst at Gartner. Separate from walled gardens, W3C’s distributed ID concept creates an ID that people have more control and transparency. This concept falls short in the Privacy Sandbox where consumers have less control. “There's a lot of discomfort with the fact that Google is obviously conflicted in its motivations here since they make so much money from advertising,” Frank said. “The delay gives other cookie alternatives beyond Google's privacy sandbox an opportunity to develop.”

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Advertisers' Sweet Tooth Fades, With Many Unfazed by Google’s Latest Cookie Removal Delay

This push to 2024 gives other alternatives more time for experimentation

Trishla Ostwal

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Trishla Ostwal