Chrome has deprecated 1% of third-party cookies. What are you doing to prepare?

Chrome has taken the first step in deprecating cookies. 1% of Chrome users globally no longer have access to 3PC as of last week. Google released a new feature called Tracking Protection that, when enabled, automatically cuts off a website’s access to third-party cookies.

The writing has been on the wall for years with the deprecation of 3PC having already happened in Safari and Firefox, but with Chrome’s reluctance to deprecate and its 60% marketshare has enabled marketers to continue to cling to cookies for media activation and measurement use cases. This coupled with further lockdowns on cross-website tracking from all of the main browsers is sure to cause a shakeup in how brands and agencies understand media and experience performance. Not suprisingly, the result has been a slower shift to cookieless solutions even with the ample time provided to organizations due to previous postponements in the timeline. As of Q3 2023, cookied inventory still accounts for over 78%+ of programmatic ad buys in the US across verticals, according to eMarketer. However, now we are truly entering the 25th hour.

There is significant risk if you do not yet have a plan on how to shift activation, measurement and personalization use cases to cookieless solutions. Google’s 3PC deprecation timeline leaves organizations 9 months (and counting) to prepare themselves. 1% of cookies will be phased out of Chrome’s circulation until mid Q3 where it is will begin to gradually phase out support completely.

So where does that leave us?

2024 must be a year of experimentation. There is no 1:1 replacement for 3PC that combines both scale and traceability. Even some of the most promising first party data strategies like retail media networks will have loss of current state tracking and reporting capabilities because of the cookie data loss and prevention of cross-website tracking.  Adaptation to change is a requirement in the martech/adtech space, but 2024 marks a true inflection point where multiple forces are colliding to create a new ecosystem. One driven by privacy and transparency. From evolving state/national privacy regulations to multiple potential cookieless solution in predevelopment to AI to continued browser and OS restrictions, strategic bets must be made in an ecosystem that has not yet been defined. The path forward requires building the internal processes to efficiently and effectively evaluate which solutions enable the business to achieve its goals.

One of the big bets for many in the industry will be using the Privacy Sandbox’s TOPICs, Protected Audiences and Attribution Reporting APIs to traffic and measure campaign performance. Whilst it has been possible to conduct tests using the APIs, true testing has not been available until 1% of Chrome users no longer have access to 3PC. Real world testing environment will enable publishers and ad tech vendors (not individual advertisers, for now) to understand how to operate the APIs, and how a world without 3PC will impact campaign performance, reach, or measurement. Advertisers must continue to wait until they are granted mainstream access and can begin purchasing and measuring media using these APIs, but that does not mean they should remain idle.

In preparation, organizations and their partners should focus on creating frameworks to test and evaluate the privacy sandbox APIs. Begin benchmarking campaign performance with 3PC and alternative IDs. Lean on your agency partners or develop a dedicated task force to support the planning and buying teams to understand the changes required.

Organizations that have not begun to make moves already or need help to identify which strategic bets demonstrate longevity, now is the time to put a plan together. Merkle helps clients to navigate the changing ecosystem and ready themselves for not only Chrome’s deprecation but wider signal loss challenges by building strategies to successfully deliver experiences, activate media, and measure those experiences moving forward.