Google’s Chrome retreat puts momentum for cookie alternatives in doubt

The decision has prompted a collective eye-roll from media experts. “It’s a little disappointing to be going through this for the last five years, marching toward this post-cookie era and getting to a point where there’s no final decision,” said Kyle Rovinski, associate director of search at full service agency Duncan Channon.

Now, marketers face less pressure to adopt alternative identifiers or cookieless approaches. It’s as if the deadline for a major exam has been indefinitely postponed; their motivation to study has disappeared.

Speaking with Digiday in the immediate aftermath of Google Chrome announcing its U-turn on third-party cookies, Mathieu Roche, CEO of identity outfit ID5, argued that marketers should continue their adoption of alternative IDs, but conceded that the change would likely slow that transition.  

“Is it going to take some wind out of our sail? Probably,” he told Digiday. 

Media agencies have spent years testing and selecting alternative IDs that could replace (more or less) the role played by the third party cookie, while also pursuing various cookieless targeting solutions, such as probabilistic targeting, in tandem.

Canvas Worldwide, for example, adopted a “portfolio” approach that included The Trade Desk’s UID2, LiveRamp’s RampID, ID5 and TransUnion, according to chief product officer Greg Johns.

“It’s entirely possible” that client takeup of those solutions will now slow, he said. “This year, we as marketers are going to be using words like ‘uncertainty’ and ‘flexibility’, not necessarily ‘cookieless solutions.’ This decision deprioritizes further the need to be scaling into alternative solutions.”

Matt Wilke, head of programmatic at Mediaplus U.K., feared some marketers might “read into this as reason or cause to not focus on [alternative IDs] at all anymore. That will make our lives a bit trickier.”

Industry efforts in recent years have resulted in a catalogue of solutions, platforms, frameworks and workarounds intended to help wean clients off old habits.

Havas’ Converged platform, for example, took two years of development and testing before its 2024 launch, and was a key part of a €400 million ($433 million) investment in AI made by the French holding company.

Others, such as WPP, sought to move forward with the Privacy Sandbox as their focal point. GroupM originally planned to discontinue the use of the cookie by the fourth quarter of 2024 in favor of the Sandbox solution.

But many agencies dialed back the cookieless angle of their market pitches after Google again delayed its deprecation plan last summer. Since then, they’ve begun emphasizing the capabilities of these projects to drive performance and creative outcomes.

They’re likely to lean into those selling points in coming weeks and months, as agency execs seek to reassure clients that the time and money driven into such projects still has value.

“We still believe in our approach, regardless [of] whether cookies are here or not,” said Laura Kell, chief data and product officer at Havas Media Network. “We are not beholden to the decisions that Google takes.”

None of this means that media buyers are changing their recommendations that marketers turn away from the third-party cookie where possible. “Cookies sucked back in 2019 when they [Google Chrome] started talking about removing them. And they haven’t gotten any better,” said Roche. 

Tim Lathrop, vp of platform digital at Mediassociates, told Digiday in an email that the decision “doesn’t reverse the broader industry trend toward privacy-first advertising. Marketers should not treat this as a reason to slow down innovation.”

“Alternative IDs play a huge role in connecting and making better attribution, better decisions, and I think they will still play a role,” said John Thankamony, managing director of addressable media and total commerce at Dentsu U.K.

Media buyers are still keen to recommend the use of alternative targeting and measurement approaches, citing precision and transparency factors. “Our message has stayed the same,” said Martin Wexler, evp, product revenue and partnerships at Acxiom, Interpublic Group’s data management business. 

Ruth Reynolds, technology director at Havas Media Network, said: “We need to have [alternative] solutions because there’s other environments that we’re running media in that are cookieless anyway.”

For one, while Chrome is the web’s most popular browser, it’s not the only one, and it’s far from the only way most users experience the internet. CTV and app-based media, for example, require ways of thinking about targeting and measurement that aren’t reliant on the cookie.

“Regardless of any decision Chrome makes, we need to prepare to operate in at least a cookie-light world,” said Ryan Eusanio, svp, video and programmatic at Omnicom Media Group, who estimates Chrome represents only about half of browser use.

“The most mature advertisers are the ones that have already tried to transition or figure out ways to not depend on the legacy identifier,” said Jonathan D’Souza-Rauto, biddable product lead at agency Kepler.

It’s likely that until consumer use of the third party cookie passes the point of no return, marketers won’t rush to replace it with an alternative – leaving the industry in limbo.

Ronan Shields and Michael Bürgi contributed to this report.