The deprecation of the third-party cookie in Chrome will be significantly disruptive for publishers that monetize their sites with advertising. Here’s how web publishers are preparing for a future without third-party cookies.

On today's episode, we discuss what stood out the most about Google's Q1 performance. We then talk about what kind of ad recovery we expect this year and why Google is in hot water again, as well as look at some survey data about third-party cookie doomsday. Tune in to the discussion with eMarketer senior forecasting analyst at Insider Intelligence Eric Haggstrom.

Marketers see third-party cookie deprecation as a near-term challenge, but this change also presents an opportunity to prioritize identity management strategies and quality data.

eMarketer was pleased to moderate a Tech-Talk Webinar featuring Salesforce's Kathy Baxter, architect, ethical AI practice. She discussed how to use AI marketing to build customer trust as the third-party cookie deprecates and marketers must collect data directly.

eMarketer was pleased to moderate a Tech-Talk Webinar featuring Infutor Data Solutions' Zora Senat, senior vice president, marketing and partnerships, and Ross Epstein, vice president, new projects at SafeGraph, for this Tech-Talk Webinar. They discussed how first- and third-party data can be combined to increase customer engagement.

Now, increasing restrictions on data collection, changes to Apple’s Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA), and the death of the third-party cookie will mean that winning brands must reduce their dependence on third parties, and place a greater focus on first-party data and owned channels. In short, they’ll need more direct-to-consumer (D2C) marketing, and less (though still plenty) advertising.

Major changes are coming to how advertisers and others in the ecosystem can identify users across channels and devices. The loss of third-party cookies and changes to Apple’s Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA)—rumored to roll out this month—will affect ad addressability, but also measurement and attribution. Advertisers are taking steps in response, including more emphasis on first-party data, data collaborations, and modeling-based approaches.

Data Types Used for Ad Targeting and Audience Segmentation. Despite the ongoing issue of third-party cookie deprecation and the emphasis on using more first- and third-party data, the experts we spoke with indicated that little has changed in terms of the types of data sets that advertisers and their partners use to identify and segment audiences, and then target ads.

Often, this means doubling down on first-party data. According to a study from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), 42% of US data users said the coming changes to third-party cookies and identifiers will increase their spending on use of first-party data. Not all companies are prepared, however, for the upcoming changes to third-party cookies and identifiers and new privacy laws.

Consumers are frustrated by intrusive or invasive ad experiences, and they’re concerned about how advertisers use their data. Here’s how consumers perceive their ad experiences across media channels, how they avoid ads, and how brands, advertisers, and publishers are responding.

And last week’s announcement that it’s delaying the deprecation of third-party cookies until 2023 has undoubtedly won the company points in marketers' eyes.

Chrome Deprecates the Third-Party Tracking Cookie. Chrome will deprecate third-party tracking cookies in early 2022—a step that has already been taken by other major web browsers.

Apple placates mobile advertisers: iOS 15 will allow advertisers to get postback data directly from Apple, rather than going through an ad network—a huge help for marketers hungry for data in a post-IDFA world.

Collecting—and making sense of—first-party data: While this is a trend that has been prominent for some time now, COVID certainly led to its acceleration. Brands and retailers are reorienting themselves to capture first-party data to improve self-reliance, marketing performance, relevancy, and ultimately, customer experience.

Even with a rich tapestry of third-party data, digital advertising hasn’t been great at predicting what we want. Why should things improve once all that third-party data goes away? The decline in third-party cookies has been something that has grown over the years. Chrome is obviously the market leader, and Google is now saying it’s going to switch it off in 18 months.

It seems like a given sometimes that brands should be collecting all the first-party data they can. Sharon Harris, global CMO at agency Jellyfish, joins eMarketer principal analyst at Insider Intelligence Nicole Perrin to discuss why that's the wrong approach, what brands should consider before collecting data from their audiences, and what they should do with it once they have it.