It’s become fascinating to watch Google dancing around the topic of 3rd party cookies like world’s most cowardly boxer: throwing weak punches from time to time only to back off moments later.
The most recent announcement from Google left many people scratching their heads and asking themselves:
- What now?
- Should we all forget that 3rd party cookies were even an issue?
- Was this big shift toward new technologies a big dud after all?
These are legitimate questions and if Google wanted to calm down advertisers, they failed miserably.
So, let’s dive into what the future holds for us, digital marketers and enthusiast, after Google’s surprising but not that surprising decision.
A quick recap: The story so far
If you were paying attention the whole 3rd party cookie drama in the last couple of years, and it was hard to miss all the news, you won’t be surprised by anything we write here. But to be sure that we are on the same page, let us go over quickly what the whole fuss is about.
For some time, 3rd party cookies (text files left by web browsers that sent information to 3rd party domains) where seen as the bad guy of the industry. They were commonly used by a variety of tools, from innocent analytical platforms and tracker to more shady privacy-intruding programs.
Google, as a self-appointed sheriff of the Internet announced that it will use its power – control over Chrome, world’s most popular web browser – to block them once and for all. But that wasn’t a matter of just flipping the switch deep inside Chrome settings.
3rd party cookies are, to some extent, a foundation of the business model that runs the Internet: a model where users get content for free and in exchange they see ads. For ads to be profitable, they need to be targeted toward specific groups: iPhone users, US residents, Spanish speakers, etc. And 3rd party cookies were and still are widely used by the industry for tracking.
Google, in terms of revenue, still relies mostly on ads. It couldn’t cut the branch it was sitting on. So along with blocking cookies, they needed to propose an alternative.
Google’s solutions
Over the years, Google proposed several ways for advertisers to keep getting data that would allow them to maintain the profitability of their businesses, all gather under the Privacy Sandbox initiative.
All solutions had one problem: they were controlled by Google. This was making advertisers anxious.
Where we are now
The most recent announcement from Google doesn’t answer all questions. According to the post, Google wants users to make the final decision about cookies. But the devil lies in the details: what will be the default option? Will users be forced to make a choice about 3rd party cookies? If the Privacy Sandbox initiative continues to exist, does this mean that this announcement is yet another pushback instead of ditching the idea completely?
It’s all speculation for now.
What we do know is what we wrote in our previous post about cookies: Google indecisiveness causes uncertainty in the industry, forcing CMOs everywhere to rethink their advertising strategies – all without guarantees that this will pay off.
We can, however, answer the most burning question straight away:
No, our stance didn’t change. Although it seems as Google is not trying to actively seeking way to kill cookies, there are other browsers and privacy-protecting solutions that already block them. 3rd party cookies are unreliable and the simple answer to this is 1st party cookie setup.
Voluum has always been on the forefront of technological change and that was also the case with cookies: you can setup your campaigns to rely on 1st party cookies since 2022.
Updating your setup is simple:
For visits and clicks: Use Voluum direct tracking scripts:
- lander tracking script on a lander if you use a landing page and an offer comes from 3rd party (affiliate network)
- offer tracking script on offer page if you don’t use a lander or have a lander but want to track conversions with a script
For conversions:
- Use S2S postback URL (for offers sourced from 3rd party platforms such as affiliate networks)
- Use Conversion tracking pixel with Offer tracking script to record conversions with 1st party cookies (for your own offers)
Life forward
Google’s backpedaling changed everything and nothing at the same time. It just added a layer of confusion but all the best practices of running digital ad campaigns still apply.
3rd party cookies, even if not blocked, can still be blocked, wiped out or lost.
Stick with Voluum and your campaigns will always be alive and kicking, no matter what Google cooks up next. This s our promise.
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