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Jun 2021 | Data Insights | Marketing Solutions

Prepare for a third-party cookie free, but prosperous future

It was no surprise to many when Google officially announced the deprecation of third-party cookies in early 2020. They’d been signalling the move as early as summer the year before, following in the footsteps of their largest rival, Apple, in a bid to give consumers more privacy on the internet.

In the wake of the cookie, Google’s introduced a new grouping of solutions called Privacy Sandbox to be used for digital advertising, identification, and measurement within their ecosystem, which still have many unidentified components as development is still underway. With outcomes still largely unknown for all parties involved, especially publishers, the announcement of Privacy Sandbox has been hotly debated due to the scale of Chrome usership and the footprint it may leave.

On the advertiser side, we know that advertisers will be able to leverage Google’s rich, first-party logged-in data to cohort users into targetable groups based on interest and will be able to connect their own first-party data to the Google ecosystem, allowing for individual targeting without the need for a third-party cookie. Through testing, Google’s estimate is that advertising through the Privacy Sandbox group of solutions will preserve 95% of advertiser conversions per dollar spent in comparison to cookie-based solutions. By utilizing solutions within the walled gardens, advertisers will still be able to preserve their digital successes, but this only assists one side of a large, multi-faceted industry.

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Publishers are in a particularly tough position, because unless they have a strong registered user base, their audiences will be far less effective and scalable. Advertiser budgets may then be pushed into walled gardens where targeting specific sets of consumers is easier due to the centralized control of first-party data they provide. By Google’s own estimation, the loss of third-party cookies on Chrome will result in a median per-publisher decline in revenue of up to 64%. Though consumers will be left with far fewer trustees of their data, without a scalable ad-monetized alternative, publishers may look to replace this ad-based revenue with paywalls.

The internet we know today wouldn’t exist without the support of an open, competitive, and varied marketplace, and there is a need for industry-wide solutions for privacy-centric consumer targeting. Though there are many fragmented solutions being proposed, nearly all of them rely on a healthy registered user-base, which many independent publishers cannot immediately provide.

At Experian, we are advocating for a collaborative, scalable solution that empowers independent publishers and advertisers alike, and puts consumer privacy at the heart of the matter, which is why we developed Experian Match.

Secure and trusted data collaboration with Experian Match

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By leveraging clean room technology, powered by InfoSum, to bring together first party data from advertisers and publishers, and through collaboration between publishers to build robust addressable scale, Experian Match offers a privacy-first solution that protects the free and open internet consumers have grown accustomed to, while equalizing the playing field for independent publishers and Big Tech alike. This is why some of the leading UK publishers, like The Independent and Evening Standard, are trusting Experian Match to help them prepare for a third-party cookie free, but prosperous future.

As Jo Holdaway, Chief Data & Marketing Officer for the group, has said:

“By partnering with Experian Match, The Independent and Evening Standard feel confident in our ability to help safeguard our advertiser revenue and offer our clients a scalable, privacy-centric way to reach their target audiences across our properties come 2022; using our own first party data and without relying on third party cookies.”

If you’d like to find out how Experian Match can help monetize your business in a third-party cookie-free world, please contact us.