Back in July, Google made the sudden surprising decision to go back on its plans to remove the third-party cookie from its Chrome browser. Given that Google had been planning and postponing this deprecation for several years, marketers had mixed feelings with many expressing frustration by the reversal. Many wondered if their efforts towards securing first-party data and privacy-friendly advertising in general, were all a waste of time and money.

Google Keeping The Third-Party Cookie Means Less Than you Think

While Google is not removing the third-party cookie, it will be giving users the choice of keeping it or not in their own browsers. The result will likely entail an enormous drop off in active users being represented by third-party data.

The reality is that third-party IDs are already in sharp decline. Apple’s privacy-focused technology has decimated the number of user IDs that don’t come from first-party consented data. Relatively speaking, Apple was quick to respond to privacy regulations such as GDPR or GCP.

Even though the third-party cookie will technically exist going forward, advertisers still need to have privacy-friendly solutions for addressability and avoid major signal loss. The audience that is accessible by the tracking cookie is shrinking fast regardless.

The reality is, in 2024, that the most reliable and powerful source of data is first-party. Brands should be looking to build their repertoire of first-party data in a sustainable way that can enable them to reach customers across online and offline media channels consistently in the future. Brands can also look to ‘borrow’ first-party data from retailers, by engaging with commerce media networks to run ads against the retailer’s data and/or ad inventory.

How Will The Continuation Of Third-Party Cookies Impact Retail Media?

Google’s reversal doesn’t make the need for a strong first-party data solution any less important. However, It is possible that the move will make the adoption of commerce media less urgent. But when the value of retail media is so obvious for CPG brands, it’s hard to imagine anyone slowing down on adopting this relatively new marketing channel. Expect to see retail media sit alongside traditional performance marketing campaigns using both third- and first-party data in media plans for now, with budgets set to decrease in those line items reliant on outdated third-party cookie-based targeting.