Why GA4 Is Replacing Universal Analytics and What It Means for You
Since Google Analytics 4 was initially announced in 2019, marketers have experienced mixed emotions, ranging from disbelief and panic to frustration...
In January 2020, Google announced what many saw as the death of third-party cookies. Namely, that Google would stop supporting them within their Chrome browser by 2022.
While Apple's Safari browser has already done this, the Google Chrome announcement was significant for two reasons:
Google hinted at the level of these complications when they pushed the initial 2022 goal date back to mid-2023, claiming "it's become clear that more time is needed across the ecosystem to get this right."
And, if we're honest, Google isn't the only one that needs more time to figure this out. The 2021 Adobe Digital Trends survey found that only 37% of companies are "very prepared" for a world without third-party cookies.
So now that we have more time to prepare, what should we do? To answer that, let's first get a quick refresher on what a third-party cookie is.
A cookie, or HTTP cookie, is a text file created and stored within your web browser when you visit a new site. The cookie helps the browser track, personalize, and save information about each user's session, allowing the website to personalize your experience and any related advertising based on your previous sessions on that website or others.
As an example, a client recently recommended a product to help me deal with the mosquitos here in Georgia, the Spartan Mosquito Eradicator. I googled it to check it out and now see it included in ads that follow me online.
By clicking on the more info icon in the upper right-hand corner of the ad, I can see that the ad is using my recent activity on Chewy.com to retarget to me across various websites, social channels, and YouTube.
Third-party cookies are behind this marketing. When you allow access to third-party cookies, you're providing a trail of data that relays information about your web history across multiple websites and sessions that help tell companies more about you, which allows them to create more personalized experiences.
Without third-party cookies, this type of activity will go away. However, the good news is that first-party cookies will still be unaffected.
The difference is that first-party cookies are created and stored under the same domain you are currently visiting, and do not follow you from site to site. They only collect data on behalf of a site or app owner and will not share that information with Google or other third parties.
For example, first-party cookies provide functionality like saving your login data and user information across separate pages of the same site so you don't have to login every time you visit, remembering your preferences, or storing your shopping cart so you can check out later.
Consider the various user journeys on your site and explore opportunities to apply first-party cookies and encourage users to share more data with you directly.
Consider using events, newsletters, and valuable downloads to obtain more information about your customers and prospects that you can use to fuel marketing automation and ad-buying tools.The eventual removal of third-party cookies will have an impact on your marketing; however, the degree of this impact is up to you. Make important changes to your site, content, and gather audience intelligence information now, in order to gain a competitive advantage when the change takes effect.
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