How marketers will reach customers without third-party tracking

With Google now delaying its replacement plan until 2024, the lid on the third-party-cookie jar remains open. But the threat of its closing looms, and has caused marketers to start thinking about (and testing) ways to reach customers without third-party tracking.

“I think for the longest [time], we’ve just relied on this third-party cookie, and it was laziness,” Ricardo Diaz, chief digital officer at ad agency Omelet, told us, adding that brands were “able to get a pretty good idea of of consumers without really having to have a relationship with them.”

Now, many are looking for creative ways—both new and old—to develop those relationships and collect first- and zero-party data.

[Kendall Jenner voice] I think you should experience it

In the last year, Diaz said it’s been interesting to see brands embrace new technology, like Web3, to acquire first-party data. By using new platforms, Diaz said brands have the opportunity to collect registration information from customers looking to explore on their way in.

“There’s a lot of metaverse activations that leave me scratching my head [about] why this brand is going into this world,” he said. “Once I took a step back and thought about it, a lot of that had to do with having that connection with the customer and having that opportunity to get that first-party data.”

While Diaz said he’s not yet a huge proponent of Web3 or the metaverse given its infancy and current usability, the ability to interact with customers could also be seen as a value proposition even if it ends up failing.

But not every customer will necessarily want to become a glorified Mii character in a virtual world. That’s where IRL touchpoints come into play.

“Experience is the currency,” Krystal Olivieri, chief innovation officer at GroupM, told us. “It’s no longer just the transactional component. [People] want something they can post on social media. They want something that they can talk about with their friends.”

Olivieri said the end of the cookie is just another reason why brands need to think about how they engage with consumers in an experiential way. And, presumptively, get the data they need in those RSVPs.

Let’s get personal

Jay Eckert, founder of web design agency Parachute Design Group, told us it’s reasonable to expect traffic from ads to decrease once third-party cookies are gone. To succeed post-cookie, he expects websites will get “a lot more personal,” offering things like log-ins and shopping wish lists where consumers opt in to sharing their information and preferences.

On social, Olivieri said she’s seen more pop-ups asking customers to share information so products can be customized for them. “That’s really smart because you’re not just getting a customized product, you’re actually getting information from a consumer that can be very detailed, very personal, to be able to inform your product development process, as well as your messaging.”

Polls, surveys, and webforms are other data-collection methods Eckert said brands can use for engagement, but emphasized that timing is key. If a page loads and a survey pops up immediately, he said, “That’s going to irritate just about everybody.”

It’s important, he said, to create a comfortable and transparent environment so customers know sharing information is a choice “There has to be that consent and that communication and some sort of interaction to establish that trust,” he said.

Back to basics

Eckert noted that trust is needed whether someone is online or giving a store their zip code and email at checkout. That practice, often associated with rewards sign-ups or loyalty programs, is as old as time (who among us hasn’t given a brand our birthday in exchange for 15% off?).

Diaz expects loyalty programs to continue to be just as—if not more—important once cookies go away, but emphasized that companies need to treat it as a two-way street. “If ​​I’m going to give you my information, what are you going to get me? That relationship is leaning toward more of the consumer side than ever before,” he said.

Another pre-cookie marketing tactic that seems to be on the up and up is snail mail. Polly Wong, president at direct marketing agency Belardi Wong, told us last month that data privacy laws are partly behind the company’s recent growth. She said it always recommends that clients use coupon codes in mailers to drive conversions.

While not an old-school tactic per se, influencer marketing also tends to come with some sort of promo code or offer. Influencer marketers recently told Marketing Brewthat the industry’s growing focus on privacy may have helped to spur the sector’s recent growth.

At the end of the day, Diaz said that “brands have to find ways to add value or utility to people’s lives.” If done well, he said, people will interact and share their information willingly.