In recent years, third-party cookies have been used to collect user data on websites. However, more and more regulations are limiting or even abolishing their use. This will have a significant impact on the online advertising industry. Nearly 8 out of 10 marketing and customer experience departments say they are dependent on third-party cookies.
What are third-party cookies?
Third-party cookies. These are files deposited on the user's PC, smartphone or tablet by the server of a domain other than that of the site consulted. They are generally placed by an audience measurement service, an advertising network or an advertising platform.
Third-party cookies make it possible to track Internet users as they navigate several websites. They can be used to analyze behavior and adjust marketing strategies.
Third-party cookies are the opposite of proprietary, first-party or internal cookies. The latter are associated with the domain name of the web page visited.
Good to know : Key dates in the gradual disappearance of third-party cookies
- 2017: third-party cookies deleted after 24 hours
- 2018 : GDPR, with the need to collect explicit consent for all personal data processing. Third-party cookies blocked by Safari and Firefox web browsers.
- 2020: Google reveals the end of third-party cookies by 2022. The date was later pushed back to 2024. Explicit consent sought by Apple on the in-app environment.
- 2022: start of the first Privacy Sandbox beta tests. These are proposals to satisfy cross-site use cases without third-party cookies or other tracking methods.
Reasons for the end of third-party cookies
The gradual elimination of third-party cookies is above all linked to the growing concerns of Internet users regarding :
- Privacy protection. 72% of Internet users are concerned about the recording of their web activities for advertising targeting. More than half of consumers now refuse the use of cookies or modify their preferences to limit tracking. 82% expect brands to do the same, and 79% fear being tracked. Security concerns have prompted 76% of Internet users to reduce or forego at least one online activity.
- Retargeting. Retargeting consists of targeting an Internet user who has consulted a site. All without finalizing the act of purchase. They are then offered targeted advertising on the products or services they initially consulted. The aim is to encourage visitors to return to the site to complete their order.
Over time, third-party cookies have become less reliable. The cause:
- Ad blockers for web browsers ;
- Sharing the navigator with other members of the household;
- Cache clearing.
Advertisers deplore the lack of precision and non-exclusivity of data . What's more, they have no way of verifying the information: origin, age, accuracy, etc. Finally, the quality of data was not always up to scratch.
Finally, the disappearance of third-party cookies is intended to reduce the tracking possibilities of players in the advertising market. The aim is to replace them with targeting methods that ensure user confidentiality.
Consequences for advertisers and publishers
Today's online advertising market is organized around systems based on :
- Third-party cookies ;
- Building user profiles.
Faced with this situation, advertisers have no choice but to :
- Find new ways to target consumers;
- Find new ways to measure the performance of advertising campaigns: Media Mix Modelling (MMM), AB Testing, Data Driven Attribution;
- Increase the importance of transparency and trust for users.
56% of advertisers feel that their company is very much affected by the topic of cookieless and consentless. Only 25% consider it to have little impact.
Good to know: What are the main factors holding back the adoption of alternatives to third-party cookies?
- A still reduced reach.
- Advertisers' maturity on the subject.
- No sense of urgency.
- The resources needed to launch tests.
Consequences for users
For users, the end of third-party cookies means :
- Less targeted advertising;
- Improved data confidentiality;
- Better protection of privacy. The use of data must be explicitly authorized by the user;
- The possibility for users to be less subjected to advertising messages.
Alternative solutions
The end of third-party cookies does not mean that Internet users will no longer be tracked on the Internet. Players in the advertising ecosystem will still be able to use alternative technologies to :
- Track navigation and visitor behavior;
- Target them for advertising purposes.
We're witnessing a shift from a single solution (third-party cookies) to a range of possible solutions. Their advantage? They can be adapted to any situation.
First-party cookies
This type of cookie is placed on the user's browser by the site's server, with the user's consent. It enables the website publisher to save personalization and session data. This data is used to identify individual users on subsequent visits.
The advantage of first-party cookies? They give brands greater precision in their relationship with publishers, across all browsers. However, they also have their limitations. They can only be used to identify and activate unique visitors within a single domain name. As a result, a publisher with several different websites can't recognize which visitors are which.
Solutions have been implemented to make first-party cookies work across multiple domain names. First-party cookies can return data via :
- URL calls on the advertiser's domain;
- Subdomain delegation methods such as CNAME cloaking.
They make it possible to avoid browser blocking, by taking advantage of data from "internal" cookies.
Another solution is fingerprinting. Here, the aim is to distinguish unique visitors using weak signals (web browser, operating system, screen resolution, etc.) This enables brands to :
- Broadcast messages in line with their interests;
- Retarget them if it makes sense;
- Control the number of advertising messages.
Alternative tracking technologies
Contextual targeting
Here, the aim is to use the page's content to address its targets. Advertising is displayed without ever having to resort to personal data, and without the need for consent. Different methods are possible:
- Pages sorted by theme ;
- Artificial intelligence techniques such as computer vision;
- Audio recognition ;
- Regularly used keywords ;
- Panels;
- Semantics.
Encrypted individual identifiers
To assign visitors an ID, the publisher uses their CRM data. This is usually based on e-mail. data is hashed and encrypted to generate unique identifiers. This makes it impossible for other players in the chain to trace the data back to the user. Universal IDs are used for targeting, retargeting, controlling advertising pressure and measuring campaign performance.
However, despite their effectiveness, the adoption of universal ID solutions by brands is still limited. Another problem is that they operate in silos. Indeed, few of them are interoperable.
Cohort-based solutions
They have been developed to maintain the precision of individual targeting. At the same time, they prevent individual identifiers from passing through the advertising chain. Cohorts are groups of several thousand people gathered around common attributes:
- Behavioral affinity ;
- Interests ;
- Socio-demographic criteria.
When these impressions are transmitted to the market, they are no longer linked to user IDs. They are only associated with segments, identified by a number or "value key".
Cohort methods offer three major advantages:
- Increase reach;
- Ensuring an excellent level of precision;
- Obstruct the transit of individual IDs that could enable the advertising ecosystem to trace personal data back to Internet users.
data clean room (DCR)
The data clean room (DCR) is used to pool the proprietary data of two partners. Neither participant has access to the other's data . However, their data is mapped to :
- Enrich their audiences' understanding ;
- Refine their segmentation ;
- Activate data in advertising marketing platforms.
All without cookies, in a totally automated way.
The disappearance of third-party cookies marks the end of an era in which data was insufficiently protected. Alternatives exist, but none of them seem to be the miracle solution at the moment. For its part, Google plans to eliminate third-party cookies on Chrome by 2024.
Would you like to set up traffic generation or customer acquisition operations GDPR compliant ? Dataventure supports you in your project with its PRM consulting solution. We offer a wide range of cookieless alternatives:
- Assets Data ;
- LookAlike. A solution for creating personalized audiences, based on your customers' typical profile. This targeting technique is perfect for reaching prospects with strong similarities to your customers.
- Retargeting. The aim is to retarget visitors to a site or page who have shown an interest in a product or service. The idea is to re-target them by sending an SMS, e-mail or displaying an advertisement.
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