Lou Montulli and John Giannandrea invented digital cookies in 1994 by employees of Netscape Communications. In 1995, the cookie was later widely used in ads by DoubleClick to rotate banners, limiting the number of times the same ad was shown to a single visitor. The advertising technology market quickly took them over.
Break the Cookie Habit
As many advertisements scramble to find new ways to target their audience, cookies have been declining for a while and aren’t as effective as they once were. In 2017, the advertising agency Flashtalking analyzed 20 advertisers worldwide and found that 64% of tracking cookies had been blocked or deleted from web browsers. According to the study, the rejection rates on mobile devices were exceptionally high; 75% of mobile cookies were refused, compared to 41% on desktops.
In 2018, a study by Viant found that many marketers at the time believed that tracking cookies would no longer be needed. Challenges such as audience reach, pricing, privacy, and targeting inaccuracy have been cited as obstacles to digital ads’ success.
Cookie Advertising
Regardless, marketers remain heavily dependent on cookies and will have to prepare and implement new forms of targeting. While alternative ad tech solutions are in development, there are many alternatives that brands can start using now.
1) First-Party Data
Strengthen your use of first-party data. Marketers have relied on third-party data for so long that they often overlooked their first-party data. However, richer, data-driven marketing occurs when first-party and third-party data are used in tandem.
Marketers will need to use data sources that they had not previously considered. Data from call centers, billing systems, social media inquiries, point-of-sale systems, and many other channels all have consumer information you might miss. It’s time to put that data in order, split the data silos, and integrate the sources into one seamless marketing system.
2) Third-Party Data
With the advent of more internal data sources, third-party data can be added to the database. With just a few information fields, such as an email address or a name and email address, any number of data items can be added to understand customers better.
Data Challenges
When acquiring third party information, be sure to use a provider that develops data ethically and follows all privacy policies. In a January 2018 survey by DemandLab of 96 marketing decision-makers in North America, 42% of respondents said third-party information providers are a significant data source for their marketing.
Marketing Data Sources
3) Target Your Web Visitors
Target consumers who are now ready to buy. As marketing technology becomes more sophisticated, more sources of market intent data are developed. V12 offers a solution called V12 Signals to identify consumers visiting physical locations, browsing online, or visiting your website.
For example, by using a cookie-free solution, brands can target their website visitors using an omnichannel approach. Our solution can identify and sell more than 50% of visitors to their website via email, direct mail, and social media.
If the visitor is logged in, the brand can send a direct message (email or direct mail) to that consumer to encourage a purchase—for example, an email for abandoning a shopping cart. In the latter instance, these high-impact keys are limited to the single visitor recognized through a connection (which can be severely distorted by returning customers).
In-Market Shoppers
4) Email Marketing
Today, email is stronger than ever, significantly as brands shifted to digital channels and communication with the rise of the Covid19 pandemic. More than 55% of marketers reported getting the best ROI from email campaigns.
According to HubSpot, email marketers send 27% more emails than they did before the coronavirus. The LiveIntent marketing platform recently released data showing that email newsletter engagement also grew during the pandemic, with gains highest for email newsletters covering finance (43%), uncompromising news (38%), and purchases (83%).
Besides, consider the following points from the V12 agency’s internal team:
Emphasize active users
Urged users are essential to successful email, and they tend to be a very consistent consumer group – today’s users will, in large part, by the users of tomorrow. Therefore, consider unusual, smaller shipments to your affected audience.
Consider activating campaigns targeting previous openers.
Now more than ever, a click-free opening is NOT a sign of lack of interest. Re-engaging previous raisers results in open rates of 30-40% and enjoys four times the traditional audience’s conversion rates.
5) Social Media Marketing
Consider increasing your social media ad spend. If you’re still in doubt about social ads, now might be the time to dig deeper and take the plunge. By using social media advertising tools on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, brands can deliver hyper-targeted ads for specific audiences.
There is no doubt that social media has an impact on the way people buy products.
Before Google disables third-party cookies, marketers need to implement alternatives to target long-term audiences effectively. While solution providers are striving to develop many new ad technology solutions, there are many strategies brands can implement right now to prepare for the future.
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