The Deprecation of Cookie Tracking & How Affiliate Marketers Can Future-Proof Measurement

Businesses have been using cookies for decades to track website visitors and collect data that improves the targeting audience for ads. But, the way we use cookies and Google ad-tracking tools could significantly change in 2024 with the depreciation of the cookie.

Discussing the deprecation of cookies was a topic that was front and center during Phonexa’s recent conversation with Michael Jeter, Director for Google Cloud Enterprise, in a webinar titled “Unlock Consumer Insights and Personalize the Customer Experience at Scale.”

Eighty five percent of digital media professionals say cookie loss and accurate measurement are two of their top challenges. Despite the setback it may cause, they can still future-proof their measurement strategies and fortify data infrastructures.

With the impending shift on the horizon, affiliate marketers need to keep an eye on new advancements and technology innovations as they overhaul their performance marketing playbooks, tools, and resources.

The threat has loomed large for some time: personal privacy protections and policy actions are forcing marketers to work without one of their strongest tools – the cookie.

This bedrock of online data management is forcing change, and the challenge this transition creates is navigable with the right map.

Quality First, Quality Always

Data quality and hygiene still prevails because marketers can find success in a post-cookie era with a mindset shift and a commitment to clean, quality first-party data.

Having clean data is essential to the success of your marketing program, but where that data resides may not be where many begin in their quest for data hygiene – but it should be.

Understanding through assessment where your data resides and what steps it will take to make that data useful is an essential first step. As marketers locate their data, assessing its accuracy is key. Any next steps on this journey shouldn’t be decisions based on bad data, so in this housekeeping phase where all data and inputs are located, assessing at this time is necessary before moving forward. For many on this journey, this first stop is one where intervention may be warranted.

Oftentimes this data hygiene and gathering phase is one where organizations come to recognize both their possibilities and limitations in maintaining a strong data structure. Team and resource assessments are part of this moment as well and marketers must realize if they have the in-house resources – both in tech and human capital – to maintain a clean and structured data process.

Organizations need an all-in-one platform or partner for marketing automation to help them develop new touchpoints and personalized interactions.

Partners have often built the systems that an individual company doesn’t have the tech stack to do. But before personalized interactions, a platform partner can play a crucial role in helping marketers track, collect, manage, analyze, and organize data from multiple sources.

While locating where your data is sourced, you’re primed to deliver it and create other trusted and secure ways of holding and leveraging that data, and at this stage of the journey, marketers are well positioned to adopt an automation partner.

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Less Value in Cookies

At the next stop on this journey, companies have ideally identified, cleaned and structured their data, likely with an automation partner and an all-in-one platform to maintain the clarity that comes from having done a true assessment. This is the moment where real decisions about how to address cookie depreciation can happen.

Marketers actually benefit from the calls for privacy and transparency a cookie-less world creates. Google has depreciated the cookie’s abilities in relation to a user’s need for privacy, transparency and more control over their personal data.

Marketers may argue that cookies allow for specificity and truly offer value to users. Yet, bad actors in an ever-evolving cybersecurity landscape threaten a marketer’s good intentions and Google’s retrenchment in privacy is appropriately user-focused. Marketers, too, in an era of increased personalization, are user-focused and should consider their aligned goals.

Embracing a First-Party Approach to Data

First-party data should be the foundation of an organization’s customer data aggregation strategy to flourish in a cookie less world. Instead of relying on and capturing data through third-party cookies, first-party data creates more transparency and reinforces customer privacy.

Utilizing first-party data empowers marketers to swiftly pinpoint highly promising prospective customers, allowing for a more precise allocation of resources to minimize customer-acquisition expenses.

When done right, marketers gain the ability to discern the most valuable customers, optimizing investments to enhance their long-term value. First-party data will become quite valuable and can be used to partner with publishers to hone in on user behavior for better ad targeting and data measurements.

As businesses continue to navigate the ever-evolving digital landscape, it’s clear that the future belongs to those who welcome change with knowledge and foresight.

If marketers don’t embrace and prepare for a cookieless world, they will be forced to serve the same marketing message and content to everyone, regardless of their stage in the customer journey. Being agile is key to surviving and adapting to the fast-paced digital business world.

 

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