Tracking and consent remain the backbone of online marketing
The European Court of Justice ruling on the requirement for active consent, as well as the increasing blocking of third-party cookies by major browser manufacturers, has recently sent shockwaves through the advertising industry. Emetriq explains how tracking with cookies can still be successful and what alternative methods advertisers are already using today to ensure that their target audiences will continue to see relevant ads in the future.
Cookies continue to play a central role in the marketing ecosystem, and advertisers need to take two things to heart. On the one hand, user consent must be actively obtained and, on the other, cookie-free targeting alternatives must be implemented today.
Making consent palatable to users
The top priority for advertisers is, of course, to obtain the consent of users before setting advertising cookies. And there is a very good argument for this: cookies help to draw users' attention to suitable, relevant products and offers. "We have to make this added value visible to users so that they agree to our tracking methods," says Claas Voigt, Managing Director of Emetriq. "Nobody wants to see irrelevant advertising. We can see from the example of platform business models in the USA: Users there have long understood that their data is being used to guarantee them access to those services, among other things. And they accept this as a fair deal."
One thing is certain: consent is becoming mandatory, including for cross-site traffic, and is therefore a top priority. Advertisers should act immediately and actively obtain user consent. This is the only way they can continue to use cookies in compliance with the GDPR and prepare for a "post-cookie era". They can also continue to offer their users relevant advertising in the future and retain their loyalty. Another positive side effect: those who take the protection of user data seriously will gain trust as a result.
Cookieless targeting: How advertising remains relevant
The aim should not be to completely replace cookies. Rather, the aim is to create an integrated solution. For example, models that work on the basis of users with a cookie history are a good solution. These determine regularities and make predictions for the characteristics of users without opt-in. For each page view, these models can make a real-time prediction and assign characteristics to cookie-less surfers that enable precise targeting.
"Where cookies still provide good information, advertisers should continue to use them. This is because cookie technology will not necessarily die, but access to it and how it is used will change significantly," concludes Claas Voigt.
The Telekom subsidiary Emetriq is the initiator of the largest data alliance for the German advertising industry. The Hamburg-based company bundles data from various suppliers and websites and thus aims to give advertisers fair access to target group information.
The company has published a cookie & consent Whitepaper published.
