The digital marketing landscape has long relied on third-party cookies for targeted advertising and comprehensive user tracking. Yet as privacy concerns escalate and technologies advance, a shift towards secure, privacy-focused alternatives is underway.
For marketers, adapting quickly is paramount; those who lag in transitioning to suitable identity solutions risk falling behind competitors who are adeptly navigating new strategies for user engagement and data collection. That’s why we want to equip you with actionable strategies for a smooth transition as third-party cookies are phased out.
The following strategies can help you thrive in a new era of identity. With them, you can deepen your understanding of consumer behaviours across multiple platforms and devices to ensure that your advertising efforts are both effective and privacy conscious.
Step 1: Use cross-device identity solutions
The digital advertising sphere extends well beyond the confines of a single internet browser. Environments like Connected TV (CTV) and digital audio provide immense opportunities for advertisers to reach relevant audiences at scale. By implementing cross-device identity solutions, you can deliver a more consistent and engaging ad experience across different platforms, leading to improved campaign performance. It’s crucial to consider this as you begin to embrace a broader omnichannel marketing approach.
Step 2: Activate our identity graph
Our identity graph helps enable the execution of sophisticated cross-device strategies that can aid you in better understanding user preferences. The graph also integrates privacy-conscious signals that are essential for maintaining ad targeting and measurement accuracy now and in a post-cookie era. The graph also offers...
- Comprehensive cross-device consumer insights:
You can achieve a holistic view of consumer behaviour across multiple devices and diverse environments, like CTV and digital audio. This is crucial for creating personalised marketing strategies that effectively engage users at various touchpoints in their digital journeys. - Maximised browser-based utility:
While cookies are still operational, integrating them with our identity graph can provide you with a strategic advantage. For now, a dual approach enables the collection of rich data signals, offering you a transitional buffer as we move towards new strategies. - Reduced third-party cookie dependency:
The Trade Desk’s Identity Alliance as well as Adbrain™ household graph stand as strong alternatives that ensure the continuity of marketing activities as cookies come offline. While these tools currently leverage cookies where available, their core functionality is not dependent on them. This independence enables you to continue delivering effective marketing strategies in the absence of cookies. This transitional phase offers a prime opportunity to test and refine strategies, making full use of our identity technologies with minimal disruption to your current mode of operation. - Enhanced campaign performance:
The identity graph supports advanced marketing tactics such as retargeting, frequency management, and cross-device measurement. By linking authenticated and unauthenticated identifiers across devices, you can remain potent and precise in your marketing efforts, adapting seamlessly to shifts in the identity landscape. - Seamless user experience across platforms:
Cross-device insights help ensure consistency in your messaging, which can be vital for consumer brand recall and engagement. This allows you to continue the conversation with consumers as they switch devices, providing a cohesive brand experience that can foster loyalty and trust.
Step 3: Invest in alternative channels
Browser signal loss aside, there are rich data signals (like device IDs) stemming from where consumers increasingly spend their time, like CTV and digital audio. These media channels offer robust targeting options that leverage first-party data and other identity signals to help improve your effectiveness in a privacy-conscious way.
Step 4: Adopt alternative durable identifiers
It’s important to invest in durable identifiers like European Unified ID (EUID). Doing so helps ensure that you maintain precise targeting and measurement capabilities in environments that no longer support deprecated identifiers.
The vast majority of impressions on our platform coming from the EMEA region are now powered by cookie-free identifiers. The cookie-free technology we’ve honed over the last decade is helping our clients decrease their reliance on traditional tracking methods.
Step 5: Talk to your representative at The Trade Desk
Our commercial teams are on call to help you understand your current level of dependence on outdated browser-based technology. Their analysis can help you tailor your strategies to better align with the evolving digital advertising landscape.
By activating cross-device tracking technologies like our identity graph, collecting and using first-party data, and fostering stronger collaborations with publishers through EUID, you can remain competitive and better prepare yourself for a rapidly evolving digital landscape.
Get more identity-focused resources below:
- Watch a video on why you don’t need to rely on cookies.
- Learn more about Identity Alliance.
- Learn how identity graphs are built.
- Contact us to analyse your third-party cookie reliance.