What you need to know about third-party cookies
- A cookie is a small text file that a website sends to your browser, and which is stored on your device when you visit that site. There are two types of cookie: 1st party cookies and 3rd party cookies. 1st Party Cookies are issued by the website you are visiting directly. They are generally used to improve the user experience on the site by storing information such as your language preferences, your connection settings, your shopping cart, etc. 3rd Party Cookies are issued by domains other than the one you visit directly, often by advertising networks or analytics services. They are generally used for tracking and targeting purposes. For example, a website may include content from a third-party advertising network, which uses cookies to track your activity on different websites and deliver personalized advertising based on your interests.
- The disappearance of Third-Party Cookies stems from two constraints: the first, legal, imposed by the regulator (RGPD), which requires user consent; the second, technical, imposed by browsers in order to improve user privacy. Google Chrome in particular will gradually reduce the collection of Third-Party Cookies, reaching 100% rejection by July this year.
- It’s a real paradigm shift! In terms of impact, the disappearance of Third-Party Cookies will lead to increasing difficulties in linking impressions, clicks and conversions, a reduction in targeting possibilities (e.g. remarketing), a risk of reduced targeting relevance and a drop in observable conversions.
- There are a number of solutions to the problem of targeting quality and audiences: the use of proprietary data, the Google Privacy Sandbox – a Google solution focused on privacy protection and personalization, the use of closed environments (e.g. social platforms), contextual targeting and, finally, the use of predictive AI to link everything together intelligently on a case-by-case basis.
- In terms of performance measurement, and in particular conversion tracking, there is also a range of client- and server-side solutions to fill the gaps in data collection, including Consent Mode, created by Google but already adopted by Microsoft, which dynamically adjusts conversion measurement behavior and allows missing data to be modeled with AI.
- For server-side solutions, the Meta Conversion API is particularly useful, as Facebook’s traditional Pixel conversion tracker is set to disappear completely this year. Implementation, however, is technically more complex.
- Finally, there are solutions that allow you to dispense with consent and third-party cookies altogether, but these are best reserved for sites that require little or no marketing effort.
- To get started and ensure compliance, you need to take stock of your real needs, and deploy the solutions you need to keep the performance and data of your digital campaigns intact.
