Why Google’s cookie deprecation reversal isn’t actually a reprieve for publishers

“It’s still business as usual,” said Ryan Maynard, vp of programmatic sales operations at Raptive, which operates ad sales for thousands of publishers. “It’s just shifting it from Google deciding, ‘OK, we’re going to remove cookies on this day,’ to putting it in the hands of the user to decide.”

This is because Google’s proposed plan allows Chrome users to choose whether or not third-party cookies are used across their web browsing. And leaving the choice up to the user eliminates a lot of the certainties that publishers relied on to guide their digital advertising strategies since 2020, such as a timeline, the guarantee of 100% deprecation and the fact that everyone would be in the same boat. 

Google’s announcement felt like the equivalent of a Thanos snap, said a second publisher who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The tech company’s steadfast plan to deprecate third-party cookies and roll out its Privacy Sandbox solution seemed unbudgeable, but Monday’s announcement instead sounded like Google was telling publishers, “just kidding.” 

“It just felt defeating and deflating,” said the second publisher, who added that they’ve regularly participated in Privacy Sandbox working groups. And while their company’s strategy for testing and implementing third-party cookie alternatives will not change with this announcement, the four years’ worth of stress trying to get their company in proper shape for cookie deprecation was ultimately for nothing.

While there are a lot of uncertainties going forward, as Google’s proposal did not include a timeline or any indication on how they will offer users the choice of opting in or out of third-party cookies – let alone the frequency of giving them the opportunity to do so – publishers said they can’t abandon their plans for monetizing a third-party cookie-free ad environment.

“[Third-party cookies in Chrome] get a reprieve from death row, but they still have a life sentence,” said Scott Messer, founder of publisher monetization consultancy Messer Media. Therefore, he said he’s telling his publisher clients that Google’s proposal changes nothing for them and how they should be bracing themselves for a potential future where third-party cookies do not exist. 

As frustrating as the decision reversal might be, ultimately, the publishers feel that their work to alleviate revenue dependencies on third-party cookies has not been in vain because they’ve been facing cookie deprecation from other browsers for years and cookieless solutions have helped improve the revenue potential of that inventory. 

For example, half of The Independent’s users already are unaddressable via third-party cookies given they come to the publisher’s site through non-Chrome browsers, according to Jo Holdaway, chief data and marketing officer. 

“Of course the decision is frustrating considering the huge amount of time and effort put in by both publishers and the ad tech community into finding robust solutions to the deprecation of third party cookies by Chrome. But we are committed to continuing to test new solutions,” Holdaway said, explicitly naming data collaboration, contextual targeting, universal IDs, curated marketplaces and first-party data. 

The publishers all expressed that if Google’s proposal follows similar steps as Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) is any indication, all of the cookiepocalypse preparation will act as insulation for publishers. According to AppsFlyer analytics from April, 50% of users on iOS apps now opt in to tracking, which is the highest portion since ATT first rolled out but still leaves half of iOS users untrackable. 

“If the consent choice is like ATT, there will be a sudden drop off and buyers will be in a no-man’s land,” said Pritesh Jumani, head of ad tech and performance media at Canadian news publisher The Globe and Mail. Therefore, it’s a “very high probability” that the number of third-party cookie addressable users will taper off in coming years and publishers like The Globe and Mail will need to rely on the cookieless alternatives. 

Amit Grover, head of programmatic partnerships at Quizlet, said that the announcement from Google “does alleviate some of the pressure” that publishers are under to figure out how to target users on a completely cookieless Chrome, given the fact that there isn’t a known looming deadline for deprecation. But he did tell Digiday that his team won’t be taking their foot off the gas pedal. Instead, they’ll increase testing of cookieless alternatives, specifically the Privacy Sandbox. 

The Privacy Sandbox has been under a fair amount of scrutiny, with recent reports from Criteo and Index Exchange reporting that publishers stand to lose between 33-60% of their ad revenue in the current iteration of the Privacy Sandbox. Nonetheless, Google said on Monday that it will continue to invest in supporting and developing the Privacy Sandbox solutions.

One programmatic publisher exec, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Digiday over email that they don’t see this announcement as causing an immediate change for publishers as a whole, especially not until there are more details from Google. “We also don’t have any intel yet on how they’ll present this ‘informed choice’ in Chrome, which is very important for determining scale … In the example of [Apple’s ATT] where it was an opt-in experience, a majority of users didn’t opt-in to tracking,” they said. 

Raptive’s Maynard said he’s guesstimating – and planning for the inevitability – that 70-80% of Chrome users will choose to not allow third-party cookies going forward, which is why the plan is to continue investing in the alternative IDs, ID bridging and the Privacy Sandbox. 

This means that even if only a portion of Chrome users opt out of third-party cookies, the amount of third-party-cookie enabled inventory will remain finite and increased competition for the cookies will occur, said Justin Wohl, CRO of Snopes and TV Tropes. 

“The addressable user in the open web will shrink further, which is not good for monetization,” said a third publishing exec who spoke on the condition of anonymity. And this is why further investment into alternative IDs and exploring probabilistic solutions will be critical for publishers at this stage, they said.