Searching would be more enjoyable after Third-Party Tracking Cookies are banned!

I receive ads about the same subjects, relevant to my interests every single day. At the very beginning, when I was not aware of the reality of third-party cookies, I was scared. I felt like someone was following me or listening to my conversations. Then I heard from other people who had experienced the same thing. To be honest, I didn’t enjoy what was happening. I felt I didn’t have privacy anymore, even when I was using my personal devices. After a while and some research, I realized that this happens because of Third-Party Cookies.

And now after years, Google has announced that it aims to block third-party cookies from its Chrome browser by 2022. That doesn’t mean that Google will stop collecting your data, and it doesn’t mean that the company will stop using your data to target ads. What Google will stop doing is selling web ads targeted to individual users.

Let’s understand the differences between First- and Third-Party cookies. When a person visits a website, the website saves data, such as passwords, preferences, and selections, in the user’s browser to improve their experience. These are first-party cookies.

Now, imagine I am a native Persian speaker and I visit a Persian cooking website on my new iPad. The first thing I might do is select a language to view the site in Farsi. When I visit the site again tomorrow, the site is in the Farsi language. Why? Because it had stored a first-party cookie on my new iPad indicating my preference for Farsi every time I visit the site. Then if I visit a news site for the first time, the page will load in Farsi as the default language. In this case, the news website is using a cookie not of its own to determine my preference, hence a third-party cookie. Third-party cookies are commonly used to target users with ads related to other websites they have visited before. That’s why you see the fancy dress you have had your eye on, popping on the banner when you are reading your daily news!

Honestly, as a user, I felt glad that there will be no more tracking and receiving relevant ads, once this idea is implemented. However, I need to think about the impact of it on my future as I am a marketing student. For sure, it will make the marketer’s and advertiser’s lives hard. They had access to customer’s information and were able to target their audiences easily.

However, I would say there are a couple of things that marketers should keep in mind. Google isn’t banning all cookies, many marketers saw the cookie phase-out coming, Google won’t stop tracking people entirely, and this move still opens the door for innovation in advertising.

The best thing to do as a marketer is to continue to stay up to date with news related to third-party cookies and other data privacy moves that could impact your business. If your advertising strategies rely on third-party data, start considering alternatives now. You could also consider strategies or software that can better help you leverage first-party data.

Don’t panic! We will figure out a new alternative to reach our audiences!