Cookieless Attribution: Marketing Without Cookies

Neil Patel
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Author: Neil Patel | Co Founder of NP Digital & Owner of Ubersuggest
Published July 9, 2024
A graphic that says "Cookieless Attribution: Marketing Without Cookies.

The end of third-party cookies has been a long time coming. 

Safari and Firefox blocked third-party cookies in 2017 and 2019, respectively. In January 2020, Google promised to follow suit by deprecating third-party cookies on Chrome within two years and replacing them with the Privacy Sandbox.

But the wait goes on. 

On Tuesday, April 23, 2024, Google announced it would delay the deprecation of third-party cookies on Chrome until 2025 — the third time the search giant has pushed back its original deadline. 

The reason? 

Ongoing regulatory challenges from the UK’s Competition and Marketing Authority (CMA) and a belief that advertisers aren’t yet ready for a world without cookies. In a blog post, the company said:

“We recognize that there are ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from the industry, regulators, and developers, and will continue to engage closely with the entire ecosystem. It’s also critical that the CMA has sufficient time to review all evidence including results from industry tests, which the CMA has asked market participants to provide by the end of June. Given both of these significant considerations, we will not complete third-party cookie deprecation during the second half of Q4.”

That doesn’t mean we marketers should stop taking action. Although Google has delayed its timeline—and may do so again in 2025—cookieless marketing feels inevitable at this point, and you need to be ready when it becomes a reality.

That means assessing what a cookieless future means for your marketing team and taking steps to prepare for it today. 

Below, I cover everything you need to know about marketing without cookies. 

Key Takeaways

  • Cookies are small text files that collect information about users browsing the web. There are two kinds: first-party cookies (which are stored by the website you visit and used to provide a better user experience) and third-party cookies (which are created and stored by other websites and are used for online advertising purposes).
  • Google has once again delayed the deprecation of cookies on Chrome. It will now happen in 2025 at the earliest, assuming Google can address the CMA’s concerns.  
  • Other browsers, like Firefox and Safari, have already eliminated third-party cookies. 
  • Marketers need to adopt cookieless attribution techniques, such as device fingerprinting and Google Analytics 4 (GA4) server-side tracking, ahead of the transition to reduce marketing campaign disruptions.
  • Cookieless attribution doesn’t mean the end of data-backed marketing. With first-party data collection and techniques like device fingerprinting, you can still use data in your marketing campaigns.

Cookies Explained

Before we dive into cookieless attribution and cookieless tracking, let’s take it back to the basics.

Cookies are small text files that collect information about users as they browse the web. You may have noticed websites asking for your permission around cookies, like this pop-up banner below:

A cookie consent form.

There are two kinds of cookies: first-party cookies and third-party cookies. 

First-party cookies are collected by the website you visit. The website uses them to increase functionality, understand user behavior, and improve the user experience. First-party cookies are used to remember your settings, for example, and collect web analytics data.

Third-party cookies are created by other domains using a script or tag in the website’s code. Websites use these cookies for online advertising purposes, such as cross-site tracking, re-targeting, and attribution. 

It’s important to note that browsers are only deprecating third-party cookies. Even when Google finally deprecates cookies in 2025 or beyond, websites will still be able to collect user data using first-party cookies. 

What Is Cookieless Attribution?

Next, let’s define what cookieless attribution actually is. 

Attribution in digital marketing is used to determine which touchpoints contributed to a customer’s purchase. Marketers use it to determine the “path” to conversion.

Attribution is often broken down into channels. These can include social media, organic search, paid search, emails, etc.

In the past, third-party cookies made it very easy to attribute conversions to marketing channels. By installing a snippet of code on your website from Google or Facebook, you could easily track how customers moved around the web and work out which channels they used to find your brand.

Now that cookies are going away, that’s no longer possible. You need to use cookieless attribution instead. 

Cookieless attribution is a method of anonymously collecting data—such as web traffic sources, conversions, and other marketing metrics—using techniques like server-side tracking and device fingerprinting.

Cookieless attribution accomplishes several things.

First, it protects user anonymity and privacy. This is a major consumer concern, with 86 percent of Americans more concerned about privacy and data security than the state of the economy. 

A bar graph showing the concerns of American consumers.

(Source)

Second, it allows marketers to continue determining their best marketing channels. And third, it enables marketers to create marketing personas based on data, though in different ways than before.

Why Are Third-Party Cookies Going Away, and Why Does It Matter?

In a word, privacy. 

Consumers have become increasingly aware of Big Tech’s ability to track them around the web, building up detailed profiles that companies like Facebook and Google can use to target them with highly personalized ads. 

To say people are concerned is an understatement. Research by the International Association of Privacy Professionals finds 68 percent of consumers are either somewhat or very concerned about online privacy. 

In 2024, 75 percent of consumers believe privacy is a human right, and the same amount want control over how their data is collected and used. 

Blocking third-party cookies that facilitate this level of tracking is one of the easiest ways to improve online privacy. 

It’s why Firefox, Safari, and Brave have already blocked third-party cookies and why Google will replace cookies with the Privacy Sandbox — an initiative that will give websites access to user data while respecting their privacy. 

Thankfully, you don’t have to wait until the Privacy Sandbox becomes a reality to improve attribution and digital marketing efforts without cookies. Below, I’ll discuss some of the most effective strategies for a cookieless future. 

How Are Marketing Professionals Responding To The Loss of Third-Party Cookies?

If you think you’re alone in your fears regarding losing third-party cookies, think again.

My team at NP Digital reached out to digital marketers around the United States. Here’s what we found. 

More Than Half of Respondents Expect Data Tracking and Privacy Regulation Changes to Impact Their Analytics Efforts

We asked digital marketers to rank how much they anticipate data tracking and privacy regulations will change their analytics efforts in 2024.

The marketers were asked to answer based on what they thought about themselves and their experiences. This was the ranking system:

  • Slightly impacted: They will have to make some adjustments to their process but are confident it won’t be a big change.
  • Heavily impacted: They will keep some of their basic strategies but must completely change how they execute them.
  • Extremely heavily impacted: They will have to change how they handle analytics completely.

How did the marketers respond?

  • 38.36 percent said their efforts would be heavily impacted
  • 28.08 percent said extremely heavily impacted
  • 30.82 percent said slightly impacted
  • 2.74 percent said they could not accurately gauge the impact

Improving Data and Analytics Capabilities Is Not a Top Priority for All Marketers in 2024

Despite more than half of respondents believing regulation changes will impact them, the majority of digital marketers don’t have data and analytics capability improvements as a top priority for 2024.

Of those who expect to be heavily impacted, the top priorities were:

  • Growing their audience/reach (20.4 percent)
  • Gaining more engagement for their content (15 percent)
  • Improving their data and analytics capabilities (11 percent). 

What about the respondents who said they would be extremely heavily impacted? 

  • Improving their data and analytics capabilities (19.3 percent) 
  • Growing their audience/reach (18.3 percent).

The Majority of Digital Marketers Have a Plan in Place

Even if data and analytics capability improvements aren’t a top priority for many marketers, most have plans in place for these changes.

Out of all the respondents, this was the breakdown:

  • 30.82 percent said they have a concrete plan for the deprecation of cookies that they are confident in.
  • 26 percent said they have a plan in place but are concerned with how it will work out.
  • 24 percent said they are in the process of planning for the deprecation of cookies.
  • 14.3 percent said they have not planned at all.

When comparing the groups who feel they will be extremely heavily impacted versus slightly impacted by these changes, their plan breakdowns are quite similar:

  • 36 percent (extremely heavily impacted) versus 29 percent (slightly impacted) have a plan and feel confident in it.
  • 29 percent (extremely heavily impacted) versus 20 percent (slightly impacted) have a plan but are concerned with how it will work out.
  • 22 percent (extremely heavily impacted) versus 18 percent (slightly impacted) are still in the process of planning.

What We Can Learn from These Results

Marketers are aware of the impending changes and believe a significant amount of upheaval is heading their way.  

Many are actively planning for the deprecation of third-party cookies with varying degrees of confidence.

Those who anticipate greater impacts are ahead on their planning, but the slightly impacted group isn’t trailing too far behind!

Interestingly, 14.3 percent of all respondents said they had not planned at all! Instead, that group of marketers prioritizes expanding into new digital channels (20 percent) and growing their audience/reach (25 percent).

Just because marketers think they will be impacted doesn’t mean improving their analytics is a top priority though. Why might this be the case?

There are a few possible reasons.

First, many marketers already have a plan in place for these changes. While adjustments may be necessary throughout the year, they may not expect to need to spend considerable amounts of time on tweaking their plan.

Another potential reason is that they may see capability updates as a smaller part of other priorities. For example, a marketing team may prioritize growing their audience while understanding that changes to how they do so will need to be part of the deal.

Nevertheless, if you’re a marketer who expects significant changes to your business, you must not underestimate the level of planning required to offset these impacts.

That doesn’t mean having a fully-fledged plan as we get deeper into 2024, but you should have a solid plan in place that you can adapt as the true impacts emerge. 

How Does Marketing Without Cookies Work?

Marketing without cookies doesn’t mean marketing without data. It means finding a way to anonymize data or collect it without impacting a user’s privacy. 

It’s the same for cookieless attribution. These strategies, which I’ll explain below, work by collecting data anonymously.

There’s no two ways about it, though. Cookieless attribution will require you to rework many of your current campaigns. It will be a lot of work upfront. But, once you’ve created these new personas based on cookieless data, you can continue your marketing efforts as usual.

4 Tips To Prepare For Cookieless Marketing

Your marketing campaigns don’t have to suffer because you don’t have access to third-party cookies.

Using the strategies and tips below, you can learn to leverage tools like first-party data to increase the effectiveness of your marketing efforts without depending on cookies.

Master Advanced Features of Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics 4 has several features that help you collect user data without cookies.

First, you can enable cookieless attribution by configuring server-side tagging. Rather than tracking users through their browser, you track them directly through your server or Google’s server. Server-side tracking lets you collect more data without using cookies. It also means your data is more accurate, since server-side tracking avoids discrepancies that can be caused by an ad blocker.

Second, you can use the Advanced version of Google Consent Mode v2 to collect as much data as possible from users who don’t consent to tracking. 

Google Consent Mode v2 is a feature that allows GA4 to measure activity and conversion data while still respecting user privacy. It does this by using AI modeling to fill in the gaps in your data. There are two modes to Google Consent Mode v2: Basic and Advanced. 

You can see the difference between the two settings in the chart Google has put together below. 

A chart from Google showing the differences between basic consent mode and advanced consent mode.

Unlike Basic Consent Mode—where no data is collected at all when users reject consent—Advanced Consent Mode collects anonymized information about unconsenting users that Google uses to deliver more accurate AI conversion models. 

This can happen because Google Tags (the snippets of code that measure user activity) load before the consent banner. If users reject consent, then Advanced Consent Mode sends cookieless pings (which contain non-identifiable information like location and browser type) to Google, which the company uses to power advanced conversion and behavioral modeling in GA4.

Use First-Party Data

While third-party cookies will no longer be an option, marketing teams can continue to collect first-party data. This means you can still use data from email sign-up forms or newsletters, surveys, and other direct methods:

Best Buy's first-party data.

The biggest benefit of working with first-party data is you own the data. You don’t have to worry about buying it from someone else or losing the right to use it.

The second benefit is that first-party data tends to be more accurate than third-party cookies because you know your customers and have the tools to figure out exactly where the data came from.

Another massive benefit is your competitors don’t have the same data. When you buy third-party data, there may be another company, most likely your competitor, that buys the same information.

Sounds exciting? Here are some ways to collect first-party data to help you get started:

  • Online surveys
  • Sign-up forms
  • Newsletters
  • Community polls
  • SMS answers
  • Mobile notification responses
  • Direct mail (offline post), etc.

These are some of the tools marketers typically use to gather first-party data from both new visitors and returning users. You may not want to start using all of them at once, as doing so could overwhelm your customers.

Instead, try one or two methods first and see how your audience responds. Are they receptive to your methods, or do they need a different approach? Experiment with different techniques to see what best suits your business model.

Invest More In Market Research

If it’s not clear enough already, you need more first-party data to make up for the loss of third-party cookies—especially data concerning your target audience. 

Enter market research. 

Market research helps you understand the needs and pain points of your users, allowing you to tailor your campaigns to suit their needs without relying on external cookie data.

If you’re new to this, here are some ways to get started with market research:

  • Launch a targeted survey.
  • Collect questions and feedback from your current users.
  • Work with analytics to understand what’s working and what isn’t.
  • Hold focus groups with incentives for participants.
  • Observe how customers interact without interfering with their actions.
  • Post simple polls in community forms to get a broad view of audience interests.
  • Leverage the power of social media to understand what your target market wants.

No matter which method you choose, the bottom line is this: Start investing more in market research. Get to know your customers and target market with surveys, buyer personas, and most importantly, constantly testing your findings with A/B testing. 

Rethinking PPC: 4 Tips for PPC Marketing Without Cookies

The world of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is also set for seismic shifts without third-party cookies available. 

Traditionally, these were some of the primary sources for customer data to inform campaigns. But without that on the table, PPC marketers will need to find new methods to make educated decisions.

If you’ve ever run online advertising campaigns, you know the best way to get effective results is to target your ads to specific audiences. How can you do that when marketing without cookies? Here’s how.  

Lean Into Google’s AI Offerings

Google has several AI-powered features in Google Ads that help marketers see results with their cookie-free targeting efforts.

The first is Smart Bidding, a bid strategy that uses AI to optimize for conversions. Automated bid decisions are based on cookieless attribution data that includes device information, location, time of day, remarketing list, enabled languages, operating system, and other relevant details.

Next is Ads Data Manager, a recently rolled-out tool that lets you bring together all of your disparate first-party data (that’s things like emails, market research, and conversions) into a single analytics hub. 

Once centralized, you can use this first-party data (or rather Google’s AI can) to create more effective ad campaigns. 

Reconsider KPIs

Key performance indicators (KPIs) measure progress toward achieving ad campaign goals, so the success of your PPC marketing campaign often depends on what you’re measuring.

Here’s where it gets interesting. When marketing without cookies, you may have to reconsider these KPIs to better align with your business goals. For instance, one metric that you don’t need cookies to review is conversion numbers (how many users convert vs. how many users bounce from your homepage). 

Cost per acquisition is another important KPI to track to ensure the long-term profitability of your ad campaigns, that isn’t as reliant on cookies.

Here’s an example of how marketers are shifting the KPIs they use:

Bar graphs on how marketers are shifting KPIs.

It’s true that some classic KPIs—like revenue and customer acquisition costs—have also seen impressive growth rates. However, there has also been a significant increase in KPIs like web/mobile analytics (23 percent growth rate), customer satisfaction metrics (16 percent growth rate), and customer lifetime value (20 percent growth rate).

These KPIs are less direct than revenue and customer acquisition costs, but they’re also crucial for telling a more nuanced story.

Fully understanding and leveraging these KPIs can help you make better marketing decisions, especially when you’re navigating this new territory of a cookieless marketing future.

Use Contextual-Based Advertising

Now that third-party cookies are out of the picture, you may be wondering: How can I know which ads to place where if I don’t have data about consumer behavior?

That’s where contextual advertising comes in. In context-based advertising, ads appear on web pages according to the website’s content. For example, a tech blog may display ads about computer accessories, while a vegan-living website may display ads about vegan food products.

Look at the New York Times Books section for another example. 

The NYT books section.

The Amazon Prime Video ad copy literally talks about being a “bookworm.” This is contextual advertising, as users who read the NYT Books section are obviously readers in some capacity.

One more: Look at The Wall Street Journal’s Life and Work section. It has a classic lifestyle content ad, considering users visiting this section have already shown an interest in lifestyle content.

WSJ's Life and work section.

Target Based on Location and Time

 Say you want something more personal than contextual advertising. Then consider targeting users based on their current location and time of the day.

This can be as simple as “geotargeting,” where you change the ad copy to suit users from different regions. You see this in most search results.

For example, if you look up “coffee shops” from New York, you’ll see ads and search results for coffee shops in NY, even if the same brand has a franchise elsewhere.

A google shop for coffee shops in New York.

The most interesting part? It doesn’t even have to be a huge brand. As long as the business has a web presence and uses geo-targeted ads, it will show up for location-based searches.

Time-based marketing is similar, with the only difference being you’re now using time data to personalize your copy. Imagine getting an email greeting you with a “good morning” when it’s actually morning in your region. Feels good, doesn’t it?

This approach can also be useful to determine when ads will appear for users.

Say you want to market coffee products. It’s better to show these ads in the morning when users consider buying coffee rather than at night when they are more likely to avoid it.

 FAQs

What does cookieless marketing mean?

Cookies are the small pieces of data that contain personal identifiers that are exchanged between websites. Cookieless marketing is a form of marketing that is less reliant on third-party cookies. Cookieless marketing is becoming increasingly important as browsers deprecate third-party cookies.

How will the end of third-party cookies impact marketing?

Most marketing teams used third-party cookies to launch, measure, and optimize marketing campaigns. Losing access to these cookies is a big deal, which will force marketers to find new ways to track their customers and attribute conversions.

What are alternative methods for tracking user behavior in a cookieless world?

There are plenty of cookieless attribution techniques that you can use to track user behavior. Perhaps the most innovative method is device fingerprinting. This method assigns unique user IDs to web visitors using a collection of data points (e.g., screen resolution, browser, preferred color scheme). Device tracking then tracks the user in the same way as they would if a site was using cookies, but without breaking privacy laws.

 Another method is API-based tracking, which utilizes advertising and marketing data from web servers or CRMs.

How can marketers adapt to a cookieless landscape and maintain accurate attribution?

There are two things marketers should focus on when adapting to a cookieless landscape: first-party data and new cookieless attribution techniques (e.g., device fingerprinting, server-side tracking). First-party data enables marketers to own and use the data to its fullest extent. This is especially useful for remarketing campaigns. Cookieless attribution techniques are important, too, because they provide more generalized information that speaks to user behaviors and website performance. You can also use this data to target more generalized audiences within your marketing strategy.

What are the potential challenges and opportunities in marketing without cookies?

Two of the greatest challenges of marketing without cookies are the inability to track users across devices effectively and the inability to attribute conversions to specific marketing campaigns accurately. The lack of granular data can make campaign optimizations difficult. However, you have an opportunity here to grow your first-party data, which can be a more effective marketing method. First-party data is more accurate than third-party data, and it’s also provided willingly by users who are presumably more likely to convert.

Conclusion

Marketing without cookies may seem daunting at first. But, it doesn’t have to be so hard.

Get things started by collecting first-party data and setting up cookieless attribution in GA4.

Using the strategies and tips outlined above, you can improve your ad campaigns without relying on third-party cookies to find marketing success. The best part is that these methods give you more control and accuracy than cookie-based marketing, which has you sharing data with your competitors.

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Neil Patel

About the author:

Co Founder of NP Digital & Owner of Ubersuggest

He is the co-founder of NP Digital. The Wall Street Journal calls him a top influencer on the web, Forbes says he is one of the top 10 marketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies. Neil is a New York Times bestselling author and was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35 by the United Nations.

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Neil Patel

source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/marketing-without-cookies/