Google has been planning to phase out the use of data-tracking cookies for several years. It would appear the process is more complicated than first anticipated, as it has been delayed a number of times, now expected to be completed by 2024.
Removing cookies is one thing, replacing them with something equally as effective is another. To do, Google has been working on the Privacy Sandbox tech solution, which is designed to allow for ad campaign management with greater user privacy capabilities.
Recently, Google has been running tests to see how the Privacy Sandbox tools compare to cookie tracking, publishing the results to keep marketers and digital businesses in the loop.
As per Google: “The experiment showed that when using interest-based audience (IBA) solutions with privacy-preserving signals on the display network, Google Display Ads advertiser spending on IBA – as a proxy for scale reached – decreased by 2-7% compared to third party-cookie-based results.
“For conversions per dollar, as a proxy for return on investment, the decrease was 1-3%. Finally, we also observed that click-through rates remained within 90% of the status quo. And we observed similar performance for Display & Video 360.”
The results indicate that these new tools might not be quite as effective as traditional cookies, but it’s worth keeping in mind that the tech is still in development and will likely see improvements before it is rolled out.
Marketers and businesses have expressed concerns about what the cookie phase-out will mean for them, but it is at least encouraging to know that Google is working to create a suitable replacement.
