After teasing the phasing out of third-party cookies for many years now, Google has finally started to put its promise into action. 

Third-party cookies have historically been an important part of accurately tracking how visitors arrive at your website, as well as what their interests are (based on other websites they’ve interacted with). 

Why is Google phasing out third-party cookies? 

Cookies may have long been familiar to marketers, but the general public now has a much better understanding of what cookies are, and how they are used – and they don’t like it. 

With the acceptance rate of cookies under 50% in the UK, it’s clear that users are increasingly wary. 

There are security concerns, too. Third-party cookies can give bad actors access to a user’s personal information or an opportunity to install malware on their device. 

What does it mean for marketing teams? 

Great marketing decisions are founded on watertight data. Whether it’s the decline of cookie acceptance or the phasing out of third-party cookies, it’s clear that cookies are no longer a reliable way to achieve this. 

But marketers are nothing if not adaptable. So many have already started pivoting to new strategies. A few paid marketing experts told us they’re already finding new ways to plug the gaps: 

“New cookie rules make tracking harder. We now use first-party data and focus on building better customer relationships to get direct insights.” – Paolo Piscatelli, CEO of Alarm Relay

The more you can use first-party data to build up a picture of your customers, the better. You can create your own segments based on how your existing customers shop your website, and feed this back into the messaging of the ads you create, and the audience you create them for. 

You can build up a bank of useful first-party data insights by manipulating existing Google Analytics data in new ways, or installing new website tracking tools. But you can also ramp up how you gather both qualitative and quantitative data through: 

• Surveys
• Customer calls 
• Social media comments 
• Customer support tickets
• Asking questions when someone signs up for your newsletter or creates an account

Other alternatives to try

Besides gathering new first-party data, there are other strategies you can try. 

Contextual targeting typically involves placing an ad for your product on a relevant website. So a skiwear brand, for example, might place an ad on a website or article relating to skiing. 

And of course, AI is never far from the post-cookie conversation. While AI won’t be able to provide an alternative to cookie data, AI and machine learning tools can help you draw smarter conclusions from existing data within Google Analytics. 

👋 FERO uses over 430 unique data points (that don’t rely on cookies) to gain a clear understanding of each person who lands on your website and what they need in order to make it through checkout. Our Checkout Companion plugs straight into your Shopify or e-commerce store and helps you optimise your website for each individual customer. 

But we’re not just another analytics tool. We actually change how customers view your website depending on who they are and their shopping habits, making their checkout experience as smooth as it possibly can be, and helping lower your cart abandonment rate on autopilot. Try FERO for free.