Itp 8211 Update For Marketers
Management Summary
Apple has been tackling the issue with Safari and “Intelligent Tracking Prevention” since 2018 and is a pioneer in the industry in this regard. The other major players on the market now also have similar tool features; in March of this year, Google was the last to release an update“Privacy Sandbox” projectafter. Before we show solutions for programmatic marketing (spoiler: programmatic marketingis notdead), here is an overview of the different browsers and how they deal with 3rd party cookies:
safari
- ITP (Intelligent Tracking Prevention) in the current version (2.3) prevents the storage of client-side browser cookies for a period of more than 7 days.
- Alternative data storage such as localStorage, Indexed DB or similar are treated like classic cookies. Switching to localStorage – as recommended again and again – is no longer of any use.
- In short: Cookies (regardless of whether they are 3rd or 1st party) have a lifespan of 7 days
Firefox
- ETP (Enhanced Tracking Prevention)
- Has three different settings, so users can decide for themselves who is allowed to write cookies
- Originally, 3rd party cookies like floodlights were only blocked in private tabs, but since March of this year this has been set by default for all users
Chrome
- Google was the last major player to announce at the beginning of the year that it wanted to abolish the ability to set 3rd party cookies.An organic fade-out has been announced, cookies can continue to be set until 2022.
- We havein the last blog articlealready described what currently needs to be taken into account when setting cookies in Chrome
Edge
- In Microsoft’s Chromium-based browser there are 3 possible settings (Basic, Balanced and Strict).
- Basic is the standard setting in which it is generally still possible to set cookies. Strict already prevents the execution of JS code (e.g. tracking in GA), but is so “strict” that it causes some problems with the correct display of pages and is therefore unlikely to become widespread.
In summary, this means that remarketing in the Google Marketing Platform and user evaluations in Google Analytics are still possible if the latest developments are taken into account. Additionally, Chrome records worldwidemore than ⅔ of all trafficand has all the advantages for (at least) the next 2 yearsthat you are used to. To put this into context: 2 years ago the GDPR was not yet in force – forever ago, right?
Impact on digital marketing strategies
- In the short term, tracking should be adapted to the existing circumstances. Our team of experts is happy to support you with GTM settings or cookie rewrites as well as audience building.
- In the medium term, it is important to close the partial gaps caused by Firefox users etc. using heuristic methods. For example, anyone who collects data in GMP has already installed a native interface to all Google Cloud applications with BigQuery. Cookies that are not set can be replaced precisely and efficiently using machine learning-based approximations.
- In the long term, 1st party data will become more and more important (it always has been)! If the alternative 3rd party cookie as an identifier is no longer used, marketing measures should be increasingly aimed at increasing the base of 1st party data. Optimize(360) and other optimization tools, for example, are a wonderful lever for increasing registrations and logins.
There is no alternative for digital marketers to deal with this topic. Data provided by users in accordance with GDPR and tracking prevention is more valuable because it is consciously released. Sustainable marketing strategies take this into account. Who now in oneCustomer Data Platformor similar, creates the basis for data-driven marketing, which is independent of the technical possibility of setting a 3rd party cookie.
