Cookies have been in the headlines for months now. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and The ePrivacy regulation (“Cookie Law”) have stimulated much of this publicity. The Cookie Law is a separate law from the EU’s GDPR that more broadly covers how electronic personal data is handled. It specifically requires businesses in Europe to first gain website visitor consent before utilizing cookies and then to also make it easy for users to opt out.
Even if a company doesn’t do business in Europe, they’d be remiss to take the “this does not apply to us” approach. Data privacy is a phenomenon and societal desire that is spreading like wildfire. California is already on board with similar legislation to take effect in 2020 and companies are doing themselves a disservice if they bury their heads in the sand and ignore this sea change.
The topic of GDPR compliance for US companies has been covered extensively in numerous articles, so I won’t go into the nitty-gritty here. What I do want to discuss is that there is somewhat of a revolt going on against tracking cookies, and that we, as advertisers, should be aware of it and pivot so we can protect ourselves.
With a slight tweak to our ad targeting approach, we can stay ahead of the curve of this unstoppable trend and stop relying on third-party cookies!
More people are saying no to cookies
Cookie Law or no Cookie Law, in our current zeitgeist of privacy protection and sensitivity on how personal data is handled and used, it seems that consumers are taking things into their own hands. More and more consumers have taken measures to banish third-party cookies from their computers in a move to keep their data private. Here are some of the ways they’re doing this:
- Using ad blockers. “One in four US internet users say they block ads, which is equivalent to more than 70 million people.” E-marketer.
- Using browsers such as Brave or search engines such as Duck Duck Go
- Using browser extensions that block cookies
- Using incognito mode
- Blocking cookies via their browser settings. “64% of tracking cookies were either blocked or deleted by web browsers. […] rejection rates on mobile devices were particularly high—75% of mobile cookies were rejected, compared with 41% on desktop.” E-marketer.
And it’s not just consumers that are taking a stand against cookies. Apple has also drawn a line in the sand by deploying Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) on all Safari browsers that run on their devices. Firefox (version 65) browser, by default, blocks third-party tracking cookies.
[Sidebar] Types of cookies and what they do
There are two types of cookie that can be applied – first-party and third-party cookies.
First-party cookies
These are issued and stored on the user’s computer by the website the user is viewing.
Third-party cookies
These are issued and stored on the user’s computer by a website other than the one the user is viewing. Let’s say you’re visiting nytimes.com, and that site has a YouTube video on one of its pages. In this case, YouTube will set a cookie which is then saved on your computer.
Both types of cookie are persistent in that they remain on a user’s computer after they close a session with a website. Both types of cookie have an expiration date or can be manually removed by the user.
Why do we cookie people?
- Session management: logins, shopping carts, game scores – super-useful for keeping information that would save a user time if they revisited a website after leaving it
- User privacy controls & settings
- User profiling, segmentation, optimization
- Analytics, attribution, verification
- Mapping users across platforms
- Ads frequency capping
- Targeting & retargeting
[End Sidebar]
How advertisers can adapt to a (third-party) cookie-free diet
The media giants – Facebook, Google and Microsoft – have all implemented a first-party cookie tracking method so that advertisers can continue to collect web analytics and track activity on their websites, such as pages visited and cart behavior. This overcomes the issue of lost data from the original third-party cookie approach.
But what about behavioral and interest targeting? These rely on third-party cookie collection and can be unreliable as data becomes more sparse and outdated.
Contextual targeting to the rescue!
Contextual targeting displays ads to people based on the content they’re engaging in on websites. It determines what type of content they are reading by analyzing semantics and other factors, and doesn’t rely on cookies or audience targeting. This makes it more privacy-conscious and brand safe. We don’t need to know anything about the user’s browsing history or personal data to do contextual targeting.
Imagine I’m on a travel website looking for flights to Europe. While immersed in this activity, I get served a tourism ad for vacations in Switzerland.
Or imagine I’m reading a news article on nytimes.com entitled “Many Children Are Overdoing It On the Toothpaste, C.D.C. Study Says” and I get served a native ad for an electronic toothbrush that looks like this:
Why is this so effective?
- It is extremely relevant
- It catches me in the micro-moment of being engaged in that topic. I’m in the right frame of mind to be receptive to this message
- It is less ‘creepy’ because it’s clear to me why I’m seeing this ad
- The advertiser has more control over where their ad is shown and can select only premium placements if desired
Contextual targeting is available on many advertising platforms. For Google Display Network, use Content Keywords and Topic targeting. Most programmatic advertising DSPs allow you to target contextually too.
I have found this approach to be very effective because of its high rate of accuracy and brand safety. Catching a prospect “in the heat of the moment” when they are reading about a topic that complements your product or service often yields a higher click-through rate than interest or behaviorally targeted ads. With the obvious “holes” in behavioral data due to disappearing third-party cookies, it makes sense to use contextual targeting in as many use cases as possible.
What kind of results have you had with contextual targeting?
