Digital experience is brighter when it’s cookie-free.

Google may have given the cookie another temporary stay, but it is certain that its demise is imminent. However, many people are still not prepared: A recent survey of 500 CMOs from the UK and the US found that almost half of them aren’t ready for the day cookies disappear.

They’re not the only ones. The waters are murky because of repeated delays and lack of clear roadmaps for long-term, credible, scalable alternatives to identification, targeting, reporting, and the development and implementation marketing strategies. Businesses of all sizes can and should take steps to prepare for when the cookie is finally taken out of the jar. The cookie is a key component of digital infrastructure and performance marketing. It could be more difficult to park the issue or sleep on the job. It is not a sprint to prepare for its loss.

Although it may not seem very sexy but data compliance, first party data, and an activation strategy are all crucial first steps. Cookies are ubiquitous. Although we’re all used to using them, they are not the only way to identify customers online. They also have limitations, especially in today’s privacy-conscious world. Gerry Dischler (Google’s VP and GM for ads) said it best: “Cookies or other third-party identifiers that some in the industry advocate do not meet growing privacy expectations.” They won’t withstand rapidly changing regulatory restrictions. They are simply not long-term reliable.”

Businesses have had more time to prepare for the paradigm shift in organisational and technical ways that brands and platforms gain consent, stay relevant, foster long-term relationships, and maintain full-funnel relationships. It is clear that cookie depreciation has wide-ranging consequences. Remarketing is a long-standing feature of online acquisition. It will limit the possibility of remarketing to regain the interest of people who have viewed a site or product and then lost it. Walled gardens that have been so popular will be affected by the limitation. Many brands cannot see a future without collaborating with LinkedIn and Facebook to expand their customer perspective. Apple is already leading the way in this area, having adopted a product-first stance regarding ad privacy optins. This path seems well-worn. This could also lead to a complete overhaul and re-evaluation remarketing as an approach. Many should act now to update their first party consent, if they want to re-imagine the future of their propositions.

We are still reassessing data. To fill in any knowledge gaps, we are considering a rise in the use of third party data sources and partnerships. Profiling is also being considered to provide a better view of the customer. It will become more difficult and less profitable to sequence creative as the audience for ad networks shrinks. As a result CRM approaches will be more valuable. They will evolve into Experience Relationship Management, (ERM), and provide a richer view of customer behavior. This will allow CRM-to-ERM strategies to be more closely integrated into digital planning and increase the importance of consent. This will increase the demand for value exchanges with consumers. Basic offerings won’t be enough. Bolder service exchanges will be required to meet the needs of audience members who are aware of the importance of their data, time and attention. People will leave if you don’t reaffirm your consent often enough. You must have a significant value in order to stay.

It will be a change in the relationship between publisher and brand. Instead of starting with “dropping a cookie”, brands will have to give explicit and clear consent to enrichment to any publisher. To manage this process, data clean rooms and an owned ID graph will be more common. We expect further IP masking to develop following the Apple Mail’s path to hide tracking pixels and IP addresses from email recipients. This all makes trust in data handling, and stewardship, a foundational element of the post-cookie world.

This may seem like a lot, but it is essentially removing the long-standing digital marketing practice and infrastructure without any clarity about what will replace it. Marketers and brands can prepare for the future by taking action. Accept the changes made by adtech partners. They are better equipped to deal with the new cookieless world. Recalibrate consent and the exchange of reciprocal value to consumers. Find an ID resolution partner that suits your needs and amplify existing data collection. Second party data partnerships should be established. Finally, it is important to recognize that difficult conversations will occur and are necessary. Although the cookie-free future may seem unknowable, scary, and unknown, it is important to remember its roots and often overlooked potential. Technologists have been frustrated by the fact that cookies have been given a lot of credibility. Cookieless technology should eliminate the limitations they placed on the market and instead create a richer, more diverse future that offers valuable digital experiences to all audiences.

We have taken some key steps with our clients over the past 12-24 month to transform what can seem like an overwhelming negative into a consumer-focused positive.

1. To find out which vendors you have, review your vendor list. Microsoft, AppsFlyer and Snowflake. Do not be afraid to put all your eggs in one basket. The clean room’s purpose is to provide a platform agnostic for all your first part data and to facilitate its integration with your partners from the external marketing ecosystem.

2. Your technology, product marketing and experience design teams should be discussing how to improve your data-value exchanges. Get started now and accelerate if already in progress. Beyond newsletter sign-ups and voucher-codes, re-engagement is key. Create unique reasons for people to sign up and stay connected to your brand, e.g. You can offer loyalty programs, exclusive bundles and other benefits that only you can do. Community programmes are also available to increase the reasons for sharing data. These can include pop-up events, recycling schemes and partner events.
3. Remember that third-party cookie sunset doesn’t mean you can’t share partner data. Your clean room (AKA. CDP, DMP 2.0 – Use your clean room to build trusting relationships with trusted partners whose offerings are complementary or add value to your customer base.
4. Don’t forget to address the measurement problems that the cookie-sunset already causes. Rethink Multi-touch Attribution. It has failed to live up to its promises. Multi-touch Attribution has a bad reputation. It is not about using an existing CDP/DMP/attribution modeling solution.

It is about combining all data available to interpret and contextualise performance driver, to demystify contributors, and to influence confident optimisation – this is what we call Full-funnel Atribution outputs.

• Marketing spend with an attributed view lens (e.g. Attributed vs. Last Click
• To increase budget trust, channel contribution
• To easily remove conversion blockers, you can explore conversion paths
• Segment impact can be used to optimize linear spending and invest in certain cohorts.
• Conversion effectiveness is a key component of content effectiveness and pages that add value through their content
• Drill-downs on campaign and project incrementality to map performance attributable to specific initiatives across teams
• To align strategies and eliminate cannibalisation, unify search measurement (Paid + organic) to ensure that you are able to prove incrementality.

Anthony Magee, Director of data- and experience technology at SYZYGY.

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Search Engine Watch’s post “From cookie to beyond CRM and Consent – Why cookieless is a brighter future of digital experience” appeared first on Search Engine Watch.