PPA Affino Roundtable - Sunsetting Of Cookies, First Party and Contextual Data Solutions and the Impact On Digital Marketing

Change happens slowly and then hits hard. Brands are seeing up to 90% loss of audience activity data compared to just two years ago.

We were asked by the PPA to present a roundtable at the recent PPA Independent Publishing Conference where we explored what the end of 3rd party cookies means to publishers, and how best to minimise the loss of data which follows, as well as how to maximise the opportunities in store for media companies.

To those ends we developed a quick reference sheet which highlighted and introduced the key aspects of loss of data from users not accepting cookies, as well as browsers such as Apple’s Safari blocking them. We showed how the majority of media sites in the UK are not yet GDPR compliant, placing tracking cookies on to browsers without permission. We also highlighted the specific GDPR / Cookie related legal requirements which most companies have yet to meet.

Having it all down on a single sheet was a great aid to covering the brief quickly and easily. The same sheet is here below and downloadable as a PDF above.

Winning in a Post 3rd Party Cookie World

To understand how media companies can win in the post 3rd party cookie world, we explored the key definitions of Zero and First party data, and First and Third Party Cookies and their roles in collecting this audience data.

Zero party data is data which is captured when the audience directly keys in data into the systems you use, e.g. registration forms, newsletter sign up forms, event signups, download forms, ecommerce checkouts, demographic screens and general interest and preference screens. This data is rarely affected by the issues caused by the audience not accepting, or indeed having their Third Party cookies blocked, as the data is directly keyed in.

The issues are really around First Party Data. This is the behavioural data which is captured when users are consuming your content and interacting with the experiences you provide. If you lose access to a big chunk of your first party data, you no longer know how engaged your audience is, and what they are engaging with. This means that whilst you might know someone’s stated interests from three years ago through your Zero party data, you might not know that their interests have evolved considerably in the past year if you don’t have the behavioural data to track the changes. In effect your data will quickly become stale, less useful for targeting, and if you are properly GDPR compliant, if you can’t prove that your audience is engaged you simply have to remove their Zero party personal data after a reasonable time as well, meaning it is all gone.

There are defensive measures for addressing this, the primary one is to use platforms such as Affino which provide the full Zero and First party data, in a completely GDPR compliant manner, and are able to greatly improve on and extend the longevity of this data. Other measures all have decreased effectiveness, such as updating your 3rd party cookies to being 1st party. These can also easily be blocked by corporate security networks, and browsers such as Apple’s Safari and Firefox. 

The only effective way to retain your audience’s data in a GDPR compliant manner is for the platform which delivers the experience to capture the behavioural data in a GDPR compliant manner.

Ultimately most UK media companies have taken a third route, largely through inaction, which is to capture users’ behavioural data irrespective of whether or not they agree to cookies. Just browse UK media sites using Apple’s Safari, and see how many try and place tracking cookies into your browser before you agree to them. See also how many of these are being blocked. In Q1 2023 even Google will start to block third party cookies, rapidly removing them after each user’s session, which ultimately will mean the loss of 90% of your behavioural data over time.

This means there’s now only a year to act to avoid a huge loss of data, functionality, ad and experience delivery to a big chunk of your audience in 2023.