The cookie kerfuffle
Customer acquisition in all its irony
Published by Mastercard, August 2023
The story of invention is not short on irony. The glue later used on Post-it Notes was supposed to be a super-strong adhesive. Viagra was designed to lower blood pressure.
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Website cookies add to the irony.
Their original purpose was to protect online privacy by letting websites remember visitors without the need for unique internet user IDs that could be tracked across sites. Their unexpected evolution, as detailed by their inventor Lou Montulli, was that enterprising ad agencies then figured out how to add “third party” cookies to websites and track users across all sites that used their ad platforms.
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Data privacy laws, most notably the EU’s 2009 update of its ePrivacy Directive or “Cookie Law” in tandem with the explicit consent requirement of the 2016 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), precipitated the demise of third-party cookies. Many web browsers already block their use. Google Chrome, the world’s most popular browser, plans to follow suit.
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The demise of third-party cookies is no longer newsworthy. Yet 50% of chief marketing officers in the US and UK claim to be unprepared in a 2022 survey. The preparedness comes down to a question of reliance. Customer acquisition campaigns built around cookies undoubtedly need to adjust, but truly effective digital marketing campaigns never really relied on third-party cookies in the first place.
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