On today’s podcast episode, we discuss how Google’s cookie choices affect targeting with insights on alternative identifiers, data privacy, and strategies for 2025. Tune in to the discussion with our Principal Analyst and host Yory Wurmser, Chief Brand Officer of CP Skin Health Group Echo Sandburg and Senior Director First Party Data Strategy of the Eli Lilly & Company Moitree Rahman.

“Cookies are going to be the exception rather than the rule,” analyst Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf said on a recent edition of our “Behind the Numbers” podcast. “Advertisers and publishers are going to need cookieless strategies going forward.”

Google put a lid on its cookie deprecation plans on Monday, proposing that rather than deprecate third-party cookies, it would prompt Chrome users to “make an informed choice” on how they share their data with advertisers, according to a blog post from Anthony Chavez, vice president of Google’s Privacy Sandbox.

The digital advertising industry has begun sharing feedback on Google’s Privacy Sandbox as individual stakeholders conclude their tests. While many believe the current Privacy Sandbox needs tweaks before it can function as an alternative to cookies, that’s not surprising, according to Andrew Pascoe, vice president, data science engineering at NextRoll.

With third-party cookies facing deprecation, advertisers will need to get creative to reach target customers. “To me, the absence of cookies doesn't mean absence of audience targeting,” said Vitaly Pecherskiy, co-founder and CEO of StackAdapt, on the Outlook and Strategies for 2024's Second Half EMARKETER summit. “You can have the world's best targeting, reach the right user at the right time [on the] right device, but if the ad is actually not good, it can probably do more bad than good,” he added.

Google announced that it will not complete third-party deprecation during the second half of Q4 2024 as originally planned.

“We're never going to get back to what [digital advertising] used to be. And the sooner we all embrace that, the easier it will become,” said Colleen Harris, director and product manager at Ansira. And yet, less than half (47%) of marketers worldwide are working on a plan to approach cookie-free targeting, according to September 2023 data from HubSpot. With under nine months to go until the death of the third-party cookie, marketers need to make and execute plans quickly.

The impact of third-party cookie deprecation goes beyond changes to ad targeting and tracking. As the industry moves away from these identifiers, new challenges and trends have cropped up: IP addresses may be more difficult to access, retail media as an addressable channel is growing, and there’s greater focus on frequent media mix modeling (MMM) adjustments.

Cookie deprecation is coming, and EMARKETER analysts are confident Google won’t push back its deadline again. Marketers should be preparing for now. Here are five charts on how the loss of cookies is impacting the industry.

Advertisers have dragged their feet on developing third-party cookie alternatives and are now under pressure to implement effective measurement solutions, our analyst Evelyn Mitchell said in a recent webinar. But new measurement options come with their own challenges, including slow adoption, lack of published test results, and limitations of first-party data.

Reaching consumers starts with knowing who they are. That means understanding consumer demographics, media and search behaviors, and ad consumption habits. Here are five charts to help you get to know your customers.

Nearly half (49.0%) of advertisers worldwide believe that activating their own first-party data is the most promising solution to cookie deprecation, according to DoubleVerify. However, only 16.6% of publishers say the same of this solution. Publishers’ top choice for replacing cookie-dependent tools is publisher first-party data activation, chosen as a promising solution by just 27.1% of advertisers.

US spending on identity solutions and services will increase by 13.0% YoY to reach $10.4 billion this year, per the Winterberry Group.

From streaming to ad measurement and privacy, 2023 will be a year of transformation. Here are four changes we expect in the new year.

Today, marketers have to juggle third-party cookie loss and new data privacy legislation, impacting their ability to identify customers and create a strong data foundation

Google’s Chrome Team stress-tested the digital ad world by announcing in early 2020 that the browser—the world’s most popular—would deprecate third-party cookies within two years. Vendors, publishers, agencies, and advertisers scrambled to understand what would take cookies’ place, and how they would identify and target their audiences without them. Google’s announcement in June 2021 that cookie deprecation would be delayed by almost two years has given marketers and their partners more time to test and integrate new solutions—but also a longer period of uncertainty.

UK programmatic digital display ad spending increased in 2020, despite the incredibly challenging conditions. The shift to programmatic trading will further accelerate this year, but certain methods are performing better than others.

Programmatic ad spending will account for 90.0% of total UK digital display ad spend this year, or £5.81 billion ($7.75 billion). Of that proportion, programmatic direct will make up 65.5%, with social media spend underpinning that figure.