With close to half (47%) of marketers saying they use cookies for advertising purposes, advertising in a cookie-less world will not be without its challenges. New data from Advertiser Perceptions has found that marketers and agencies believe that reporting tops the list of campaign phases that will become more challenging in a world without cookies.
When survey respondents were asked to rank the campaign phases that will likely become more challenging with cookie-less advertising, two-thirds ranked campaign reporting or insights in the #1 (31%) or #2 (35%) spot. Optimization is expected to become more challenging as well, with 63% ranking that in the top 2 — including 35% ranking it in the #1 spot.
Marketers and agency executives indicated that the buying/implementation and planning phases are less likely to be more challenging when cookies are no longer available.
Identity Resolution Without Cookies
Research by Epsilon-Conversant and Forrester Consulting found that 7 in 10 marketers identified customers across devices and touchpoints using email addresses, while 43% used cookies to do so.
This recent data looks at how marketers plan on addressing identity resolution in the future, with 65% saying they will be relying more heavily on ID graphs built on first-party data. In fact, more than half of the marketing executives surveyed by Merkle earlier this year report plans to invest in identity resolutions/graphs.
About half (51%) will rely more heavily on second-party data built via data co-ops with other agencies and brands. Others see a future where they will put more emphasis on second-party data from publishing partners (48%), while some will still rely on third-party-based identity resolution solutions, but ensure they are built to last (31%).
Which Measurement Tools Will Become More Important?
In the past 6 months, some 47% of advertisers have used sales-lift research, with 50% of campaigns using this as a measurement tool. That said, in the new cookie-less world, 44% of respondents believe this metric will become more important.
Advertiser Perceptions also found that sales-lift (along with brand lift) was one of the top two signals for measuring the success of video ads across formats such as digital video, CTV/OTT, linear TV and paid social. However, it falls further down in ranking when looking at the most common measures of campaign fulfillment versus actual effect.
Linking ad spend to sales is not the only measurement tool that will become more important in a world without cookies. Marketers also expect to be putting more credence in ad effectiveness research (39%), though more than 6 in 10 (63%) are already using it. Media mix modeling (38%), cross-platform multi-touch attribution (36%) and internal analytics (35%) are expected to become more important, while, to a lesser extent, so will external analytics (31%) and location/geo-based attribution (31%).
About the Data: Findings are based on a July 2020 survey of 200 marketer and agency executives. All respondents are involved in measurement, analytics and effectiveness and had used specific measurement or research tools in the prior 6 months.
