As the sun sets on third-party cookies, Cheetah Digital‘s new study reveals marketers are anxious about personalizing customer data at scale, but also understand that deeper insights are the key to thriving in this new landscape.
Overview: a call to action
Marketing and ad personalisation is undergoing a tectonic shift (several shifts, in fact) that have left marketers and agencies perplexed. Throughout the advertising ecosystem there is a realisation that technologies can go only so far in targeting customers and in personalising messages. Many seem slow to recognise the dangers in not taking full advantage of emerging personalisation methods and adjust to new marketing realities.
Google’s decision to stop selling ads that target users’ browsing habits, and to no longer allow third-party cookies that collect that data on its Chrome browser, means companies need to find alternate ways to personalise their marketing and advertising. But according to a new survey by Cheetah Digital, “Path to Personalization,” many marketers indicate they still plan to rely on cookies—even after Google announced that it would block such third-party data from Chrome by January 2022.
Why? According to Cheetah Digital’s analysis, many marketers are relying on their media agencies to “fix” the issues and give them a path forward. Alternately, they simply don’t know how disruptive it is to rely on third-party data as their ad strategy in the near-future. The fact is, not all players are currently equipped to embrace new personalisation models and thrive—or even survive.
Those who turn a blind eye to the death of the cookie, the changes in the advertising landscape, and the essential role of personalisation in marketing and advertising are doomed to fail.
Personalisation at a crossroads
Here, we’ll address several issues derived from “Path to Personalization”, and map out a path forward. In essence, our general findings rein force the following:
- The use of cookies has made marketers over-reliant on the technology—in fact, has made some lazy—and has loosened essential customer connections in the process.
- Google’s planned cookie replacement, FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts), is not granular enough for effective marketing and ad personalisation.
- Chrome’s dominance of the browser market means relying on the use of cookies with alternate browsers does not scale adequately, and at any rate is a losing game for marketers and agencies that want to use true one-to-one personalisation.
- First-party data can go only so far—in fact it’s too coarse—in optimising personalisation that delights and engages customers. Further, the continued use of third-party data marketing integrations is being disrupted by privacy concerns.
- Evolving realities make it essential for marketers to know their customers better, offer a value exchange that incentivises long-term engagement, and assemble their own databases not reliant on other sources. Among the most promising and effective is what is now being called “zero-party data.”
With all the current disruptions in marketing personalisation, brands need to collect and own their own data to establish closer, long-lasting relationships with customers. Loyalty programmes based on zero-party data can create a better value exchange to ensure strong direct customer engagement.