Google’s decision to keep third parties cookies after all may not mean the advertising solution remains in its entirety.
There was some relief at the news that now users of the Google browser will be prompted to decide whether or not to turn cookies off or on, rather than ditch them entirely.
Research by commerce media company Criteo had showed publisher revenue could fall by an average of 60% post third party cookies.
However, marketers and publishers say it’s business as usual and the Google decision won't stop investment in building first party data.
“I'm not sure that it was a total resurrection,” Paul Blackburn, director of commercial data & eCommerce at News Corp Australia, told AdNews.
“It's early days on their announcement. But they're saying they're not fully deprecating but they did say that they were going to provide us a choice.
“Unpacking exactly what that means, we’ll wait and see.”
News Corp, and other publishers, have been building out the depth of their own first party data, ensuring that the deep data they gather from readers and users is leveraged and that they were ready for the end of third party cookies.
At its D_Coded showcase in May, the Australia side of News Corp focused on better targeting, more insights, personalisation and measurement for advertisers.
The media group is also enhancing its Customer Match advertising targeting capabilities by integrating Google PAIR and LiveRamp ATS Direct. News Corp also launched Shoppable ScrollX and enhancements to Targeted Time in View (TTIV).
Marketers have been urging those building their own deep first party data to keep going despite the Google announcement.
Blackburn at News Corp Australia said there could still be signal loss when it comes to cookies on a Chrome browser.
“I think the other thing that was interesting is that they've also hinted around other signals like IP that might be in question.
“The other thing is for us, as a publishing group, 40% of the internet is already not accessible by third party cookies. So you've got Safari and all the other browsers that make up approximately 40%, that have already deprecated cookies across those popular browsers.
“The top line level for us is we see that signal loss will continue to get worse and privacy regulations will obviously further exacerbate.
He said marketers needed privacy compliant first party data from a trusted source to get the return on investment that they've got in the past.
“The big number that we were saying was that these new methods give four times the return on ad spend as what current standard cookie based solutions do today.
“It's about marketing effectiveness, not about the cookie.
"We heard that they were going that there's other signals that that are going to be lost. So our whole story around signal gain when you partner us, with our first party data proposition, us stands true ... and it's probably strengthened."
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