Impact of Cookie Armageddon growing and set to escalate further with new Safari browser

The above visual demonstrates the impact of Cookie blocking on a typical commercial website; all 3rd party services on the referenced site have been blocked by a privacy tool like Ghostery, meaning:

• No Ads
• No Registration / Sign Ups
• No Search
• No Social Sharing
• No Classifieds
• No Native Ads
• No Sponsorship
• No Analytics or Tracking
• No Personalisation
• No Video
• No Lead Generation

These are just some of the services that are typically rendered via 3rd party cookies, and all of these can be blocked by privacy tools

We’ve been talking about Cookie Armageddon for over a year now, and its impact and influence is finally nearing its rapid growth phase. A recent Economist article estimates that 200 million users already use some form of Ad Blocker or Privacy Protector Tool. This means that for many publishers, advertising and other commercial revenues have been impacted by as much as a 20% annual reduction, and this will obviously escalate exponentially when Apple’s new Safari browser (9.0) is soon launched with its own cookie-blocking extensions:

"The new Safari (9.0) release brings Content Blocking Safari Extensions to iOS. Content Blocking gives your extensions a fast and efficient way to block cookies, images, resources, pop-ups, and other content." - from Apple iOS Developer Library pre-release documentation: Here

Our CEO Markus called this one several months ago - warning publishers then that certain platform owners - with Apple the most likely, would build Privacy options into their application platforms and browsers. As Flash advertising falls away also for similar reasons, publishers have a pressing need to know what options are still available to them for deriving revenues on mobile and online.

Affino has long been preparing publishers for the onset of ’Cookie Armageddon’, including co-hosting breakfast briefings at the PPA. If you missed the March briefing, you can catch up by reading the summary PDF: Here

Affino’s last PPA briefing was on Integrated Digital Platforms for Publishers, and the next one will be about Programmatic Advertising on June 25th.

If you need further information on any of these subjects, our CCO Jonathan Collins would be delighted to give you a recap, with additional insights. You can contact him at jonathan.collins@affino.com or on +44 (0)20 3393 3240

Keep tuned to this blog for an agenda preview of the forthcoming Affino co-hosted Programmatic Advertising Briefing at the PPA on the 25th of this month.