Cookies Are So Yesterday: Even as Google Stalls, Marketers Must Move On

It turns out, Google’s plan to remove support for third-party cookies needs a little more time to bake.

In details shared in a recent blog post, Google is expanding testing of the Privacy Sandbox initiative to better ensure the new approach “provides effective, privacy-preserving technologies and the industry has sufficient time to adopt these new solutions.” As of this writing, Google now intends to begin phasing out third-party cookies in Chrome in the second half of 2024.

This isn’t the first time the phase-out of third-party cookies has been pushed back, but the delays don’t mean you should put off making a switch. Everything indicates third-party cookies will be phased out eventually, and in light of other privacy issues and regulations—such as Apple’s increased privacy measures—marketers who don’t explore their options now will be left behind. 

At OMI, we’ve seen many of our customers transition to people-based identity solutions that offer greater visibility into online and offline data while maintaining privacy. Identity graphs represent an innovative example of these solutions, pulling data from multiple quality sources and anonymizing the profiles to ensure privacy. As an example, OMI’s specialized SMB and medical market data is available on LiveRamp’s RampID identity graph, offering a match rate of 67 million B2B records. You can read more about the power of match rates here.

Identity graphs can include several identifiers per person—including name, company name, address, email address, phone numbers and devices. The data is anonymized and does not contain personally identifiable information (PII), so it cannot be used to trace an individual's identity. The anonymized IDs are built within the identity graph and securely taken to a DSP for delivery of a brand’s or agency’s display ads.

Another avenue that is offering a successful alternative to third-party cookies is intent monitoring. Intent insights are obtained when buyers’ online activities are anonymously monitored, captured and analyzed based on website visits, content downloads, product reviews, registration for webinars, etc., to uncover purchase intent signals that can be used to improve and tailor email campaigns, content marketing, programmatic advertising, account-based marketing and more. Combining intent insights matched to contact data from an identity graph, advertisers can build even more custom audiences that are in-market for their offers and remain in compliance with emerging requirements.

From my perspective, the good thing about Google’s cookie phase-out delay is that it gives marketers more time to explore their options. Tracking cookies was critical for advertising for decades, but that’s not the only way anymore. It’s time for marketers to move on.

Over 75 million of OMI’s 80 million manager-level and above contacts are matched to the LiveRamp RampID graph, including 65 million records from our SMB and medical market databases. Contact us today to learn more about building a custom audience.