With each passing month the cookie apocalypse draws nearer. Resolution Digital’s general manager - product & partnerships, Georgina Wall, explains why now is the perfect time to shore up your data strategy.
The impending demise of the cookie has been one of the media industry’s biggest stories of 2021. But even though we know it’s coming, many businesses remain unprepared or unmotivated to act.
Given the cookie’s crumbling is a classic ‘distant deadline’, I think there’s a bit of delay discounting going on here. By this I refer to the human tendency to undervalue things that are further off in the distance. It’s why most people would rather receive $85 now than $100 in a month’s time.
A lot of organisations seem to be stuck with this mindset currently. In other words: ‘We still have the pixel, we’re going just fine as it is.
If this sounds like your business, don’t panic, there’s still time to act. Here’s where you can start.
Not happy? Get CAPI
The digital world is changing fast. So fast that most people are struggling to keep up. What we do know is that the nature of platforms is changing and that consumer data privacy is paramount.
With products rapidly becoming more sophisticated, client expectations are also ratcheting up. The need to reach audiences as effectively as possible is high on the tick list of every marketer. To say nothing of the pressure CMOs are under to find cost-efficient solutions.
So where to start? Well, at Resolution Digital we’re leaning into Meta’s Conversions API (CAPI) to help many of our clients.
In brief, Meta’s Conversions API (CAPI) creates a direct and reliable connection between marketing data (such as website events and offline conversions) from a server, website platform or CRM directly to Meta. The combination of business data and Meta’s own data helps power ad personalisation and measurement on platforms like Facebook. This means ads are shown to people who are more likely to be interested in them.
Having a product like CAPI is important for businesses as they strive to retain the sort of customer insights they have relied on historically.
CAPI creates one line of communication between businesses straight into the platform, meaning that vital information is not lost. By the same token, advertisers always have control of the data they pass back to Meta.
Taking that vital first step
One issue that keeps businesses at sixes and sevens is a fear of the unknown. Those who don’t have a sizeable tech stack, or the know-how that comes with it, can have a tendency to ignore problems or put them in the too hard basket.
And it’s true, implementing data solutions like CAPI isn’t always straightforward. The key here is to embrace partnerships. This means seeking out those with broad experience in integrating systems effectively.
Being able to blend your business’s data with rich collections from Meta, for example, is one way to get the jump on the competition.
It allows brands to make the most of their all-important first party data and can incrementally improve the effects of advertising campaigns as well as keeping acquisition costs down.
Data from Meta has already shown this to be the case. Advertisers who followed best practices while sending signals that have been captured (but were not necessarily optimised) via the pixel and Conversions API saw an 8% cost per acquisition improvement on average1.
Another advantage of utilsing the services of Meta is the sophistication of its marketing science. Where conversion lift studies were previously available with pixel reporting, they are now only available with CAPI. For businesses, it means they can measure the conversion uplift during a given period or subject to certain settings - something that is increasingly valuable for driving incremental improvements.
So why wait? There’s no time like the present to look into partnerships that can help your business. Businesses like Resolution Digital are well placed to help those who want to maintain their current levels of data access.
My parting advice: don’t fall victim to delay discounting. Just think of it as having your reward now as well as later.
Source:
- Internal Meta study: *Based on 15 global experiments in H2 2020 across multiple verticals (Ecommerce, Tech/Telco, Financial Services, Education, Restaurants, Professional Services, CPG)
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