Understanding Customers Better Without Third-Party Cookies

The online marketing industry is currently debating Google's decision to stop allowing third-party cookies in the Chrome browser starting in 2023. This move will change how tracking works — and how companies advertise online and distribute personalized content.

Third-party cookies tag visitors to a website and track their behavior across multiple sites. They're set by third parties rather than by the website the user is actually visiting. Often, it's advertisers who want to understand how the users seeing their ads behave online. Data on time spent, page views, or link clicks builds a comprehensive picture of the interests of the people being tracked.This allows for more or less precise user profiles, which are frequently passed on to external providers for serving personalized ads.

Third-Party Cookies Are Being Phased Out

This practice — and especially the sharing of data with third parties — has long drawn criticism from privacy advocates. The European Court of Justice and the GDPR have already heavily regulated the use of third-party cookies. Now Google is following suit, joining Apple and Mozilla. Safari and Firefox have blocked third-party cookies for some time already. For users, this is good news: their data will only be tracked if they explicitly consent to the use of third-party cookies or cookies for advertising purposes.

For marketers and advertisers, the disappearance of third-party cookies isn't the end of the world either. The truly valuable data they need to understand their customers and their needs can be obtained directly and firsthand.

Using First-Party Data the Right Way

All data that companies collect through their own channels and store on their own servers belongs to them and is theirs to use freely. This so-called first-party data includes product and page views, search queries, form submissions, demographic information, as well as contextual and CRM data. Data collected offline counts too. What matters here:

Clean opt-in management Collecting first-party data is also subject to strict data protection regulations. Storing and processing this information requires explicit user consent, which can be revoked at any time. Systematic opt-in management is a basic requirement. Establishing transparency about how personal data is collected and used is just as important as being able to fully and legally document the consent obtained. Whether through checkboxes, single or double opt-in: the better this process is managed, the higher the consent rates.

A clean data pool When user data from different sources is brought together, quality inconsistencies in the data pool often surface. Different levels of granularity need to be reconciled, duplicates removed, and potential data errors filtered out. The effort pays off: the "cleaner" the data pool, the sharper the view of the customer, and the more precisely targeted the customer engagement. Reliable insight into customer wants and needs ultimately allows for solid conclusions about future purchasing behavior.

Many companies don't realize just how valuable the treasure trove of first-party data they already hold really is. Intelligent software solutions, such as those developed by Acceleraid, help refine and make optimal use of a company's own data. They support opt-in management as well as the collection, preparation, consolidation, and processing of data. Deploying state-of-the-art technology helps companies recognize — and respond to — the needs and wants of their customers.