Goodbye Third-Party Cookies, Hello Paid Social
Byline: Jessica Goodman, Director, Social + Influencer Marketing
TL;DR: Google is saying goodbye to third-party cookies by late 2024. This means brands are going to need to innovate how they target, measure and collect data. By tapping into paid social platforms, marketers can utilize first-party data, pixels for tracking, attribution and retargeting and limit the disruption this will have on the advertising industry.
After years of discussion, Google Chrome is finally gearing up to eliminate third-party cookies by late 2024. This move will have major implications for digital advertising and marketing as we know it; third-party cookies have long been the backbone of tracking user behavior across websites for targeted advertising purposes, custom targeting and retargeting experience.
However, targeting isn’t the only concern for brands in a cookieless environment — the impact on measurement is also keeping marketers up at night.
According to Kantar, 52.2% of brands are concerned with their company’s ability to provide impactful digital performance measurement in a cookieless world.
75% of marketers still rely on third-party cookies, highlighting the need for strategies based on first-party data, CMS Wire has reported.
Without an ability to track users, it will become much harder for marketers to target ads with precision and measure performance and attribution. While many brands and advertisers are scrambling to find solutions to replace cookies, your organization doesn’t have to: one solution increasingly gaining traction is paid social media programs.
Why Paid Social
Paid social is a promising solution for a cookieless world. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok aren’t reliant on third-party cookies for targeting or measurement.
Instead, these channels gather first-party data directly from their users, allowing brands to embed pixels into their ad units and leverage their own first-party data for a more custom targeting and retargeting experience.
The Power of Pixels: Ensuring your pixels are firing on all cylinders is essential for this new wave of marketing. Pixels allow for accurate tracking and give brands the opportunity to retarget through audience touchpoints — either from a social ad or the brand’s webpage. When KWT runs a paid social campaign, we make sure our clients’ pixels are set up appropriately by installing pixel helper extensions. We can then test the user journey from the homepage to purchase, ensuring that tracking is set up correctly to account for all conversions.
Leveraging First-Party Data: Are you making the most of your first-party data? It's the most valuable data source a brand can have, offering the best opportunity to personalize ads. According to McKinsey, 76% of consumers say they’re more likely to purchase from a brand that personalizes advertising messages to them. Aside from personalized ads, first-party data allows brands to create audience lists based on current customers, which can help reach new audiences similar to the existing base (often known as “lookalike” audiences).
For advertisers, doubling down on paid social could effectively eliminate the impact from the removal of third-party cookie targeting. In fact, it could ultimately create a more efficient channel strategy.
Get Ahead of The Curve by Testing and Learning
The testing and learning process is a crucial part of any paid program. Here are a few strategies brands should consider:
Split budgets between objectives and audiences, allowing continued reach to existing audiences while prospecting for new, similar audiences by utilizing platform data capabilities and brand CRM lists to create lookalike audiences.
Use platform pixels to track and optimize conversion events at multiple points in the funnel, allowing accurate measurement and attribution models to continue.
Test different creative formats like videos, stories and carousels to learn which formats resonate most strongly with your audience.
Taking proactive steps such as these, losing third-party cookies doesn't have to be a detriment to your marketing strategy.
What’s To Come
The death of third-party cookies will shake up the industry if marketers don’t take advantage of Google’s latest delay to get ahead of the change. But with the immense targeting data and user relationships of social platforms, paid social is an easy channel for marketers to lean into to help navigate the new reality.
By diversifying your media mix and testing new paid social tactics, your brand can get ahead of the curve. To learn more about how our social experts are helping brands adjust their strategies for the changing landscape, check out our services here.