Google stole the cookie from the cookie jar!

And replaced it with this.

As privacy concerns continue to grow, companies continue to evolve and listen to their digital citizens. Google will block third party cookies by 2023 and Apple has already launched a similar feature with iOS 15 that will block your email from being tracked for email marketing. Are search, third party cookies, and email marketing a thing of the past? Even with its best efforts third party cookies are only accurate 40–60% of the time.

Will context based targeting play a role in the future of advertising?

Search is one way to build a profile of a user to determine what ads to present but users come across content and information in so many ways. Context based targeting will be the next based way to segment and advertise. The metrics used can engage users to further create brand/product connections and it is focus on permission marketing. Some metrics include: customer lifetime value, sign ups for events, purchase orders, and items added to shopping cart.

If email marketing has taught advertisers and marketers anything, it’s that permission marketing and personalized messaging lead to higher revenue.

As marketers we need to think of digital advertising from this perspective: we are hyper targeting our super users. Why use third party cookies to cast a wide net, when we can cast a much smaller net and keep bigger fish? Quality over quantity. As we continue to engage with our super users, they will use word of mouth to share about our brand/products. With the possibility to create more new super users. It is a long-term growth that can lead to an extended customer lifetime value and overall profit.

A few final questions

Chrome has 2/3 of the search market. Safari and Firefox have already stopped the use of third-party cookies. Marketers and Advertisers have already had the opportunity to test versions of this in other platforms. How much of the Google announcement is positioning and publicity? Has Google’s message about FLoC been lost to the concern around losing third-party cookies? How much ad revenue has been lost? How much more accurate is the data? Interestingly, when I tried to research these questions, the first 5 pages were about the cookie-less future and Google.