The cookieless world is not near; it’s here now. Planning for a completely cookieless tomorrow means starting today to position your company for success before cookies are completely eliminated.
For a deeper dive into the topic, watch the recent eMarketer Tech-Talk webinar “Let the Cookie Crumble: Take a Bite Into the Already-Cookieless Internet,” which highlights what success looks like in the cookieless world, featuring speakers from Quantcast as well as stakeholders from the both the buy side and the sell side.
Here’s a brief recap of the salient points discussed.
A successful cookieless solution should incorporate multiple signals.
Heinz Baumann, Head of Product Privacy and Identity at Quantcast, pointed out that Safari, which is the default browser on iOS, leaves over 50% of the addressable market without a way to successfully attribute and measure campaigns or even retarget users today. With that in mind, there are many different approaches to shifting to cookieless environments, including deterministic IDs, cohorts, third-party data, and contextual data. Simply using one of these approaches will not be successful. Quantcast’s flexible, multi-signal approach to cookieless advertising is what enables successful outcomes today. Quantcast “actually does all of the attribution measurement on that campaign.”
“Quantcast has direct measurement solutions built into our platform, so advertisers can evaluate audience sizes and directly see the impact that their cookieless campaigns are having on their overall programmatic strategy. By and large, our advertisers are reporting a competitive advantage and great results for running cookieless today. Quantcast is able to compare their first-party data to all these unique identifiers,” explained Michael Sandor, Head of Field Sales East for Quantcast. That ability “sets us up to not be dependent on one sole solution, so we can be nimble and adapt as a solution changes over time.” A few of the agencies and brands that currently use Quantcast’s cookieless solution are m/SIX, PMG, Symprove, Vodafone, and Virgin Money, in addition to the webinar participants Add3 and Digital New Agency (DNA).
Advertisers need to work closely with publishers and tech solutions that complement each other.
If you’re an advertiser, you will not be able to reach your audience in a cookieless environment if you don’t have the tools to do it, notes Jonas Lidén, Director of Fusion from Digital New Agency. He recommends that every client start testing cookieless solutions and work closely with both publishers and tech platforms that complement each other.
Publisher partners need to understand how cookieless solutions will help them monetize their audiences and drive business success.
Representing the supply side, Jamie Penkethman, Identity Product Marketing from Index Exchange, acknowledged that there are a lot of solutions in the market that are in various stages of development. Index Exchange is helping inform publishers about the different ways that their buyers will ultimately use these solutions. “Right now, there are immediate opportunities to reach audiences in cookie-restricted browsers, and for publishers to monetize these audiences in these cookieless environments,” said Jamie. He also mentioned that they try to impress upon their customers that it’s not only about thinking about the future, but also there are opportunities right now that can drive business success.
The right solution can help companies get insights from different audience segments.
It’s important for advertisers and publishers to become familiar with the solutions that are out there. When cookies go away, Jamie pointed out that there will be two types of audiences: authenticated audiences and non-authenticated audiences, each of which have a different set of available solutions. Both advertisers and publishers need to understand what portion of their customers are authenticating and what portion are not; that way, they can invest their time accordingly, finding solutions to reach, measure, and monetize these two different groups, as the techniques and tactics are very different for each.
Chris Barr, Senior Account Manager from Add3, said that Add3 uses Quantcast’s audience planner tool to understand the people who are visiting client sites, what kind of keywords they’re using, what their browsing interests are, and what publishers they’re visiting. These insights from Quantcast can be “very easily turned into a new test, whether you’re brokering a direct deal with a new publisher or through a private marketplace (PMP).” Chris went on to explain that conducting several different tests is really the key; if companies are able to glean insights from collecting that data, they should definitely keep testing while they can.
“Quantcast is a great example of a platform that we’ve been using for many years. First, as a managed service, and later, as self-service. In the past eight months, we have been using their cookieless solution and audience planning, and it’s been working really well,” added Jonas.
Advertisers should focus on the big picture for their clients.
Jonas mentioned that when analyzing audience data, it’s not just about the size of the channels; it’s about understanding a client’s business. Even though acquisition costs may be going down, agencies need to take a step back and look at the whole business of their specific client; are conversions in general going up? Jonas pointed out that with Quantcast, they can see that happening.
The time to take action on cookieless is now.
With over 50% of today’s consumers not being addressable via the third-party cookie, savvy brands, agencies, publishers, and technology companies should jump at the chance now to reach more than half of the internet. Embracing cookieless opportunities today is key to remaining relevant and competitive tomorrow.
Learn more
To watch the “Let the Cookie Crumble: Take a Bite Into the Already-Cookieless Internet” on-demand webinar, click here. You can also read about how brands such as Vodafone and Symprove are using Quantcast to enable activation and measurement without relying on third-party cookies.
Another excellent cookieless resource is “The marketer’s playbook for the post-cookie world,” the new guide from Digiday and Quantcast that presents tactics to leverage the opportunities presented by cookieless environments today.
If you’re ready to get started with cookieless campaigns, click here. You can also contact us to learn more.
About Add3
Add3 is a digital agency that delivers integrated digital marketing campaigns across paid search, SEO, social, and display advertising. They take an integrated, performance-driven approach to connect brands with their customers across digital channels.
About Digital New Agency
Digital New Agency (DNA) supports clients in the areas of new technologies and marketing. The expertise of DNA stretches from building engineering teams that build digital products to creating and executing sales-driven media strategies.
About Index Exchange
Index Exchange is a global advertising marketplace enabling media owners to grow revenue by helping marketers reach consumers on any screen, through any ad format. Their aim is to deliver total market efficiency and value for the programmatic ecosystem at large.