How Are Advertisers Preparing for Cookieless?

Marketers are preparing for the death of cookies, but what alternative tactics are getting the most traction? The two most popular solutions, first-party data and contextual targeting, deserve further exploration. Fully 68% of programmatic buyers say that they are implementing and growing “first-party data collection strategies” while 53% say they are working to collect and scale “contextual targeting signals.”

Contextual targeting is considered one of the simpler solutions to set up, marketers rated it a 3.06 (with 5 being the most difficult and 1 being the simplest). Despite the ease of implementation, when it came to overall effectiveness contextual received a middle-of-the-road rating. First-party data collection on the other hand was ranked among the most difficult tactics to set up (at a 3.98), but it was also rated far and away the most effective cookieless solution.

This trade-off between simplicity and effectiveness explains why the same proportion of buyers (65%) plan to continue pursuing both contextual targeting and first-party data strategies into 2022. However, advertisers who are able to implement and scale a reliable first-party data strategy will be among the best positioned when it comes time to shift away from third-party audiences.