5 Steps Towards A Cookie-Less Future
By Josh Quek, Managing Director, Xaxis Singapore and Emily Yri, Senior Marketing Director APAC, PubMatic
The third-party cookie may have been granted a temporary stay of execution, but the writing is on the wall – it’s going and the industry needs to prepare itself. What does that mean for marketers? It’s a significant change, but thankfully there is more to digital advertising than third-party unattributed cookies.
The IAB Southeast Asia and India Programmatic Council recently had an industry discussion led by Josh Quek, Managing Director, Xaxis Singapore and Emily Yri, Senior Marketing Director APAC, Pubmatic on this important topic. The result? If you’re a marketer, here are some steps you can take now to prepare your brand for the cookie-less future.
Get to grips with your first-party data. In the absence of third-party cookies, a brand’s first-party data becomes more valuable than ever, and brands often have access to more data than they think. Now is the time to do a thorough audit of your data to understand what you’ve got and how you can make full use of it. Despite Google’s latest announcement, the urgency for marketers to understand their data remains.
Find out what other first-party data is available to you. There are other sources of valuable first-party data; such as publisher data. Many publishers have gathered significant data on the interests of subscribers who go beyond their paywalls. As third-party cookies meet their demise, publishers are making the most of this information and building fences around what has become their unique value proposition. It’s time to start asking which data sources make sense for your brand and how you can leverage them. Agencies are also moving in this direction, to work with clients to realize the value of their first-party data, consult on and implement their data and technology strategies, and advise on privacy-first approaches to navigate the fast-changing data landscape.
Think beyond data targeting. There are other ways to target your audiences – contextual targeting can be a good way to reach relevant audiences in a cookie-less world, especially for branding campaigns. Contextual has come a long way since the days of yore – there are many more options, so start working on your contextual strategy now. This is not only good news for advertisers, but consumers are reacting positively to contextual targeting. According to the IAS ‘Power of context research in March 2021’ they found that APAC consumers are extremely receptive to contextually relevant ads: The report suggests a majority of consumers in APAC — 96% in Indonesia, 91% consumers in Singapore, 86% consumers in Australia, and 75% in Japan — prefer digital ads to appear alongside relevant content.
Evaluate and update your partnerships. Spend time now to understand what the partners along your digital supply chains bring to the table and the value they can add in a cookie-less future. Don’t make the mistake of only looking at this as a cost cutting exercise as cost is made up of many different factors. Each partner brings a different value proposition to the table and it is these unique insights and offerings that distinguish one from the other. Choosing a vendor simply because they offer the lowest price, ignores the business reality and requirements of your brand. Find out more now so you can have the right partnerships in place for long term success in the future.
Consider using this industry upheaval as an opportunity to redefine success. The way you measure performance will have to change in a cookie-less future, so now is the time to re-evaluate models and metrics, and to set new ground rules that mean campaign success is more closely aligned to business success. Marketers need to have the conversation with their partners on how to redefine campaign successes that are more aligned with their overall business goals and objectives. Going back to a time where measuring clicks was seen as the gold standard of advertising success is not an option.
The real take-away here should be this; the sky is not falling – third-party cookie deprecation is not the death knell for digital advertising, but rather an opportunity to re-evaluate, redefine success and build something better for the future.
This post was written by Josh Quek, Managing Director, Xaxis Singapore and Emily Yri, Senior Marketing Director APAC, PubMatic