Embrace the Future: Navigating Cookieless Advertising in Paid Media
The era of cookieless targeting is upon us.
With user privacy protection in mind, regulatory changes, such as GDPR, CCPA, and Apple’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP), have already led to increased restrictions on cookie usage. Now Google is ending third-party cookies for all Chrome users by the end of 2024.
Driven by privacy regulations and technology advancements, we now must embrace a digital future of cookieless advertising. For businesses leveraging paid media, this represents a critical juncture: evolve or risk being left behind.
At BrainDo, we view the shift towards cookieless advertising as an opportunity cloaked in a challenge. While you may need to make some tactical changes, there’s still ample room for your business to thrive.
As you navigate the cookieless landscape, here’s four tips to help you pivot your approach and stay ahead of your competition.
Lists, lists, and more lists. As third-party cookies recede, the importance of first-party data surges.
Sourced directly from interactions with your brand, this data becomes the backbone of targeted advertising in a cookieless world. Collect it, audit it, and sort it by audience demographics. Information on age, gender assigned at birth, and location will go a long way when casting a wide net as part of prospecting.
You may need to enhance direct interactions across your digital channels—website, apps, and social media — in order to gather actionable first-party data. Every touchpoint is an opportunity to collect data, provided you do so transparently and with consent.
Beyond simple demographics, you can also use direct contact lists for retargeting and look-a-like audiences to capture meaningful data in a cookieless future.
These contact lists should be as large as possible. This is critical for ensuring a larger match rate and the ability to run on Google Ads (Minimum 1,000 matched contacts, recommended 5,000) and Meta (Minimum 500 match contacts, recommended 2,000).
Purchasing first-party data from other secondary partners can also be beneficial, but vet these sources carefully.
If you do things right, first-party data can help you build a foundation for more personalized and effective marketing campaigns.
Contextual advertising allows advertisers to place ads based on the context of the content, rather than relying on user behavior data. This approach respects user privacy and avoids the need for intrusive tracking.
In a cookieless world where traditional tracking methods are limited, contextual advertising provides a valuable alternative for advertisers to reach their target audience. Through this approach, your ads are in line with and relevant to the content being viewed. This method respects user privacy while maintaining the relevance and efficacy of ad placements.
Remember, proper context is everything. So be very selective with your ad placements. If your product is a healthy breakfast bar, for instance, consider contextual advertising on the website that publishes articles on healthy living.
Predictive targeting continues to evolve and will be amplified by artificial intelligence (AI) tool refinement over the next few months.
LinkedIn specifically is sunsetting its lookalike audiences for predictive audiences. By combining your uploaded list and with their AI, LinkedIn automatically generates new custom audiences of similar customers who are more likely to convert. This opens up an opportunity to find new relevant customers through predictive algorithms.
Outside of AI-informed predictive targeting, there are a ton of great use cases for leveraging AI within your Paid Media workflow. Consider employing AI for things like data analysis, content recommendations, and social sentiment. This can help ensure you receive positive feedback on your campaigns. When used strategically, AI technologies offer powerful utility in cookieless advertising.
Adopting cookieless tracking solutions to collect first-party data will still lead to precise and insightful reporting. Strong options include:
Append URL parameters to the end of landing pages for enhanced data collection. And segment users into the correct audiences. This will help maintain analytical accuracy and depth.
The transition to cookieless advertising highlights the need for agility and innovation in modern marketing. And it creates an opportunity to foster more authentic connections with audiences, grounded in trust and respect for user privacy.
Change is a constant in digital advertising. Just look at how far we’ve come since the early days of banners and pop-up ads. New solutions may emerge that change everything (again), so don’t get too comfortable!
For now, start incorporating some of the tips above to get acclimated to cookieless advertising. Work first-party data into your marketing strategy; try a contextual approach, test new tools such as predictive marketing and AI solution; and up your reporting game.
Embracing change is about more than survival; it’s about evolving your approach. Keep an open mind and experiment with new approaches. Doing so will ensure your campaigns remain effective—even without cookies.
Facing the cookieless future doesn’t have to be daunting. At BrainDo, we’re all about adapting and innovating. Our team is on the frontline, crafting marketing strategies that not only comply with the new norms but also set you apart.
Ready to future-proof your paid media strategies? Explore our Paid Media services and reach out to us today to start crafting for the cookieless era.
