Dmitriy К. Google Ad Expert

Google Gives Third-Party Cookies Another Year

In 2024, Google will gradually stop using third-party cookies. Does this signal the end of specialized advertising? According to some estimates, publishers may lose up to 52% of their financing if third-party cookies weren't used. Discover how crucial cookies are in this article and what will take their place in the future so that advertisers and marketers can continue to operate effective pay per click (PPC) operations.

However, let's first define a third-party cookie.

Explanation of Third-Party Cookies

A little data block known as an HTTP cookie is created by a web server and stored on a user's computer or other device when they are visiting a website. A user's web browser may occasionally store a cookie in another device as well. A third-party cookie, on the other hand, is one that is set by a website other than the one the user is now visiting.

The "Like" button on a website for Facebook is an illustration of a third-party cookie. Facebook will set and save a cookie on the computer or device of users who visit the website. To identify visitors and keep track of which websites they visited, Facebook can subsequently access the cookie.

Another illustration is the creation of cookies by the Google Ads service to track user activity. Visitors to a website that runs Google Advertising are storing third-party cookies as a result, which means that even when they visit other websites, Google may be able to show them ads based on their search history.

Why Are Cookies Important For Managing PPC Campaigns And Digital Advertising?

They are also known as targeting or advertising cookies since web entities that create cookies frequently utilize them for digital advertising and marketing purposes. Third-party cookies are typically "persistent," which means they follow users to other websites and gather data that can be used to display content, information, or advertisements that are pertinent to them.

One reason a user visiting a website with an advertising cookie may not see ads, yet related ads may appear on other websites, is because of persistent cookies.

There is a lot of discussion about online privacy and security issues, particularly user data privacy, because cookies are used to collect user data. Therefore, ethical advertisers will only set third-party cookies on websites with permission from the owners of those websites.

In any case, sharing cookie-collected data is a standard practice in the advertising sector. The information is typically used by a Google Ads expert and online advertising firm to create user profiles and assess how well their advertisements perform on other websites.

Delivering results is one thing a Google advertising agency or PPC advertising agency guarantees clients. They must therefore create effective marketing campaigns and track their results in order to effectively target the desired client segments and maximize return on investments (ROIs). However, they can only do that if analytics, which is user data collected by cookies, is available.

The idea of not employing third-party advertising cookies gives any PPC management team and Google Ads specialist headaches. Therefore, there was concern when Google stated it was ending Chrome's support for third-party cookies. Targeting for Google Ads might become too difficult. A PPC advertising agency would find it challenging to track and improve PPC campaigns.

If third-party cookies are removed, advertisers who rely on them will no longer be able to learn about and comprehend user behavior. They would be unable to consistently display relevant ads as a result, which would impact click-through rates.

Fortunately, Google chose to postpone the deprecation of third-party cookies until 2023, with a goal of completely eliminating them by 2024. So, for the time being, a Google Ads firm can continue to offer top-notch PPC management and digital advertising services with more time to plan and innovate.

Why Is Google Removing Cookies Slowly?

Google takes the security of user data seriously. Users' expectations of internet privacy and security are no longer met by the data practices of advertisers. So they made the decision to gradually phase out third-party cookies and replace them with a different program.

Cookies have been used for years by data brokers, publishers, and advertising to track users' online behavior. But this method does breach user data privacy, as many people think. Although unlikely, there is a chance that hackers may use cookies to acquire browsing sessions.

Therefore, consumers have the option of turning off cookies in their browsers. Others use an ad blocker to lessen or prevent the display of adverts. But this resulted in the development of another attribution technique for advertising, termed fingerprinting.

By using the fingerprinting technology, which is employed in analytics, it is possible for advertisers to track individuals around the internet and create user profiles for personalized advertising. However, unlike cookies, users cannot remove their fingerprints. As a result, people are unable to control their online privacy and security.

The Fix: Google's Privacy Sandbox Initiative Advertising is the company's main source of income. There were therefore plans to replace third-party cookies with the Google Privacy Sandbox when they made the decision to phase them out.