Goodbye third-party cookies. Hello human experience.
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Hux by Deloitte Digital:
Elevate the human experience
at every interaction.
Goodbye third-party cookies.
Hello human experience.
The end of third-party cookies can be great news
for your brand and your customers.
The long-heralded end of sensitive, emotionally resonant you already own and connecting
third-party cookies is now nigh. human experiences that today’s it across touch points, leaning
After two decades of relying consumers demand. in to “walled-garden” media
on cookies as a key tool for ad ecosystems and bringing key
personalization, attribution This shift represents a once- data-driven functions in-house,
and performance tracking, the in-a-generation opportunity you can build better bonds
time has come for brands to to not just change how you with customers, increase the
reimagine how they’re collecting connect with customers and effectiveness of online marketing
and using online consumer leads, but to strengthen those for your brand ... and contribute
data—while at the same time connections. By focusing on the to a better online experience
fostering the contextually first-party customer data that for all.
1
Shadowed by shoes: the rise and
demise of third-party cookies.
The invention of browser been an essential building block $8 billion spent in 2000 to
cookies in 1994 was a of personalized advertising, by $107.5 billion spent in 2018.1 This
foundational moment for helping ad networks provide growth has, in turn, fueled a
the commercialization of increasingly fine-grained proliferation of at-your-fingertips
e-commerce and for ad- audience segmenting and content that has helped make
supported content online. attribution, connecting your our world more connected,
Shopping carts, logins, content marketing tactics to desired more informed and more
personalization and other results. empowered.
site features and functions
have since relied on first-party In large part due to the It doesn’t take a sweet tooth
cookies to maintain a user’s capabilities enabled by third- to understand why many
identity and activity within and party cookies, online advertising advertisers love third-party
between browsing sessions. has seen explosive growth over cookies and the sophisticated,
And third-party cookies have the past generation—from fine-grained segmenting
Understanding cookies:
What’s changing, what’s not—and what it means.
• HTTP cookies, generally First-party cookies are the one that the user is
just referred to as cookies, used to keep track of site directly interacting with,
are small bits of textual interactions and activities most typically when an
data placed by a website such as shopping cart advertisement is displayed
server onto a user’s device contents, login status, etc. No on the page but also through
and then subsequently other web server can directly the use of invisible tracking
accessed to help maintain an access the first-party cookies pixels and other means.
understanding of the user’s placed by a site. First-party Third-party cookies can track
activity across clicks and cookies remain a valuable user behavior across any site
sessions. (though often underutilized) where the third-party server
element of brands’ first-party places ads or tracking pixels.
• First-party cookies are placed
customer data. No major web browser will
on the user’s device by
support this type of tracking
the website that the user • Third-party cookies are
by 2022.
is directly interacting with. placed by sites other than
2
that they can enable. But for threatens the economic model
consumers, they’ve been an of the very publishers that have Worldwide, websites place an
increasing source of heartburn benefited from the rise of online average of 12.4 first- and
in recent years—particularly advertising. Approximately one third-party cookies4 and
with the advent of retargeting. in four US users now employ report data to 3.9
some form of ad blocking while third-party domains via
That pair of shoes or trendy shirt surfing the internet,3 reducing third-party cookies.5
that you looked at once and that the ad revenues that publishers
now follows you everywhere can collect to support their
Some sites report to more
you go on the web has raised work.
than 100 third-party
the hackles of both privacy
domains.5
advocates and consumers who As consumers have taken more
bristle at such clear evidence proactive steps to block ads
that they’re being watched and and clear cookies to thwart This cat-and-mouse game has
followed online. Two out of five traditional tracking, some led to increasing scrutiny and
Americans believe that digital advertisers and platforms have has strengthened the push
advertisers are too aggressive in developed more sophisticated toward regulations such as the
following them on every device methods of tracking, such California Consumer Privacy
or browser 2 —which means as digital fingerprinting—the Act and the EU’s General Data
your brand could be alienating ability to identify a particular Protection Regulation. All of the
40 percent of its audience at this user based on a combination of leading browser makers have
very moment. device settings such as monitor been working to block digital
resolution, operating system, fingerprinting.
Invasive ad fatigue is creating a language settings, etc.
vicious cycle that, ironically, now
3
From tracking to trust.
Ultimately, personalization isn’t providers to take a step back permission and consent from
the problem. As the rise of and reimagine how to achieve leads and customers.
social networks has made clear, relevance and performance
users prefer a more customized, through targeted online The good news is, by
human experience online. Nor advertising—while also earning collaborating with end users and
is advertising itself the problem. consumers on approaches that
Deloitte Digital’s research on According to Deloitte
serve their needs for a more
emotion-driven engagement research, trustworthiness personal, human experience
shows that consumers generally (83%), integrity (79%) and combined with greater control,
welcome contextually sensitive, honesty (77%) are the transparency and respect
coherent brand engagements. emotional factors that for privacy, it is possible to
In fact, 62 percent of people consumers feel most align cultivate a better online
consider themselves to be in a with their favorite brands.6 experience—and more
relationship with a brand.6 effective advertising—for all.
The frustrations and
objections of consumers are
ultimately rooted in a lack
of consent, transparency
and control. Over the past two
decades advertisers and adtech
companies have been collecting
personal information from
users, in many cases without
explicitly asking their permission
and without explaining what
is being done with that
information. As a result, when
consumers see the details of
their lives and interests reflected
back in advertising, the relevance
that advertisers intend can look
more like invasiveness.
Rather than seeking out new
technologies to achieve the
same result, the time has
come for brands and adtech
4Keys to successful, consent-driven engagement.
In order to understand the delight (rather than annoy) those that are available to you, as well
impacts that will be caused by customers will help prepare your as transparency into how your
the phaseout of third-party brand for the moment when all audiences are being targeted
cookies, a good place to start browsers end support of third- and reached and how that
today is by looking at how party cookies. connects to the results you
the blocking of third-party seek.
cookies has already impacted Herein lies your first challenge,
performance of your current however. Vendors and agencies To get to that understanding,
marketing activities. If you that have relied on third-party we recommend that brands
are selling goods or services cookies for targeting and focus on three key initiatives
online, there’s a chance you’re performance tracking are likely going forward:
missing a third or more of your to claim that they have the
potential conversions already if solutions that will solve for these 1. Owning and mastering first-
your retargeting campaigns are impending changes. After all, party customer data.
powered by third-party cookies, they don’t want to lose your 2. Deepening capabilities in
assuming your audiences follow business. social and other walled-
general demographics for garden media ecosystems.
browser use. This is not a moment for blind
3. Bringing mission-critical
trust. When assessing campaign
capabilities such as media
Understanding those impacts performance, it’s critical that you
buying in-house.
and finding new ways to have an objective understanding
genuinely connect with and of the tools and techniques
1 Own your own data.
Given the ongoing changes and leverage the consent of your such as email, while also earning
to third-party data availability customers and prospects while their trust and loyalty, long-term.
and evolving customer privacy developing a fully contextualized
considerations, it is increasingly and connected understanding In the post-third-party cookie
important to invest in ownership of customer data. By deploying world, quality connected
and mastery of your first-party those tools in combination customer data will become one
customer data. with first-party cookies and of the most important strategic
noncookie identifiers, you can assets that a business can own.
Getting there means investing in begin to elevate the human Brands that leave those assets
the right consent management experience for customers in the hands of outside vendors
solutions and in an advanced through personalization of or agencies will likely find it
customer data platform that advertising, website experiences difficult to leverage fully the
together allow you to manage and permission-based channels, potential within that data.
52 Lean in to the walled gardens.
Mastering your first-party level of personalization that largely underutilized by brands
customer data and consent is unmatched through other today. Those platforms also will
is also critical in order to take technologies or platforms. not be as impacted by the move
maximum advantage of the away from third-party cookies as
targeting, measurement and Yet the deep and wide data will the rest of the programmatic
advanced analytics capabilities assets and technical capabilities universe.
within social media platforms within those ecosystems are
and the walled-garden or
control-access content and
Why the end of third-party cookies
data ecosystems maintained by
benefits social platforms.
the world’s largest search and
e-commerce players. Leading social media applications will likely gain an advantage in user
tracking as third-party cookies phase out. That’s because those
These closed ecosystems are, platforms can obtain consumer opt-in permission to track and
for the most part, today well segment all interactions with content that is shared within that network.
ahead of other adtech platforms The reason: social platforms have access to the data about what
content people are interested in.
and publishers when it comes
to consumer consent regarding
By contrast, data aggregators that work with thousands of publishers
the data being tracked and used
as a source for their data must ensure that those thousands of
for marketing. They also offer
publishers are all complying with proper consent management for
exceptionally strong machine
each user. The compliance work of that data aggregator is significant
learning algorithms for digital compared to that faced by a single social media application.
ad performance optimization.
When combined with their vast We are already seeing the effect of this outside the United States,
stores of consumer data and where less data is now available in the programmatic space due to
your own first-party data, higher consent and privacy restrictions related to the EU’s GDPR.
those systems can provide a
63 Consider moving critical
engagement functions in-house.
Owning and connecting your to a lack of transparency into strategies, brands can begin
customer data across touch those processes and decisions to eliminate some of the
points and driving efficiencies in and how they connect back to layers of intermediaries and
walled-garden ecosystems can customers. poor technologies that create
help facilitate a more seamless, waste and added cost. When
contextually coherent, human That’s why the next two years combined with better first-party
experience for your customers. may be a good time to consider data mastery, this approach
But brands that continue to bringing some of your brand’s can create a virtuous circle that
rely on outside agencies and media strategy and/or buying deepens customer relationships
martech platforms for targeting, in-house. By selecting the right by creating a more coherent
bidding and buying of media partners to work with, and experience across marketing
will likely run into analytics by becoming better-informed touch points.
and attribution hurdles due about viable solutions and
Is your brand ready for a future without third-party cookies?
As your brand moves toward a future in which outsourced, what capabilities your organization
third-party cookies are no longer supported by major needs to grow in-house—and how to ultimately
browsers, we believe it’s important to develop a connect your data, decision-making strategy and
comprehensive, thorough and unbiased messaging in ways that improve the human
understanding of what works, what should be experience for all of your customers.
Along the way it will be important to address key questions such as:
• Do you clearly understand the evaluate new solutions over the • Where is your first-party data
potential impact on your next two to three years? today, and how can it be better
business once third-party connected and leveraged to
• Are your technology and
cookies are no longer support your marketing
marketing teams partnering to
supported by any major web activities?
drive solutions for digital
browser?
identity? • Do you have the right internal
• Do your key media and talent and tools to bring some
• Do you have a plan for evolving
marketing partners have viable or all of your media strategy,
your marketing strategy and
solutions that are buying, optimization and
your technology capabilities to
privacy-compliant? analytics in-house?
solve for digital identity of
• Does your technology road customers and leads by 2022?
map have budget reserved to
7Toward a better, safer, more
human experience for all.
The next two years will likely The potential benefit to Deloitte Digital’s impartial
be a bumpy road for many consumers cannot be knowledge of the vendors and
advertisers, publishers and understated. As trust and tools across the media and
adtech firms as they work transparency grows, likely so advertising landscape coupled
to figure out the best path too will consumer willingness with our strong alliances and
forward in a world without to share more data with the global capabilities in customer-
third-party cookies. What’s clear brands they love—giving brands led marketing can help brands
is that significant changes are more nuanced opportunities seize this moment as an
needed across the media and to treat people as people opportunity to not just shift
advertising spheres in order through intuitive, perfectly timed digital marketing tactics but to
to provide consumers with engagement, while providing deepen bonds with customers
the privacy protections they consistent and respectful brand and drive rapid growth.
demand and the emotionally experiences across touch points.
resonant, contextually relevant
experiences they desire.
SOURCES
Get in touch 1. A. Guttmann, “Online
advertising revenue in the
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“Cookie number statistics,”
United States from 2000 to WebCookies.org, https://
Alex Kelleher 2018,” statista, August 19,
2019, https://www.statista.
webcookies.org/number-of-
cookies/, accessed January
Managing Director, Deloitte Consulting LLP com/statistics/183816/us- 30, 2020.
online-advertising-revenue-
CMO, Hux by Deloitte Digital since-2000/, accessed 5. Web Cookies Scanner, “Third
February 1, 2020. party domains,” WebCookies.
akelleher@deloitte.com org, https://webcookies.
2. Ross Benes, “Five Charts: org/third-party-domains,
Why Users Are Fed Up accessed January 30, 2020.
Ken Nelson with Digital Ads, People
6. Deloitte Digital, “Exploring
are annoyed by the state
Managing Director, Deloitte Investments LLC of advertising,” eMarketer, the Value of Emotion-Driven
October 16, 2018, https:// Engagement,” https://
kennelson@deloitte.com www.deloittedigital.com/
www.emarketer.com/
content/five-charts-users- content/dam/deloittedigital/
are-fed-up-with-digital- us/documents/offerings/
Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (“DTTL”), ads?ECID=SOC1001, offerings-20190521-
its global network of member firms, and their related entities. DTTL (also accessed February 3, 2020; exploring-the-value-
referred to as “Deloitte Global”) and each of its member firms are legally quoting Janrain, “Data of-emotion-driven-
separate and independent entities. DTTL does not provide services to clients. Privacy Consumer Survey,” engagement-2.pdf May 2019.
Please see www.deloitte.com/about to learn more. October 10, 2018. (Janrain
has since been purchased by
This communication contains general information only, and none of Akamai.)
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, its member firms or their related entities
3. Guttmann, “Ad blocking
(collectively, the “Deloitte network”) is, by means of this communication,
user penetration rate in the
rendering professional advice or services. Before making any decision or
United States from 2014 to
taking any action that may affect your finances or your business, you should
2021,” statista, August 9,
consult a qualified professional adviser. No entity in the Deloitte network
2019, https://www.statista.
shall be responsible for any loss whatsoever sustained by any person who
com/statistics/804008/ad-
relies on this communication.
blocking-reach-usage-us/,
accessed February 1, 2020.
Copyright © 2020. Deloitte Development LLC. All rights reserved.
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