Until now, digital marketers have harnessed the power of data and programmatic marketing primarily through cookies. After relying on cookies for years, privacy concerns and security breaches have raised frowns and issues worldwide. B2B marketers must resolve important questions like who’s collecting data; how are they using it; and is it handled safely?
Negative emotions around extracting data by cookies have led to new solutions for compliance with privacy laws and regulations. This shift marked the transformation of the programmatic industry, where customer privacy is prioritized, and cookies won’t be on the menu anymore. Many programmatic marketers use fresh intent data about in-market buyers to study their audiences and target ads to their interests.
What Does Cookieless Mean for Programmatic Advertising?
Advertising is going cookieless, and the death of third party cookies is inevitable. For the programmatic domain, it means finding a backup solution fast to substitute for third party cookies.
The needs to measure performance metrics, assure smart media buying, target audiences and tailor digital marketing remain the same. The thing that will change is the medium or mechanism to do it.
Instead of third party cookies, leveraging first party data is a solution waiting right in front of you. Focus on alternate data points and technological advancements in real-time bidding (RTB) and “closed” publishing and advertising environments. These changes will help the industry evolve and re-think the value exchange with buyers and consumers, keeping in mind the security and quality data.
The shift from cookies not only will help ease privacy concerns, the trend may also have positive results for B2B marketers. According to the 2020 Media Quality Report by Integral Ad Science (IAS), cookieless ads lead to less ad fraud, improved impressions and more positive programmatic outcomes.
Leverage First Party Data Sooner. Serve Buyers Better Now.
B2B marketers use tools like contextual advertising and targeting to be at par with the ever-changing shopper behaviour. With the pandemic restricting movements globally, the internet is an attractive way to reach and engage prospective buyers.
What can be better in a digital-first landscape than programmatic? A cookieless world embraces this technology and encourages partnerships with intent providers to track buyer journeys effectively in real time.
Now B2B sellers are ready to prioritize first party data more than ever, and with good reason. You can include demographics, geolocations, behavioral traits, preferences, click-through rates, response rates, etc to identify and segment audiences.
How to Prepare for the Cookieless B2B World
Here are ways to use data to optimize your own backend systems and practices to improve buyer experience and trust:
- Encourage website login through authenticated experiences or customer centred incentives.
- Enable data access across all platforms and organizations to improve audience segmentation, targeting and measuring performance metrics.
- Create holistic buyer views by leveraging first party data across channels and platforms.
- Align sales, marketing and data within an integrated marketing stack for improved analytics, measurements and audience management.
Navigate Partnerships with Data Providers and Publishers
Many publishers have jumped into the digital buyer journey as an opportunity to flourish with content. They gathered comprehensive data about subscribers and are now building fences around this information, which has become their primary value proposition.
Advertisers match publishers’ data about subscribers or users with their existing customer base and target audience base. This way, both publishers and advertisers can leverage first party data in uncertain times. You can make most of this situation with audience-based buying strategies, accessing private marketplaces, and partnerships with publishers and data providers.
Buyer preference is never constant, and as they move through a purchase journey, data piles up and loses freshness. Bulky, unwanted data is messy and stressful. What B2B brands need is current, relevant information. Hence, choosing suitable data providers is crucial to keeping your supplies useful and manageable.
Stepping Forward into a Cookieless World
Cookieless tracking is trending and inevitable, so it’s better to gear up and make this situation work in your favor.
Here are some pointers to make your cookieless programmatic journey easy and simple.
- Grab detailed knowledge and understanding about the cookieless future.
- Take part in programmatic investments in cookieless channels like CTV, DOOH, mobile devices.
- Focus on creative messaging and relevant content to boost user engagement rates and conversion rates.
- Build cross-identity graphs for effective audience targeting. Leveraging first party data is obvious.
- Choose programmatic partners who can help you to get business from a pre-existing database.
- Get hold of actionable data insights for better targeting and retargeting.
Programmatic marketing is evolving, with a facelift required to abide by data privacy laws. Be crystal clear and well-prepared for a cookieless world. To kick start your journey, have a look around our other blogs and resources.
