The 3 Best Data Collection Alternatives to Cookies
Throughout 2023, the UK’s data industry was put to the test. Ongoing cybersecurity issues, increasingly strict compliance regulations, and evolving privacy laws have affected the way our clients can collect and process data. Now, organisations are preparing to say goodbye to the third-party cookie.
What are the Best Alternatives to Cookies?
Although the end of 2024 (which is Google’s official deadline for the phase-out) might seem like a long time away, in reality, 12 months isn’t a lot in the world of business. Time always moves fast. The one remaining year doesn’t give Data as a Service (DaaS) providers or Data Analytics employees a lot of time to find alternative solutions. Luckily, there are a few out there.
First-Party Data
There’s no denying the value of first-party data. When you have a client with a reasonably sized digital presence, you should aim to enable their business to collect and process customer activity internally. This will provide unlimited and – perhaps more importantly – relevant insight to inform decision-making. From there, businesses will be able to be more efficient with the advertising choices they are making and see their marketing performance improve as a result. They'll also be able to learn from their past mistakes and can cut waste significantly.
Universal IDs
When your client’s priority is sheer volume alone (and you want to gather and share as much data as you can with them), first-party isn’t always enough. Luckily, Universal IDs have arisen as a promising alternative to third-party cookies, anonymising customer data behind an individual identifier that can be shared around the publisher space and recognised in the digital marketing ecosystem. A business can then use this to target adverts accurately and sell more products.
“Although Universal IDs operate in a very similar way to third-party cookies, the key difference is how the identifiers are created and used. With IDs in third-party cookies, pretty much any AdTech company can create a third-party cookie and store a unique ID inside it. With universal IDs, it's up to the publisher to pass on the signals (e.g. probabilistic and deterministic data) to the Universal ID service.” - Michael Sweeney, Head of Marketing at Clearcode
Contextual Targeting
Instead of going back to the default method of advertising (prioritising quantity over quality views), advertisers can still be cost-effective by utilising contextual targeting. This is the process that matches adverts to relevant sites using a customer’s keywords, history, or topic preferences, among other factors – information that is still readily available without third-party cookies. You can assume that someone who watches a lot of fashion influencers on YouTube will be the perfect target audience for a clothing brand, for example. Businesses can even take this further, targeting similar products or services at the same consumer profile.
How to Keep Up With the Evolving Data Climate
Even though the cookie is coming to an end, there’s a lot of exciting potential on the horizon. Emerging tools like Artificial Intelligence can anonymise data to make the world safer for end consumers while still significantly benefiting businesses.
The key is remaining agile, and researching the available alternatives in order to make the best decision possible.
Furthermore, when you have quality talent on your side, nothing will catch you off guard. You’ll be able to bounce back from every challenge, overcome every hurdle, and excel in today’s competitive environment.
To design the best data team for the year ahead and grant yourself a competitive advantage over the rest of the market, contact Forward Role today.
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