A New Cookie for a New Era: What to Do Without Third Party Cookies

This is part two of our four-part blog series on the transition away from the use of third-party cookies. Check out the first part if you missed it for more information on what third-party cookies are and what they’re used for in the world of marketing and business!

Who Relies on Third Party Cookies?

A marketer or advertiser used to having third-party data on customers, now going without third-party cookies, is like an adventurer without a map. They know what they’re trying to accomplish, in this case, sell and advertise their products and services, but they have no way of knowing the right path to doing that. In this case, the tracking and visit data provided by third-party cookies allowed advertisers to know the best places to promote their business to catch the eyes of potential customers. Now that many tech companies and Internet browsers are phasing out this data, advertisers are looking for alternatives.

Businesses that would employ tech or marketing firms that used third-party cookies to provide insights on customer behavior and visits are now looking for alternatives. This data of where to look for potential customers and what platforms would drive the most traffic towards a given product or website was vital in the world of online business. Knowing the best places to advertise allowed for targeted ad buying based on generalized visitor rates to websites allowed for less specific targeting that businesses probably would like, but offered some insight into the best ways to channel internet traffic.

The Impact of Going Without Third Party Cookies

Google has announced that instead of creating a specific alternative to the function of third-party cookies, their Privacy Sandbox initiative would be centered around developing better standards to support users’ privacy and security. This shift is happening for many businesses, since continuing to use third-party cookies will lead to incomplete pictures of customer behavior, as well as customers who want their data more secure to feel unvalued.

Privacy when it comes to data and tracking is hugely important to customers. According to the Harvard Business Review, forty-one percent of U.S. consumers regularly delete cookies, and 30% have installed an adblocker. These days, scams and phishing schemes have made Internet users wary of what data of theirs is available to outside sources. Third-party cookies may be smaller bits of data about just visiting or taking actions on certain websites, but it is still unsettling that data about a person’s internet behavior is being collected without their knowledge or consent. So in this manner, shifting away from third-party cookies is a shift toward protecting and valuing customers’ data security and privacy.

This shift is matched by the increase in legislation around the world specific to data security and user consent to collecting and sharing data. The implementation of EU’s GDPR and California’s CCPA shows how writing this need for privacy into law is shaping how businesses collect and store customer and visitor data.

First Party Cookies Direct from Customers

First-party cookies are data points on internet use collected directly from customers by the company that will analyze them. This data is collected with the customers’ consent and is stored securely to respect that data. This data is not as anonymized as third-party cookies, which helps drive demographic and interest-based analysis around the data being collected. This way, the analysis can show who is visiting a business’ website and provide insight on why they are visiting and what factors are going into their willingness to purchase or not. These valuable insights for better tracking traffic and interest in a business’s product or service can help make more informed decisions for targeted ad buys and marketing campaigns, so that you know who is interested in your business and how best to move them from potential customer to full-on promoter of your products.

OSG o360 is just such a tool for gathering and analyzing customer segments related to your business. Our solutions team will work to understand who your potential and die-hard customers are, what drives their purchasing decisions, and how best to keep their interest while expanding your customer base. OSG o360 is designed to track omnichannel customer behavior, both in-store and online, to give you a 360-degree view of your customers’ behavior so you can make the best decisions to drive growth for your business. With the power of our behavioral analytics methodology, ASEMAP, we’re not only able to understand past and present customer behavior using the first-party data we collect, but we’re able to model that to predict future customer behavior. This way, you know what your customers’ current and future unmet needs are, to make the business decisions to give your customers the best experience you can.

Our solutions use first-party customer cookies, so we can get you the best data for your business decisions and needs. Contact us to learn about how our methods can solve your business problems!

These businesses depend on understanding their customers and their needs in order to continue evolving for the digital and modern times. Contact us to learn more about how we can help you predict your customers’ future needs to help your business grow!