The year of cookies going away has turned into the year we decided that cookies couldn’t go away.
As a quick refresher: Google had told the digital community that 3rd party cookies would finally be deprecated by the end of the year and had introduced an alternative solution to fill the gap called ‘Privacy Sandbox’. The solution was intended to maintain similar levels of results for marketers and publishers in a more privacy-compliant way. Unfortunately for Google, a wide variety of voices—media groups, publishers, trade organizations—who were testing the solution found it to be less than satisfactory.
The final death knell for Privacy Sandbox may have come via the IAB’s Privacy Sandbox Fit Gap Analysis Report which found that “Privacy Sandbox will restrict the digital media industry's ability to deliver relevant, effective advertising, placing smaller media companies and brands at significant risk. The lack of functionality will throttle their ability to compete, ultimately impacting the industry’s growth.”
So, long story short, cookies will be sticking around for the time being.
One of the silver linings of the cookie crisis whiplash the industry had to endure is that, in preparation, many players made material progress on first party data strategy development. We’ve seen media companies like Disney build new audience ID technology, publishers such as Hearst develop strong first party data targeting capabilities and even big tech companies including Meta and Google double-down on privacy focused identity matching services. This emphasis on first-party data strategy and quality concerns continue to drive the industry toward better execution and preparation
On the other hand, despite some progress and innovation in the media space, the industry remains stifled by underlying issues of quality, veracity and brand safety. All of this is a reminder that while we are in a mature era of digital marketing, there is a long way to go in terms of shoring up quality activations and that we must remain vigilant about monitoring campaign delivery.
