What Cookie-Free Marketing Could Mean for Your Company

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll have seen that the cookie jar lid has officially been put back on the jar. Google announced in January 2020 that it would no longer be supporting third-party cookies via its Chrome browser. As such, they were working towards being cookie-free by 2023.

For businesses, this has certainly thrown a spanner into the works as up until then, a lot of marketing and data collection relied on the use of third-party cookies.

With a study finding, 83% of marketers using third-party cookies currently, it’s something that will be hard to adapt to once those cookies are gone for good.

In this guide, we’ll look at the importance of third-party cookies and how they’ve helped marketers until now. You’ll learn what marketing will mean in a cookie-free world and how you can change your marketing, for your company moving forward.

Third-party cookies are placed on a website that isn’t owned by those placing the cookies. It helps to collect user data for the third party, which can be used to understand user behavior and what they may benefit from when it comes to marketing materials.

These third-party cookies have been integral for a lot of businesses to advertise to the right people and with the right content. The purpose of third-party cookies is to boost advertising and hopefully drive up sales and page hits to the site.

What does a cookie-free world mean for your company?

While there are still third-party cookies being used, once these go, what does it mean for your company? It’s still somewhat unknown but it might mean that marketers move away from behavioral advertising which is how many have managed to effectively sell to their customers.

It will certainly impact an advertiser’s ability to help target to potential customers by not having the same access to this third-party website data.

In a cookie-free world, many companies will have to look at their marketing strategy, and find a new way to approach their customers. A regression in marketing opportunities might occur, however, it seems that a lot of European businesses that have had to deal with GDPR have moved to geo-located and contextual advertising. 

Learn more with this helpful guide to cookies

Despite cookies becoming obsolete in 2023 for most, it’s still worth learning about them and how they’ve benefited businesses up until now. If you’re a new business, then it’s good to learn about what they are and how you’ll need to adapt your business to a cookie-free world. You can learn more with this helpful guide to cookies by Osano.

There are many benefits to third-party cookies, making it a marketing method that a lot of marketers will struggle to let go of. However, online marketing is all about adapting, and with a cookie-free world, it’s something that many modern businesses will have to adapt to, otherwise, it could lead to a fall in sales and growth.

It helps to identify users’ likes and dislikes online

With third-party cookies, they’re a great way at looking at a user’s behavior to understand their likes and dislikes when browsing online. It can deliver some pretty detailed information that can help marketers to enhance their online marketing so that it’s appeasing those that see the advertising themselves.

Knowing your user’s dislikes and likes is a great way to form a stronger relationship with them and create better products further down the line.

Creates more detailed target personas

With more data from third-party cookies, companies can understand who their target customers are and as such can create more detailed target personas. The persona of your customer can range depending on the type of products or services you’re selling.

When your target personas are more detailed, you’re more likely to find success in selling to your customers. 

Improves marketing efforts and makes them more meaningful

With any additional data a business gathers, it can help improve marketing efforts by making them more meaningful. Much like improving target personas and discovering the user’s likes and dislikes, it creates a more personable user experience.

With more meaningful connections, it grows a community and loyal following in those that convert to customers and will hopefully come back time and time again.

It’s a constant source of data for a business to utilize

Third-party cookies can gather a wealth of data and this is a great source of data that can be very beneficial to a business. It’s why many companies are panicking due to the hindrance it might cause to a company’s ability to collect the right data that’s needed.

For cookie-free marketing in 2022, it’s important to realize that whilst it may be painful in the short term, adapting to a cookie-free world is going to help your business in the future. Here are a few helpful tips to help improve your marketing in 2022 and beyond.

1. Utilize first-party analytics.

Building relationships with your customers is likely to become even more important than ever before. With third-party cookies, you didn’t need to necessarily interact with the users directly but with a cookie-free world, you’re likely going to need to do this moreso.

With first-party data, you’re collecting the data directly from the customers, whether that’s through focus groups to email surveys. It’s just as effective, if not more so to help put the puzzle pieces together when targeting your customers. However, it is a little more challenging and time-consuming to do.

Analytics can still be gained through platforms like Google Analytics for example when it comes to your own website. Take advantage of any and all data you get from your users paid or otherwise.

2. Improve methods to encourage more signups.

It’s important that you’re making your website as user-friendly as possible and to provide plenty of incentives in order to improve the number of signups and user registrations you’re getting on the site.

Integrate more CTA’s where you can and use them in the form of pop-up reminders to ensure the user is signing up before they leave the page.

Be sure to keep sign-ups short and sweet and limit the form fields in an email so that they’re more inclined to fill it in. The incentives could be anything from discount codes to freebies – everyone loves a freebie.

3. Make more content online.

Content is powerful online and it’s something that any business can do freely and they’re able to upload as much or as little as possible.

When it comes to content marketing, 55% of successful content marketing strategies were focused on improving the quality of content. According to Semrush and many online influences for SEO and digital marketing, are keen to stress the importance of content.

The longer the user stays on your website, the more data you gather. You’re also more likely to have further success in converting leads to customers with quality content. Both informational and transactional content should be utilized.

4. Take a customer-centric approach

The stronger your relationships with your customers, the better. In such a competitive world, the control is very much within the customer themselves. If they’re not happy, they can simply choose to look elsewhere and find something new that gives them what they want.

A customer-centric approach is a buzzword that tends to be floating around a lot nowadays and it’s something that needs to be used, especially when it comes to the loss of cookies. 

Get close to your customers and don’t be afraid to outreach more to them through a variety of channels, whether it’s on your website or through various marketing methods.

5. Outsource services to gather more data

The difficulty that some businesses can have when it comes to gathering first-party data is not having enough resources in-house to do it. There are still plenty of companies out there that you could outsource in order to take control of this data collection, whether it’s setting up regular focus groups to market research.

There’s really no excuse not to use outsourcing as a business and if you’re limited internally, why should you stunt the growth of your business?

It can be easier said than done when it comes to panicking about a world that’s free from third-party cookies. However, for any marketer or marketing team, adaptability should be in their middle name. 

The internet is one that will continue to change how we gather data and use it, so don’t be afraid of cookies being taken away, embrace it. Think about how you could adapt as a business so that you can continue to thrive and grow within this new era of the internet.