The Death of The Cookies and The Rise Of The AdIDs
Brands have been basing their digital advertising strategy on an old and obsolete methodology — online cookies— so it’s no wonder results are not up to snuff. Cookies have been maligned for a long time, but it’s only recently that the industry has started to respond in earnest. It’s about time! But what’s next? Enter the AdID and MAIDs for mobile — much more stable identifiers, says, Daniel Heer, Founder & CEO at zeotap .
We all know that cookies are on their way out. The technology dates back to 1994 — the same year that PlayStation launched its first version of the console. Can you imagine if we were still playing games with graphics from the 90s? Brands have been basing their digital advertising strategy on an old and obsolete methodology — and it’s no wonder results are not up to snuff.
The top challenges for cookies are fairly well known. They track browsers not people (who may share laptops), Further, cookie duplication results in endless syncing that decreases precision as more vendors pile on. Cookies also have a limited lifespan — making it more difficult to take timely actions that have an ROI impact. Finally, they are limited on mobile as they don’t work in-app (which accounts for 80% of spent time on mobile phones). And let’s not forget the privacy concerns.
Learn More: What Is Mobile Ad Network? Benefits, Pricing Models, Types & Best Practices
Cookies have been maligned for a long time, but it’s only recently that the industry has started to respond in earnest. It’s about time! But what’s next?
The Current Approach Isn’t Enough
In 2017, a few players in the ecosystem — dataxu, Index Exchange, LiveRamp and The Trade Desk — joined forces to work collaboratively on an audience identification alternative to the Facebook-Google duopoly called the Advertising ID Consortium (later, DigiTrust by the IAB Tech Lab integrated with the Consortium). The Consortium eventually launched its first commercial proof of concept which is a great start— but there’s no evidence that tangible progress has been made over a two year period.
There needs to be a faster and better alternative in the market, and one that doesn’t rely so heavily on LiveRamp’s IdentityLink.
With the explosion of connected devices or IoT and the need for multi-touch attribution, telecom operators also want to have a little skin in the game. They are also starting to look into how they can play a major role in identifying a single user across all channels, and ultimately building a user graph vs the current cookie graphs that most brands are relying on today.
Telcos have tried for the longest time introducing their own identifiers since after all, they empower all internet-enabled devices. In theory, they should be in the best position to connect all the different user data points that go through their networks. Easier said than done though, since the infrastructure and processes needed to properly link all these data points while being data security and privacy compliant is not trivial.
The Biggest Players Are Setting the Trend
The biggest tech providers are starting to make it much harder to rely on cookies. Google recently announced a new initiative regarding the Chrome browser (first reported by The Wall Street Journal) that will make it easier for Chrome users to block cookies to protect their privacy. The new attribute called SameSite will granularly control where cookies can be loaded. For example, a SameSite attribute of “strict” signals that the cookie can only be loaded on the “same site,” while designating settings such as “lax” or “none” allows the cookies to be loaded across other sites. The industry will have to adapt to this new change and set the feature correctly on their cookies.
Other web browsers, e.g. Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox have taken similar measures to limit cookies. Apple, of course, was the first to take aim at third-party cookies in 2017— greatly aggravating the digital ad industry — with its Intelligent Tracking Prevention initiative which automatically blocks cookies.
After all these developments, there is no doubt that cookies are inefficient and unpopular. That’s why the industry needs to collaborate to find a way to harmonize the data in the open web environment — outside the walled gardens.
What can advertisers do to mitigate these risks associated to cookies? How should they shift their advertising strategy and eliminate their dependence on these identifiers? First, they should move away from these volatile identifiers and start basing their campaigns on more permanent and reliable ones — like MAIDs.
Next, they should look into shifting their desktop-based strategy to mobile and in-app, along with the rising stars of digital TV and digital radio advertising. Programmatic TV ad spend is expected to increase with 82% in 2019 and according to research by Wideorbit, 57% of audio ad buyers aren’t using programmatic at the moment, but plan to start doing so within the next 12 months.
Learn More: How Programmatic Evolved Within 8 Years
MAID as The Central Component
Big brands are also doing direct data licensing through their DMP technologies such as Salesforce, becoming smarter about the data they’re using and the identifiers that are behind it. Agencies are equally becoming more aware that MAIDs have to be a central component in their newly built data infrastructure, as evidenced by data lake initiatives such as Omni for Omnicom, mplatform for GroupM or merkle for Dentsu.
Brand advertisers cannot wait any longer, they need to start thinking about how to shift their cookie-based strategy to a more permanent identifier such as the AdID. Of course, when switching from cookies to AdIDs, often scale and precision are lost so it’s best to find AdID-technology that’s already built-in.
Finally, let’s not forget GDPR or the California Consumer Privacy Act — most identity and data players will have to prove that their solutions are fully compliant to even have a chance with advertisers.
Let’s leave cookies where they belong once and for all — in the past — and bring digital advertising into the 21st century.
