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*Updated April 2025
As of April 2025, the landscape for third-party cookies has shifted significantly due to evolving privacy concerns, regulatory interventions, and industry adaptations. While Google initially planned to phase out third-party cookies in its Chrome browser by 2025, this timeline has experienced multiple delays. In July 2024, Google announced a shift in strategy, opting to retain third-party cookies but introducing features that allow users to make informed choices about their tracking preferences.
Despite this retention, the industry continues to move towards privacy-centric solutions. Marketers have been proactively exploring alternatives to third-party cookies, such as leveraging first-party data, contextual targeting, and other privacy-preserving technologies.
Moreover, other major browsers like Safari and Firefox have already retained stringent restrictions on third-party cookies, reinforcing the industry's trajectory towards a cookieless future. This collective shift underscores the importance for businesses to adapt their digital strategies, prioritize transparent data practices, and invest in technologies that respect user privacy.
While third-party cookies remain operational in certain contexts, the overarching trend indicates a move towards their eventual obsolescence. It remains wise to stay ahead by embracing privacy-focused strategies and preparing for a future where third-party cookies play a diminished role in digital advertising.
The big question on all our minds is what marketers and advertisers will do without third-party cookies? Should you give up on marketing and pursue your passion of painting koala bears eating ice cream? You can put away the paintbrushes for now. While change is coming, marketing as we know it will survive without third-party cookies and solutions are already in the oven. Smell that? It’s the future of marketing.
Cookies (not the kind you’re thinking 🍪) are small blocks of data that the browser you’re using saves based on how you interact with every site you visit. To take it a step further, tracking cookies are a specific type of cookie that marketers utilize to both target and retarget customers based on a user’s internet history and interactions. It allows marketers to see user patterns, behaviors, likes, dislikes, and approximate locations in order to form strategies based on that information.
Cookie retargeting is a widely used ad targeting strategy that offers several notable benefits for businesses seeking to increase conversions and engagement. Cookie retargeting enables businesses to display ads to users who have previously visited their website or interacted with their content. This relevance increases the likelihood of engagement, as users are more likely to click on ads that align with their previous interests or browsing history. Additionally, by targeting users who have already shown an interest in your products or services, cookie retargeting can significantly improve conversion rates. It reminds potential customers of your brand and encourages them to return to your site to complete a desired action, such as making a purchase or filling out a form.
Cookie retargeting works by placing a cookie on a user's device when they visit a specific webpage or perform a particular action, such as adding items to a shopping cart. This cookie then allows advertisers to track the user's subsequent online activity and display targeted ads to re-engage them. By delivering personalized content to users who have already expressed an interest, businesses can nurture leads, reduce cart abandonment, and ultimately boost their ROI in advertising campaigns.
First-party tracking cookies are created directly from a domain or website you visit. When you navigate to a site and see a pop up stating “We use essential cookies…” THAT is a first-party cookie. Its purpose is to gather data on how you, the particular user, interact with the site. The data gathered from these interactions can give the site owner insight into the visitors’ experiences and what adjustments need to be made. For the most part, first-party cookies are seen as harmless and a normal part of the internet experience as a whole.
Third-party tracking cookies are a whole other…flavor. They're installed to track you across the web, so even after you leave the website that installed it, that site owner can still see your online activity. You’ll often see an additional line on a site’s pop up that says “We also use non-essential cookies…” THOSE are the third-party cookies used to create those pesky ads that follow you around the internet after you left an item in your shopping cart.
Google Click Identifier (GCLID) is a sort of connector between Google Analytics and Google Ads. It helps Google Ads creators monitor their campaigns and make adjustments to enhance their ads in order to increase conversions. Now, as a way to support their Apple and AT&T partnerships, if an ad is clicked with an iOS device, ad managers will no longer see a GCLID — instead, they will see a WBRAID for app-to-web measurements and a GBRAID for app-to-app measurements. This change in the process will decrease reported web conversions. For non-iOS devices, GCLIDs will still be used for conversion attribution. Learn more about the change in this blog post.
As of April 2025, Google's approach to handling third-party cookies in its Chrome browser has undergone significant changes. Initially, Google planned to phase out third-party cookies by 2022 as part of its Privacy Sandbox initiative, aiming to enhance user privacy. However, after multiple delays and industry consultations, the company announced in July 2024 that it would no longer proceed with this phase-out. Instead, Chrome introduced a new feature called Tracking Protection, allowing users to make an informed choice about third-party cookies. This feature limits cross-site tracking by restricting website access to third-party cookies by default, giving users control over their privacy settings.
This decision was influenced by various factors, including feedback from advertisers, publishers, and regulatory bodies. The ad industry had been preparing for a post-cookie world, and Google's reversal prompted mixed reactions. While some marketers expressed relief, others noted that they had already adapted to alternative strategies focusing on first-party data collection and privacy-centric advertising methods.
Recent reports indicate investment in Privacy Sandbox has been waning, but it's unclear if it will be Google's solution to the industry's continued move away from thrid-party cookies.
Keep on reading to learn more about how marketers can use first-party data to better serve customers while respecting user privacy.
To throw their hat in the ring of enhancing online privacy and further diminishing the role of third-party cookies, Mozilla Firefox has implemented Total Cookie Protection by default for all its users worldwide. This announcement reflects a commitment to strengthening user privacy and follows the broader industry trend of limiting the influence of third-party tracking technologies. Total Cookie Protection by default means that each website a user visits will have its own “cookie jar,” isolated from cookies used by other websites. This prevents cookies from different websites from tracking users across the web, offering a substantial boost in online privacy.
Mozilla's move aligns with the industry-wide shift towards reducing the reliance on third-party cookies, a trend already in the works with other browsers like Safari and Chrome. As more browsers implement measures to protect user privacy, it becomes increasingly clear that the era of unrestricted third-party cookies is drawing to a close, signaling a significant transformation in the landscape of online advertising and user data tracking.
The first logical thing to do when something you like is taken away from you is to justify its loss by saying it sucked anyway. This is actually in some ways true with the ubiquitous tracking cookie. Cookie synching aka cookie matching—which is used by demand-side platforms (DSPs) and data management platforms (DMPs) to sync cookies data so they know when they are dealing with the same user—isn’t exactly perfect. In the world of data-driven marketing, it’s actually pretty awful.
Unifying data is critical to providing personalized experiences to consumers, and it also must be done right to prevent annoying the everloving snot out of everyone. Where this tends to come apart for cookie-based targeting is when you take into consideration the massive amount of data that has to be synched up across the ad ecosystem. When a cookie from one site is not passed to an adtech platform, you miss a part of the puzzle and an appropriate match is not made. This happens often, and because of this, cookie match rates range from only 40 to 60 percent. This is why when you are searching for red Nikes on Zappos you end up getting retargeted with ads for black lingerie—which can cause other unforeseen issues for consumers at home. But, really, bad targeting from fragmented cookies is a big waste of money and annoys people with irrelevant ads. In addition to this, cookies are device-based, so they can’t help you when someone goes from desktop to mobile or switches computers or browsers, further fracturing the customer journey.
On top of that, a majority of tracking cookies are already rejected by browsers anyway. An ad-serving firm analyzed 20 advertisers and more than 5 billion impressions in fourth-quarter 2017, and found 64% of their tracking cookies were either blocked or deleted by web browsers. The rejection rate on mobile devices was higher — at 75%, compared with 41% on desktop. Because of this, advertisers can actually be throwing away half of their budgets on missed opportunities by not reaching potential customers and having dollars go toward unnecessary impressions to people who were going to convert anyway.
Okay, there has been a lot of talk about the future, but cookie blocking is here today. What can you do to replace the tracking cookie and still connect with your audience? Here are a few tactics that can help you break your cookie habit.
What’s old is new again and contextual advertising is back. “We don’t expect a decline in ad dollars or a decline in ad traffic, we expect a reallocation and shift of budgets,” said Jon Kagan, VP of search at Cogniscient Media. “The next best option to cookies based behavioral targeting is anything keyword or keyword contextual-based advertising. Years ago everyone discounted it and we moved further and further away from keyword targeting, but now we’re going to have to go straight back to it.”
Contextual advertising is basically ads that are relevant to the other content on the screen. It’s like beer ads in a bar: go where your customers are. From the average non-marketer consumers’ perspective, contextual ads are more relevant and far less creepy feeling than cookie-based behavioral retargeting. Think of it this way:
With behavioral targeting, someone like you may get ads for martech platforms, ad agencies and the like everywhere you go on the web. But as an everyday consumer, you’re actually more interested in knitting. It doesn’t make much sense for you to get ads for Marketo when you are on Knitterly sharing your latest pattern—which could happen when behavioral targeting is being employed.
With contextual targeting, the ads you see are based on the content you are looking at instead of your overall behavior profile. So when you are looking at your knitting blog, you see ads for knitting needles, and when you’re reading up on how to boost the click-through rate on your email newsletters, you see ads for relevant email automation platforms.
The move to contextual targeting will also mean a move back to focusing on producing and distributing relevant content. Content is the new cookie (says the content marketer)! This is a bit easier said than done, though, as it will take more alignment between advertisers and publishers to make it work at scale. This article in Marketing Land outlines the four key steps publishers and advertisers need to take to executing this alternative to cookie-based behavioral targeting. A great takeaway is that content-as-ads works, mainly because people hate ads, but they like to be informed and entertained—and appreciate relevant offers while that’s happening.
The tools for contextual keyword advertising are available in Google AdSense, which allows you to place image, video, and text ads on the pages of participating sites online. This enables you to put dynamic content in front of people who aren’t necessarily searching for you. This article in Disruptive Advertising shows you how to get started with contextual advertising.
From the consumer perspective, contextual ads are way less creepy because they don’t give you the feeling that you’re being followed around the web. They only see ads that are relevant to the content they are currently consuming, so they are more relevant and in turn, more likely to feel invited to the party.
The shift to mobile has been hampering the effectiveness of cross-device remarketing for a while now, since most mobile devices and apps don’t accept cookies. This is not to mention that cookies are device-specific, so when someone goes from their work computer to home or switches from desktop to mobile, or even switches between browsers on the same device, the retargeting trail goes cold. It also causes trouble with suppression, so you also end up wasting money on retargeting people who already converted on their other devices. This is where people-based advertising comes and bridges the gap.
Introduced to the marketing world by Facebook, people-based advertising relies on a unique identifier that is related to the user, not the device. According to MartechSeries, people-based marketing is defined as “a means to create a customer-centric, cohesive marketing system that revolves around customers and their real-time behavioral data. This data, combined with available first-party brand data, allows brands to target customers in real-time, across devices and channels.” This method does not rely on third-party cookies to track users or gather data, and allows brands to meet customers in the places and times that they actually want to engage with them. “I don’t think that behavioral marketing is going to go away, but we will have to shift to looking at the behavior of known individuals,” said Kagan.
According to BounceX (who provides a platform that enables this to work), a successful People-Based Marketing strategy boils down to these three key elements:
The big catch here is customer identification and data. In the walled gardens of Google, Amazon, and Facebook, the customer remains logged in within these ecosystems across devices. Not to mention that they have more first-party customer behavioral data at their fingertips than anyone on earth. The feasibility of people-based marketing could be limited for brands that have don’t have adequate first-party data and login information about their customers. There are plenty of technology platforms that allow marketers to resolve identification and behavioral data like purchase data, email engagement, device information, but not everyone will have enough data to make this work on the scale and price point that cookie-based retargeting allowed.
Getting your hands on first-party data will be more important than ever in the absence of third-party cookies. Facebook, Google, and Amazon obviously have a huge advantage, but brands often have access to more data than they think. Not to mention that utilizing data from customers who have shown interest in reaching out to you is generally seen as more above-the-board than buying and selling access to third-party consumer data.
One untapped source of first-party customer data might be hiding in your call center. When your customers call you, they are literally telling you what they want and how they talk about it. To feasibly classify customer conversations into useful digital datasets, you need an automated system that can understand what’s being said and accurately derive meaning from it. Enter Invoca Signal AI — our machine learning-powered predictive analytics technology that analyzes your callers’ conversations and turns them into actionable marketing intelligence.
With Signal AI, not only can you predict whether a conversion happened on each call, you can predict things like caller type (e.g. service call vs. sales call), as well as milestones on the path to conversion. And when you understand the nature of a call, you can optimize your media for higher ROI, which can be particularly helpful when you are nailing down the right keywords to feed to your contextual advertising campaigns.
Invoca also enables you to unify your digital customer journey data to data from phone calls to create a single and comprehensive customer profile. By using online data collection and trackable phone numbers, marketers can attribute digital campaigns to actions taken on inbound calls. With this information being connected in the Invoca platform, you can analyze digital and call data in one place and get a more complete view of your customers.
Speaking of call analytics, many of you probably came here to see what this means for the attribution data you get from Invoca, so here it is! Though Invoca’s call tracking technology does involve the use of cookies, it relies solely on first-party cookies, so it is not significantly impacted by any of these blocking technologies or regulations.
Even regulations that limit the amount of time that cookies can last to seven days (or browsers that reduce that to one day) will not negatively affect most call tracking users. Our data suggest that 90% of customers call within one hour of being shown a phone number. Browsers with blocking technology will also refresh the cookie-clearing time counter upon a user revisiting a website.
The latest cookie-blocking news comes with the launch of iOS 14, where first-party cookies will be deprecated after seven days at the OS level. This means that first-party cookies will only persist for a week no matter what browser you are using on an iOS 14 device, including those placed by Invoca. This will not have a significant impact on Invoca users for a few reasons:
The long and short of it is, the cookie apocalypse will not significantly affect the functionality or effectiveness of Invoca. And like many others in the marketing technology business, we will also soon be reducing our reliance on browser cookies for attribution to future-proof our technology.
While it seems pretty scary right now, keep in mind that cookies are a 25-year-old technology and we’ll definitely find a way to move on. It will take a combination of tactics, but moving forward, the marketing and advertising industry must not only provide more value to consumers from advertising, they must also strike a balance between profit and privacy.
A balance between personalization and privacy appears to be what people want. A recent Harris Poll survey revealed that 63 percent of consumers expect personalization “as a standard of service.” But they also expect and deserve to have the choice to be tracked or not, to get a personalized experience or not, and to see ads or not.
The days of finding workarounds are over. If marketers focus on making advertising more relevant and less invasive, consumers will likely see the value of it an choose to allow it in their digital lives.
No matter what, the consumer needs to be central—as does privacy—in the latest shift in marketing, or there will just be more backlash, more blockers, and more challenges for the industry as a whole.
Want to learn how Invoca helps marketers capture and utilize more of their first-party data? Request your personalized demo.
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