Why Google Fell Back on Third-Party Cookies and Why You Shouldn’t

Why Google Fell Back on Third-Party Cookies and Why You Shouldn't plus what to do

By now I’m sure most have heard the (not so) surprising news that Google will not be deprecating third-party cookies.

Much has been written about the business reasons for this decision, with analysis on the net effect across the industry, for the buy-side as an advertiser, sell-side as the publisher, and across the martech/adtech industry.

The consensus is that Google failed to innovate its way out of the problem; balancing pressures across the buy- and supply-sides, regulation pressure, trade group feedback; all in a manner where Google could maintain if not exceed its dominance within the digital media market. This dominance would consist of further consolidation of inventory pools on the supply-side and media dollars on the buy-side, competing against Meta, Amazon and the long-tail of open programmatic players. Their latest attempt at an alternative solution – the Privacy Sandbox – was obviously not ready in terms of coming up against a hard time-based deadline. More critical analysis is reflective of the fact that this has been a four year fiasco of failures across both strategy and execution; and will mark a turning point for Google in terms of a gradual decline in this dominance.

This decision does provide short-term relief, most acutely felt on the publisher supply-side; where recent tests and studies estimated significant ad revenue loss.

But what does it mean on the buy-side? If you’re a brand — how do you take this news and what pivots should you undertake in the short and long-term?

The answer — it shouldn’t change current plans (perhaps aside from having more time to figure out mechanics of working with the Privacy Sandbox). Here my is take on why, with solutions built on first-party data that support a smarter approach — cookies or not.

What’s Coming for Third-Party Cookies

There will continue to be shrinking inventory pools of third-party cookies. Google will be introducing a new Chrome experience that will most likely include a more explicit “opt-out of tracking” function. Something akin to Apple’s App-Tracking Transparency (ATT) put in place in 2021. And let’s not forget that we’re really talking about the Chrome browser in the US market. Safari, Firefox, the entirety of the EU as per GDPR regulation is not in this equation.

It’s not as if legacy ad-tech tools built on top of third-party cookie inventory pools are coming back. I’m talking about Salesforce DMP, Adobe Audience Manager, and Oracle Advertising. No one will be dusting the cobwebs off these tools.

ActionIQ has been at the forefront of the Customer Data Platform (CDP) industry in bringing a first-party based foundation, enabling brands to offboard outdated tools in favor of a solution that allows the unification of profiling and audience-based activation orchestration, interoperable across ID spaces that have been actively replacing third-party cookies; as well as identity solutions that leverage third party cookies while they are still available.

More Innovation, Less Fallback

What we’ll see isn’t a fallback on old solutions — it’s more innovation into exciting, more performant and more privacy-oriented alternatives. Many alternative solutions are inherently future-proof and scalable, in terms of the inventory, integration options and privacy. Examples include Meta CAPI, LinkedIn CAPI; SSP curation such as OpenX’s Cookieless Deal ID Library; as well as universal ID solutions such as UID2.0, ID5, Panorama or TruAudience from TransUnion. The ActionIQ Tag allows our customers to persist a first-party based digital ID, that then connects across a varied identity mix via a server-side integration library to create an addressable keyring around a persisted digital ID and thereby unify web-based retargeting workflows within the ActionIQ CDP.

Unified Workflows, Better Results

With DMPs gone; there is no longer a way to unify the retargeting function across a brand’s media mix using third-party cookies. Brands are still faced with cobbling together a mix of tools and workflows across walled gardens, DSPs, onboarders and data providers. The ability to unify these workflows through platforms like ActionIQ extends across both first-party based ID solutions as well third-party cookie based. One example is The Trade Desk, where ActionIQ can interoperate both across its UID2.0 graph as well as its third-party cookie-based TTD_ID (which now just got a reprieve).

Composable CDPs and the Future of Measurement

There will be little if no pivots with both current and future evolutions of measurement. We don’t expect third-party cookie based MTA platforms to come back.

The notion of tracking behaviors across the entirety of a brands’ digital media mix at a user-level grain is not viable, given Google and Meta’s position in the market. More surgical approaches will be applied across walled-garden, cloud-based and independent cleanrooms.

In terms of broad-level, unified views; the industry will continue to move towards MMM-based approaches on top of data foundations powered by cloud platform vendors such as Snowflake, Databricks, and mores and GCP.

ActionIQ’s composable architecture provides synergy with functional solutions that support these measurement solution strategies. where persisted digital profiles collected via the ActionIQ Tag are stored within the cloud platform, along with audience and journey orchestration logic created within the ActionIQ CDP.

Combined with adtech ETL tools, data foundations are created that are joined across profile (where possible), audience, channel, creative and campaign grains. This becomes the basis for closed-loop measurement, optimized MMM-based insights, and AI-based models such as audience-based prediction and next-best-action.

Third-Party Cookies: Forgotten, But Not Gone

Google’s decision not to deprecate third-party cookies represents a significant shift in the advertising landscape. While it relieves immediate pressure on the supply side, it shouldn’t drastically alter strategies for brands and advertisers.

The focus remains on first-party data solutions and innovative, future-proof alternatives. ActionIQ continues to lead in providing robust CDP solutions, enabling brands to transition from outdated tools to more integrated and scalable approaches. Embracing these advanced technologies will ensure better audience engagement, unified workflows, and more accurate measurement, positioning brands for long-term success in an evolving digital environment.

Reach out to our team to see how we help leading brands like HP, Dell, Atlassian, The Washington Post and more boost their advertising strategy with first-party data.

Zachary Van Doren
Zachary Van Doren
Head of Strategy, Identity & Adtech
Marketing technology and data leader with 20+ years' experience helping enterprise brands in their digital transformation efforts, working across marketing, data and technology teams. Prior experience includes the founding and leadership of CMO Labs, one of the industry’s first CDP consulting firms.
Table of Contents

    Featured Posts

    More From Our Blog

    The Ultimate Guide to Audience Segmentation: Best Practices and Strategies

    What is audience segmentation? Audience segmentation is a marketing strategy that divides your audience into smaller groups based on shared traits, helping businesses target marketing efforts and design strategies more…

    • Acquisition Marketing
    • Customer Experiences
    • Personalization at Scale
    The Ultimate Guide to Customer Lifetime Value

    What is customer lifetime value? Customer lifetime value (CLV) is a metric that measures the total revenue a business can expect from a single customer over their entire relationship. It’s…

    • Acquisition Marketing
    Acquisition Marketing - Top Strategies for Profitable Growth

    What is acquisition marketing? Acquisition marketing refers to the strategies and tactics used to attract and convert new customers or users for a business. It focuses on bringing potential customers…

    • Acquisition Marketing

    Discover the Power of Data in Motion