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3rd Party Cookie Depreciation: Impact on Media Platforms by Audiences and Tracking

Shutterstock 2389001239 3rd Party Cookie Depreciation: Impact on Media Platforms by Audiences and Tracking Vizion Interactive Reading Time: 8 minutes

In recent years, all browsers have been phasing out third-party cookies to uphold user privacy. Google Chrome is the last piece of the puzzle. 

It was anticipated that Google would phase out all third-party cookies by the final quarter of 2024, but looks like 3rd party cookie depreciation (3PCD) will be postponed again. 

The latest delay was announced on April 23rd, 2024 and aims to provide time for consideration of feedback from advertisers and industry experts.

If you run ads online on any media platform, this is good news for you. As one of the most popular browsers, Google Chrome’s third-party cookies data has a huge impact on the reach and visibility of your ads on these platforms, so you’ll need time to adjust your marketing strategies accordingly.

This guide covers the expected impacts on various ad platforms, such as Google, Microsoft, and Meta. We also tell you what to do to lower ad revenue losses.

Impact of Third-Party Cookie Phase-Out on Google Ads

Unlike Google audiences, which may experience some serious changes, most Google ad components expect a low to no effect following 3PCD.

Here’s a detailed breakdown of various aspects of Google ads and how they will be impacted:

Google Ads Tags – Zero Impact

Google Ads Tags measure actions people take after interacting with your Google ads. 

Luckily, these tags rely on first-party cookies. These cookies capture data of all users who visit your website, ensuring better measurement accuracy

As Google ads actions can only be accurately measured based on user activity on your website (and not the whole web overall) — they will continue to function as is. 

Google Ads Reporting – Little Impact

Google ad reporting shows whether customers bought products, signed up for newsletters, or downloaded apps after seeing your Google ads. This will also continue functioning as before. 

On the other hand, the ban on third-party cookies may impact multi-touch data and attribution nuances. 

This could affect user path tracking accuracy. For instance, it will be difficult to identify all the marketing channels a customer visits before they click on your Google ad. 

Audiences in Google Ads – Little to Moderate Impact

Remarketing audiences and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) use first-party data. For this reason, the ban on third-party cookies won’t affect them.

Conversely, expect a low to medium impact on demographics, affinity, in-market, and custom/combined metrics. How 3PCD will affect their reach and effectiveness is still up for speculation.

Nevertheless, the absence of third-party cookies won’t affect Privacy Sandbox features like Topic API. These features will continue working as usual as they use first-party signals.

Remarketing Audiences – Little Impact

Strategies using target-based audiences will continue operating as usual after 3PCD.

A Google Ads Support agent mentioned that users may be able to choose whether to decline or welcome remarketing ads after 3PCD:

This is likely to affect reach, especially if many people choose to not see retargeted ads.

Expected 3PCD Effects on Microsoft Ads

The onset of 3PCD has little to high impact on different Microsoft ad components: 

Microsoft UET (Universal Event Tracking) Tag – No Impact

The UET tag uses first-party cookies. The cookies collected include:

Cookie Description
MUID Collected upon interaction with Microsoft property
_uetmsclkid Microsoft Click ID, which enhances conversion tracking accuracy
_uetsid Session ID collected for each site session
_uetvid A unique, anonymous ID for each visitor

3PCD won’t impact the UET tag because it relies on first-party data.

Audiences – Little to No Impact

The departure of third-party cookies will have little to no effect on most Microsoft Audiences, except for Custom Audiences.

The table below summarizes why these Microsoft Audiences will remain largely unaffected. It also includes solutions for Custom Audiences that expect the highest impact. 

Audience/Targeting Impact Explanation
LinkedIn Profile Targeting None It’s first-party-based.
Device, location, demographic, and language targeting None It employs first-party data.
In-market Audiences None Benefit from first-party data
Similar Audiences None You won’t see changes to similar audiences provided you use the newest UET JavaScript Tag properly 
Custom Combination Audiences None They rely on first-party data.
Dynamic Remarketing and Remarketing Audiences Little to none These remain unaffected, provided the website uses the latest UET tag.
Custom Audiences High These use third-party cookies from data management systems. You can minimize effects using Customer Match targeting.

CRMs’s First-Party Data – No Impact

CRMs often feature manual records of direct customer interactions, such as support tickets and calls. Because this is first-party data, a lack of third-party cookies has no effect on it whatsoever. 

Microsoft Reporting – Minimal to No Impact

Like Similar Audiences, you only need to use the UET tag on each page to leverage Microsoft reporting. As the UET tag itself relies primarily on first-party data, 3PCD is likely to have little to no effect on much of its functionality.

How Will Third-Party Cookie Depreciation Impact Meta Ads? 

While Conversion API (CAPI) and Audiences will continue as usual post-3PCD, the transition will moderately affect Meta Pixel.

CAPI – No Impact

CAPI is a Javascript solution that allows direct tracking, ensuring accurate attribution and effective targeting.

This AdTech solution addresses the challenges of third-party cookies by removing the need for browser-based pixel tracking. For this reason, 3PCD won’t impact CAPI.

Meta Pixel – Moderate Impact

Meta Pixel uses a combination of first-party and third-party data. As a result, it’s challenging to predict the impact of 3PCD until we know more or Meta releases a statement to guide advertisers.

Still, it’s not far-fetched to assume that the absence of third-party cookies will likely affect the Pixel’s effectiveness, given Meta’s advocacy for CAPI’s adoption.

To avoid significant changes, you can either:

  • Enable first-party cookies for Meta Pixel: To do this, go to Events Manager > Data Sources > Settings > Cookie Usage.
  • Integrate CAPI: CAPI enables your website to relay first-party data to Meta. This server-side transmission helps in targeting and attribution without depending on third-party cookies.

Audiences – No Impact

Meta Ads Audiences will remain unaffected by 3PCD, and here’s why:

  • Interest, demographic, and behavior targeting: These options rely on data shared by Facebook and Instagram users. Therefore, they’ll continue working normally following the shift from third-party cookies.
  • Customer Match audiences: Customer Match employs first-party data to share unique customer insights. Therefore, you can continue enhancing existing customer relations and create new ones without interruptions once third-party cookies are no longer available.
  • Lookalike (or similar) audiences: Lookalike audiences rely on the source audience you already have. These audiences include first-party data like behaviors, interests, and demographics, so they remain uninfluenced by the absence of third-party cookies.

How Will Third-Party Cookie Removal Affect LinkedIn Ads?

While 3PCD is likely to affect some LinkedIn ad elements like the Insight Tag, other elements will only have to deal with minimal change.

Here’s what to expect:

LinkedIn Insights Tag – High Impact

Browsers constantly bar the third-party cookie setting the LinkedIn Insights Tag relies on.

To guarantee smooth conversion tracking, update your LinkedIn Insights Tag to use first-party cookies. You can do this from the Campaign Manager by following these steps:

  1. Click “Analyze” then “Insight Tag.”
  2. Click “Create Insight Tag,”  read and accept the agreement. Skip to step three if you have an Insight Tag.
  3. Click “Manage Insight Tag > Settings.”
  4. Check the “Enable enhanced conversion tracking” slot.
  5. Click “Save.”

Other remedies to lower excessive impact on the LinkedIn Insight Tag include:

LinkedIn Audience Network – Mild Impact

LinkedIn continuously embraces measures that lower or eliminate the reliance on third-party data. It prides itself on never profiling users using activities outside LinkedIn.

One of LinkedIn’s approaches to adapting to 3PCD is Group Identity for B2B. This approach leverages first-party information to group members using similar professional identity features like industry and seniority.

Consequently, you can continue to reach reliable audiences without individually tracking numerous sites.

Member Trait Audiences and Interest Targeting – Minimal Impact

Member trait audiences and interest targeting allow you to reach customers through their attributes or app-based activity. 

You can target using member groups or user traits over their interests, which rely on app activity, to lower 3PCD impact.

Matched Audiences – Minimal to No Impact

Matched Audiences is a feature that allows you to customize your audience for campaign targeting using your own marketing data. You can, for instance, retarget people who have previously visited your website or subscribe to your email on Linkedin. 

Because Matched Audiences mostly use first-party data, LinkedIn’s new compliance requirements for 3PCD will have minimal to no effect.

Website Retargeting – Little Impact

LinkedIn’s lookback period for website retargeting is twice as long now i.e. 180 days. This is a good thing because a longer duration allows your database to gain a wider retargeting pool. The logic is simple: more people are going to visit your website over 180 days than 90 days, and now you can retarget that wider pool via ads. 

Given the increased exposure, 3PCD may have a minimal impact on returns from website retargeting.

Group Identity – No Impact

LinkedIn’s Group Identity categorizes people using professional traits to boost targeted advertising while protecting personal information. Removing Third-party cookies won’t influence this feature since it uses first-party data.

Attribution – Mild Impact

LinkedIn Attribution is a feature that determines the ads a customer clicks through click measurement and on-device processing. The discontinuation of third-party cookies may have little influence on attribution since it upholds user privacy.

Professional Identity – No Impact

LinkedIn’s professional identity is a data ecosystem that groups audiences based on their purchase intentions and professional characteristics. Since this is LinkedIn’s first-party data, 3PCD won’t influence professional identity.

Impact of 3rd-Party Cookie Depreciation on Programmatic Ads: StackAdapt

Except for third-party audiences and CRMs’ first-party data, most features under StackAdapt will stay the same without third-party cookies.

Here’s the breakdown of what to expect:

StackAdapt Pixel – Zero Impact

StackAdapt Pixel uses the proprietary DUID (Derived User Identity) graph that works without third-party cookies. Therefore, marketers needn’t worry about 3PCD impacting audience targeting scope and accuracy.

StackAdapt Audiences and Targeting – Zero Impact

StackAdapt audience targeting uses DUID to leverage data like household income, demographics, browsing audiences, intent, and interest.

The non-reliance on third-party cookies allows targeting to function effectively after 3PCD.

3rd-Party Audiences – Minimal to No Impact

The onset of 3PCD will cause a slight drop in the availability of third-party data, particularly from providers using third-party cookies. Still, StackAdapt lowers this concern by working with a vast network of providers like Bombara and Acxiom to facilitate targeting by:

  • Location
  • Industry
  • Work title
  • Work function

Most of this network uses LiveRamp’s RampID, whose first-party data is accessible to over 500 third parties.

StackAdapt is working alongside the remaining providers to find cookie-proof alternatives to lower 3PCD’s impact.

In-Platform Solutions – No Impact

DUID runs all of StackAdapt’s in-platform solutions, including:

  • Brand lift
  • Foot traffic attribution
  • First-party data attribution
  • ABM measurement and targeting

Therefore, 3PCD won’t impact in-platform solutions, given the absence of third-party cookies.

CRM First-Party Data – Minimal to No Impact

Third-party Cookie Depreciation may result in a slight drop in match rate scales for onboarded CRM data.

StackAdapt aims to solve this by partnering with other CRM entities like HubSpot to sustain or boost match rates.

The StackAdapt-Hubspot pairing facilitates first-party data activation by marketers to boost their reach to the right audiences.

This integration lets users employ lookalike audiences to access an untapped potential client audience like their existing first-party base.

Reporting – No Impact

The change to Chrome’s performance won’t impact StackAdapt’s reporting feature as it doesn’t run on third-party cookies. This steadiness allows you to track metrics like return on ad spend, campaign data, and conversion rates effectively.

How Will 3PCD Affect CallRail CallRail Call Tracking?

Since the CallRail keyword pool runs on first-party data, it’ll continue attributing calls to their sources unaffected by 3PCD.

CallRail call tracking lets you acquire direct insights during phone interactions to compensate for the disappearance of third-party cookies.

Also, CallRail recently added an alpha feature called self-reported attribution to enhance marketing efficiency. Self-reported attribution complements software-reliant call attribution by using artificial intelligence to ease work.

Conclusion

Although numerous media platforms will escape drastic changes after 3PCD, many still rely on third-party cookies, necessitating contingencies.

Components facing the hardest hit include Microsoft’s Custom Audiences and the LinkedIn Insights Tag. Also, watch out for platforms at risk of medium impact, like StackAdapt’s third-party audiences, Meta Pixel, and Google Ads audiences.

Marketers may also find it harder to curate personalized ads and assess their success.

Fortunately, new solutions like switching to first-party data, contextual targeting, and ID-based targeting can mitigate the impacts of 3PCD. By trying such alternatives, you can keep up with the shifting scene to reach and engage with your preferred audience.

At Vizion Interactive, we have the expertise, experience, and enthusiasm to get results and keep clients happy! Learn more about how our status as a Google Partner, along with our PPC Management, Google Shopping Ads, Social Media Advertising, Amazon Advertising, and other Paid Media services can increase sales and boost your ROI. But don’t just take our word for it, check out what our clients have to say, along with our case studies.