Google no longer plans to kill off third-party cookies on Chrome.
These cookies track users’ behavior as they visit other sites, collecting information that fuels digital advertising, marketing, and broader customer experience initiatives.
Google made the announcement last week after years of delays.
Indeed, the online search giant first said it would end support for third-party cookies by early 2022 once it could address the needs of users, publishers, and advertisers.
Yet, Google kept moving the goalposts, and, by 2024, it got no closer to addressing those needs.
Indeed, most brands remain completely unprepared for the cookie monster’s death.
One 2024 study from Acxiom even suggested as many as 55 percent of CX teams had yet to start implementing any solutions to directly address the deprecation of third-party cookies.
Sharing his thoughts, Matthew Holman, a Prominent IT Lawyer & Partner at Cripps, told CX Today: “In essence, it boils down to Google’s acknowledgment that the marketing industry was not ready for this change.
[Although,] a cynical view would argue that Google didn’t want to upset its massive customer base for advertising, which makes up 80 percent of its revenue.
To Holman’s point, many customer experience leaders will breathe a big sigh of relief.
Nevertheless, just because change isn’t being forced upon them, it doesn’t mean that CX teams should forget this saga ever happened and carry on as normal.
After all, their cookie-based CX systems are slowly crumbling.
The Sugar High Is Over
Despite their prevalence, third-party cookies come with several challenges for CX teams.
First, they track customer data in silos, making it incredibly tricky for brands to connect information across multiple channels, enable omnichannel experiences, and achieve personalization.
Next, there is a significant risk of inaccurate data. For instance, if multiple people from the same house use the same computer, tracking their behavior becomes unreliable.
Moreover, brands typically review third-party data retrospectively, delaying actionable insight.
These factors combine to hinder a consistent 360-degree of the customer experience.
Yet, these CX challenges aren’t the primary drivers of the cookie come down.
Perhaps most significantly, users are finding more ways to block cookies. While other browsers have shut them down entirely, users can block cookies on Chrome with a one-time prompt.
Regulators will also have an impact, as Google’s announcement won’t halt the worldwide shift to tighter privacy regulations, like GDPR and CCPA.
Of course, regulators still tolerate cookies for now, but they are always considering new moves to empower consumers with more control over their data.
As these trends converge, cookie usage will likely continue to decline, and the data they collect will become increasingly flawed, negatively impacting customer engagement strategies’ performance.
Ditching Cookies for a Healthier CX Diet
Already, businesses have shown that they cannot quickly cut cookies out of their diet.
But, they can start to diversify the attribution models they have developed to track customer journeys and conversions.
In doing so, businesses may overcome cookie-related issues, such as their inability to follow the customer as they switch channels and devices.
That inability creates an incomplete picture of their journey. Worse still, many companies will randomly tack cookies onto various users as part of a looser model (if you can even call it that), realizing that many will eventually buy something.
As a result, CX teams often over-fixate on the final steps of the journey – aka. those low-funnel activities – and overlook what initially piqued the customer’s interest.
Given these common flaws, businesses should experiment with more sophisticated models incorporating new targeting and tracking methodologies instead of living off stale cookies forever.
First-party cookies and device fingerprints are two examples, which won’t immediately turn a business’s attribution model upside down.
Meanwhile, brands can further enable privacy-conscious campaigns by embracing methodologies such as contextual targeting.
Contextual targeting presents a company’s ads on web pages that feature content that closely relates to its product/services.
It also gives brands a broader view of top-of-the-funnel initiatives that support the long-term effectiveness of marketing and sales activities.
A Cookie-less Future: It’s Not Pie In the Sky
As consumers and regulators (chocolate) chip away at how brands can track their digital behaviors, many CX tech vendors will double down on the importance of first-party data.
After all, leveraging first-party data can effectively reduce a business’s reliance on third-party tools.
Moreover, it’s often real-time, which is essential for more new-age personalization strategies, a better understanding of customer actions, and a 360-degree customer view.
As such, expect them to double down on how essential it is to create a central hub for integrating and analyzing this first-party data.
Of course, vendors will also rant about how AI will play a vital role in real-time CX decision-making and enhancing relevant customer interactions.
Yet, while all this is true, there are smaller steps businesses can take to lower their cookie dependency – such as reviewing the current attribution model and trialing those new targeting and tracking methodologies.
After Google’s decision, many may now delay or shelve this research altogether. But, ultimately, the core issues with cookies will continue.
By considering how to shift away from them, innovate, and establish new practices, businesses can optimize customer engagement and build customer trust.
