Australian marketers and brands are still underprepared in first-party development, but Starcom, Weber, Quantcast and Foxtel Media are already capitalising.
By the end of 2024, Google plans to have killed off cookies, which are used by digital advertisers to track users.
But just 8% of marketers are 'fully prepared' for the forthcoming cookie crackdown, with a further 22% declaring that they are 'mostly prepared', a survey of more than 800 marketing professionals.
Starcom CEO Nick Keenan said the whole local market is unprepared and digital maturity worldwide is not where it should be.
"Since it's been going on for a long time we should be prepared, but I think there's still a lot of work to be done for agencies, consultants and publishers alike," Keenan said on stage at AdNews L!VE.
"Because not everyone has first party data - if you are still relying on third party data you need to get busy.
"But good clients, good agencies and those have access to first party data are certainly ahead."
Half (52%) of Australian browser market share is Chrome, meaning 48% is already cookie-less.
The opportunity is already alive and brands are already missing out on that audience, Quantcast sales director Vic & SA Darren Morton says.
One brand who is prepared is Weber Barbeques director of marketing and eCommerce ANZ Nicole Parker.
"We've been growing our first-party data for a number of years because we wanted to create a positive word of mouth experience and having that direct relationship with the consumer is key," Parker said.
"The first opportunity we have is at the point of purchase, we encourage our BBQ owners to register their barbecue and that gives us a wealth of information about who they are, the product they purchase and their residence as we deliver the bulky goods to homes."
While barbecues are a long-term purchase investment, Weber is innovating past the purchase environment on how to add to its consumer data base everyday.
"A great example is we are the naming rights sponsor of the women's big bash league cricket and last year we held the women's final at Adelaide Oval.
"During the season, we ran an in-app game that was accessible to consumers who were both attending live events, as well as watching cricket through broadcast media, and that gave us the opportunity to collect over 20,000 consumer names, some of which are existing where the barbecue odors, but a number of those are prospects.
"So the opportunity for us as marketers is to look outside of the obvious purchase transactional history, and look at synergies within our marketing mix and see where we can uptake consumer data from other activities that we're doing."
Equally Foxtel Media is making sure it benefits from its wealth of quality first-party data.
"The Kantar measurement that we've begun using now goes beyond advertising, we're using that to inform the kind of content that we'll be producing," Foxtel sales director Katherine Frost says.
"For example we can see that we have greater audiences tuning into women's sport and emerging sport than what we did previously."
The industry doesn't have a lot of visibility
The first participants for the cookie killer, Tracking Protection, are selected randomly Google said in January.
“If you’re chosen, you’ll get notified when you open Chrome on either desktop or Android,” says Google’s Anthony Chavez, VP, Privacy Sandbox.
"But I'm not even sure if Australia was included on that," Keenan said.
On the other hand, the global digital advertising technical standards-setting body IAB Privacy Sandbox Task Force has a very different opinion.
The IAB's report identified several keys issues that media companies, advertisers and the broader industry faces in adapting to the changes mandated by Google.
"Their assessment was very difficult to Google's position, IAB said it would degrade into a very untenable well," Keenan said.
"We're still in the infant stages and we need to be able to marry up what the IAB is saying and what Google is telling us."
#L!VE Adelaide is powered by co-curators AADC, AMC. Supporting partners NINE, Quantcast and Foxtel Media. And associate partners TorchMedia.
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