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Why Google’s Cookie Decision Doesn’t Change the Direction of the Industry

  • Travis Clinger
  • 3 min read

Today, Google Chrome announced that instead of deprecating third-party cookies, they will enable users to make an informed choice around their browser preferences. This is a major development and welcome news for those still preparing for a cookieless future, but not one that changes where our ecosystem is headed: marketers want to personalise and measure the consumer journey – across display, social, search, CTV, mobile, SMS, email, and more – while consumers rightfully want unprecedented control and transparency of their privacy.

Over the past five years, marketers have been strategically shifting away from third-party signals to better performing, authenticated signals – and we expect that shift to continue. This announcement reinforces the need for the industry to embrace authenticated identity, while simultaneously using the cookie to maximise reach. In short, marketers and the industry now have flexibility to evolve. For LiveRamp marketers and publishers, the better-performing future is already here through a combination of utilising both cookies and authenticated identifiers:

  • 50% of the web is already cookieless: Safari, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge collectively represent nearly 50% of the web; CTV is cookieless; mobile in-app is cookieless; as Google rolls out additional opt-out features, Chrome may end up more cookieless, just as ATT influenced Apple’s traffic. The future of AI chat-bots and the iOT is cookieless. Building a marketing stack around third-party cookies alone won’t connect you to all the places your customers are, anymore.
  • RampID works better today: Countless brand marketers have implemented and tested LiveRamp’s durable, privacy-centric identifier. RampID and found that it offers performance many times better than those powered by third-party cookies alone – just ask Omni Hotels & Resorts, which saw a 4x increase in conversion rates by adopting PAIR. 80%+ of LiveRamp’s marketers today leverage RampID in their buys – accessing inventory across Safari, Firefox, and CTV.
  • Marketers who want to implement cutting-edge innovations must look at solutions that span authenticated and cookie – a combination that generates best-in-class reach and performance: Pick any one of the transformative marketing solutions that are changing the way we work, from CTV to Retail Media Networks. To power results here, better solutions than cookies alone are needed, and those that have already stopped relying on them are well on their way to taking advantage of the latest innovations.

Omnichannel is better

Marketers want to reach consumers where they’re spending time, and that’s increasingly on CTV and mobile apps – two of third-party cookies’ most glaring blind spots. Cookies’ strength, open web programmatic advertising, is just one of the many channels where marketers need to engage their customers.

LiveRamp will continue to innovate and embrace new and simplified ways to reach consumers in channels as they emerge, to enable marketers to reach users on the most premier inventory. In just the last few years, this has included direct cookieless integrations with the most premium publishers; tying together SMS and email exposures with media; and a wave of CTV for both direct deals and programmatic advertising.

This is just the beginning: at LiveRamp, we’re not focused on how we solve for any single channel, but rather how we make every consumer experience addressable and measurable, and improving on the third-party cookie is just one small part of that. Marketers and publishers need sustainable solutions that will stand the test of time, beyond regulations, browser changes, and more. We’ve developed, and will continue to invest in, these solutions, and will continue to work with new customers and partners to make this journey seamless.

Reach out to [email protected] to learn how you can adopt LiveRamp’s Authenticated Traffic Solution or add RampID and PAIR to your campaign today.