Fact vs. Fiction: Do Marketers Still Need to Think About Marketing Without Cookies?

After experimenting with shifting some Chrome traffic to the privacy sandbox earlier this year, Google announced in July it won't be deprecating the third-party cookie in Chrome after all. So, what exactly does this mean for marketers? Let’s separate fact from fiction as we explore the impact of this move and consider whether brands need a strategy for marketing without cookies — and if so, what that strategy should look like.

Claim: Marketers still need a strategy for marketing without cookies.

Verdict: FACT. While Google’s latest decision may seem like a respite, the reality is — whether or not the browser eventually deprecates the cookie — cookies are becoming obsolete.

Privacy and compliance concerns loom larger than the value of data brands might leverage from Google for addressability and measurement. “The privacy genie is out of the bottle,” says TransUnion SVP of Identity Solutions Product Management Gareth Davies. “Marketers have already found new ways to connect data with partners (for insights, activation, measurement), and more privacy-friendly options now exist.”

The rising popularity of retail media networks (RMNs), including companies like Amazon and Walmart, and commerce media networks available via Marriott, United and more, are driving the growth of spend on search and display media (up by 12.4% and 16.1%, respectively, according to a 2024 Winterberry Group Analysis). This is partially because these offer a more direct connection between brands and consumers’ shopping behaviors. Similarly, spend on connected TV (CTV) is expected to grow by more than 30% this year. Advertisers know they can reach a logged-in user base via popular streaming services, making it easier for brands to establish connections with consumers in a more identity-based environment.

Data deprecation combined with the emergence of new media channels have begun reshaping the landscape, leading to more data fragmentation as IDs proliferate. Many of these channels, including CTV and streaming audio, are not as reliant on cookies. But even if cookies stick around, old-school cookie syncing and crosswalks aren’t suddenly going to return. The sheer number of independent publisher and platform IDs require the market to think beyond the cookie to gain and maintain a clear view of the consumer.

Claim: Brands need to invest in first-party data.

Verdict: FACT. Brands also need identity resolution, data hygiene capabilities and audience insights to ensure first-party data stays up to date. This delivers a more holistic picture of consumers beyond owned touchpoints, helping reach and convert customers.

With cookies still in play, it may seem like growing owned first-party data is less urgent. But dialing back this effort would be a mistake. After all, the best way to reach, acquire and engage audiences is via data-rich, targeted and personalized experiences.

When companies have accurate email addresses, phone numbers, home addresses and IP addresses for consumers, they can better match those to the rest of the advertising ecosystem. That goes for both seeding audience building for future campaigns and employing modeling to expand their reach. This method of audience creation allows marketers to drive scale for data-driven marketing campaigns. First-party data is also useful for determining advertising suppression (e.g., ensuring consumers who’ve recently purchased a specific item aren’t shown an ad for that product) to improve efficiencies in targeting.

However, the ROI brands experience is only as strong as their available first-party data assets. Address, phone number and even name changes are relatively common across the US population. In fact, the US Postal Service processed 28.3 million address changes in 2023, and according to data 8, customer data decays at a rate of 30% per year. That’s why many marketers are turning to identity resolution solutions and data hygiene capabilities to deduplicate identities and update incorrect information. return on ad spend. 

Claim: Brands need to adopt a more holistic view of marketing attribution.

Verdict: FACT. While third-party cookies are no longer going away on Google and can still be a part of marketers’ attribution methodologies, they won’t provide the full, cross-channel view of measurement across the media ecosystem.

Cookies aren’t an option for non-Google browsers that have already done away with this form of tracking. Nor do they exist within walled gardens, both the traditional variety as well as emerging ones. That means marketers need more to achieve a closed-loop view.

Brands can set themselves up for success by working with a savvy and trusted identity solutions partner. Find one capable of reconciling IDs across all platforms and channels, and incorporating technologies, signals and solutions like privacy-enhancing technologies, , contextual IDs, first-party data, email-based IDs, probabilistic IDs, multi-touch attribution (MTA) and marketing mix modeling (MMM). With this approach, even advertisers allocating spend toward channels more dependent on cookies, including programmatic display and video, can still benefit from reliable attribution, measure omnichannel performance, and maintain continued visibility into the value driven by their marketing dollars.

Claim: Emails are the only way forward.

Verdict: FICTION.

Email addresses have been gaining traction in the cookie-less conversation since Google’s announcement. That’s in part because email addresses act as a “key” that can help marketers link customer behavior across devices, channels and platforms. Emails are also generating buzz because they’re more effective than third-party cookies in powering data-driven advertising on streaming channels, like CTV and digital audio, most of which rely on email sign-on models.      

However, emails are just a single identifier. Modern addressable marketing requires the ability to turn identity fragments, such as a prospects’ phone numbers or home addresses, into rich consumer profiles that can be used to enhance the personalization of data-driven marketing campaigns. Many platforms have developed additional identifiers that can be used for targeting and measurement across the advertising landscape, each with their own pluses and minuses. But the prevalence of all these alternate IDs can become something of a double-edged sword for marketers: The more options they have, the more complex their jobs become when trying to connect disparate signals. That's why finding an identity resolution partner that’s interoperable across the wide array of alternative IDs is so important. Rather than being limited to just a few identifiers, the chosen identity partner should be able to connect across all of them to unlock scale and reach that would otherwise be unattainable.

Claim: Data-driven marketing is still possible — with or without cookies.

Verdict: FACT. Addressable marketing will be possible for brands able to strengthen their first-party data and turn data fragments into rich consumer profiles.

Even as visibility into performance becomes more challenging with an increasingly fragmented ecosystem, the right partner can bring a better understanding of which audiences and channels are truly moving the needle for brands and how to optimize a media plan accordingly.

At TransUnion, we’re building for the new future of marketing, one in which brands will need to think beyond the cookie to get a full, omnichannel picture of performance. Learn more in the eMarketer webinar sponsored by TransUnion: Future-Proofing Your Media Plan: Addressability for Cookie Loss and Beyond, available on demand.