As we progress through 2024, it's becoming apparent that this is the year that cookies continually depreciate in value as marketers look for alternative solutions. How can we stay ahead of the curve and ensure our PPC marketing is as uninterrupted as possible?
When will cookies entirely disappear?
Cookies are being phased out simply because of changes to the privacy landscape in online advertising. It's unfortunate in many ways, as they provide a significant amount of insight to a vast number of advertisers to meet the needs of their potential customers better and ultimately sell more products. However, in recognition of increased privacy concerns and browser changes, advertising platforms are pivoting to a more privacy-first system.
It's not certain, but it's estimated that all cookies and their use will disappear by the end of 2024. The only thing holding this up is the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), with Google claiming they can only proceed once the CMA has addressed competition concerns.
What does the future of advertising look like?
We must consider a few things to see what's coming down the road -
You need to invest in multiple technologies to provide both durability and comprehensives of your conversion data
You must be agile and ready to experiment & adapt as new solutions are brought to market.
And as much as it pains me, the future of advertising is swinging more towards conversion modelling and predictions rather than a view that is 100% accurate.
As the cookie clock ticks on, many companies must be up to speed with their future cookie/measurement strategy. But there are tools out there already that you can implement & become familiar with.
What can I do to solve my cookie crisis with Enhanced Conversions?
Getting comfortable with modelled data and having an element of that within our data sets is where to start. Educating and onboarding your senior team, legal teams, and wider teams is a fantastic second step, albeit more difficult.
Enhanced conversion: educate yourself about and understand the gaps it fills within your PPC account and onboard as soon as possible. Enhanced Conversions is a product that helps Google's AI understand and model conversions using hashed data, meaning better bidding decisions for your Google Ads account.
It can dramatically improve the accuracy of your PPC data. It does this by sending data about non-cookie consenting customers to Google in hashed form before Google matches the information against its first-party data (Google account) and sends it to you in hashed and anonymous form in the Google ads interface.
Google have a super easy-to-read article detailing how to set up Enhanced Conversions through Google Tag Manager - a must-do!
Conclusion
Becoming familiar with data science and how data is used within your business should help you understand what you are losing by the deprecation of cookies.
Enhanced mode is a good starting point for examining what data loss you can prevent through modelling and how to keep your Google ads bidding strategies from failing.
Solve your cookie crisis today. Don't delay.