Will Cloud-Based Collaboration Survive in the Post-Cookie Era?

An Era Without Third-Party Cookies

The looming demise of third-party cookies is reshaping the terrain of digital advertising, compelling marketers to adapt to this new reality. Third-party cookies have traditionally been the lifeblood of online advertising, enabling audience segmentation, targeting, and measurement.

However, increasing concerns over data privacy and changes in legislation have put the future of third-party cookies in jeopardy. Google’s announcement to phase out third-party cookies from Chrome by 2024 has further fueled this transformation.

Emergence of Cloud-Based Collaboration

In response to the third-party cookie apocalypse, ad tech vendors are evolving into service providers, increasingly leveraging cloud infrastructure, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Snowflake, and Microsoft Azure, to build their solutions.

This shift has precipitated the emergence of technologies like data clean rooms and customer data platforms (CDPs). For many advertisers and ad buyers, the cloud is becoming their contingency plan for a future sans third-party cookies.

Navigating the Privacy Terrain

While the cloud offers enhanced capabilities, privacy remains a critical factor. The primary reason why marketing tech companies are transitioning to cloud platforms is to ensure greater data privacy.

However, the challenge lies in whether this cross-cloud collaboration system can operate effectively in the real world. The system needs to deliver value to marketers while complying with regulators and privacy advocates’ stipulations.

Understanding Cross-Cloud Collaboration

The complexity of ad tech and data vendors’ technology can often be overwhelming for clients. The nuanced understanding of technology that vendors possess is often not shared by their clients.

For instance, a marketer might run parallel campaigns on different platforms, attempting to reconcile the IDs to attribute certain media channels to sales and retarget customers. However, the complexity of such operations often surpasses the client’s understanding.

The Benefits and Challenges of Cross-Cloud Collaboration

Cross-cloud collaboration, despite its complexity, can provide substantial benefits. It allows marketers to use familiar dashboards to employ common tactics, enhancing brand’s own customer data.

However, it also poses several potential pitfalls. The system’s actual efficacy depends on a multitude of factors, including privacy laws, platform data policies, and the vendors’ ability to adapt to these stipulations.

The Role of Privacy Laws and Platform Policies

Privacy laws and platform data policies have increasingly focused on limiting the number of businesses that can access data. This approach differs significantly from prohibiting specific actions like ad targeting or attribution.

For instance, Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) update disrupted Facebook’s ad platform, while Amazon Ads continued to function despite the post-pandemic e-commerce slowdown. The key difference lies in the nature of data access – Facebook needed other businesses to share data, whereas Amazon already had the data in one place.

The Rise of Vendors in the Cloud

If data is required to be kept in one place, it logically follows that vendors will establish their operations there. This shift is evident in the increasing number of ad tech vendors transitioning to cloud infrastructure.

The Future of Post-Cookie Advertising

The future of post-cookie advertising remains uncertain. On one hand, billions of marketing dollars are already channeling through the cross-cloud collaboration system. On the other hand, its long-term viability depends on various factors, including the interpretation and enforcement of privacy laws and the evolution of platform data policies.

Navigating the Legal Landscape

Google’s cookie deprecation plan is already under scrutiny due to various legal proceedings. Antitrust actions brought by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the European Commission could potentially disrupt Google’s plans.

Given the potential legal challenges, it is crucial for collaboration software companies to educate their clients about their privacy frameworks. Cloud-based ad tech might be the beacon of hope in a post-cookie world, but if data collaboration tech vendors aren’t cautious, they could become the next problem that needs to be solved.

Preparing for the Worst, But Hoping for the Best

Despite the uncertainties, marketers need to prepare for a world without third-party cookies. From adopting privacy-first frameworks like Unified ID 2.0 to leveraging geospatial data for better insights, there are various strategies that marketers can deploy today to navigate the post-cookie era.

Conclusion

The depreciation of third-party cookies is undeniably a significant inflection point in the digital advertising landscape. However, it also presents an opportunity for the industry to innovate and evolve. While the future of cloud-based collaboration remains uncertain, its potential to reshape the future of ad tech cannot be ignored. It is crucial for businesses to adapt to these changes and leverage the evolving technologies to thrive in the post-cookie world.