What does... "cookieless future" actually mean?
In his column "What does... actually mean?", Benno Maggi looks at terms from the marketing and communications sector. This time he deals with the term "cookieless future".
Just in time for the cookie season, a new term is sweeping through the industry and scaring agencies and marketing and communications departments alike. Cookieless future. Don't worry, it will still be possible to bake and eat cookies at this time of year. It's not that bad yet. But still bad enough. Why? Because the clock is ticking. After Google's initial announcement in 2020 that it would ban third-party cookies, time has now run out. Once announced, it will be implemented at some point. Alphabet is not doing things by halves and announced in mid-2022 that it will definitely be over next year. And this is causing many marketing and sales experts to either panic or stubbornly refuse to accept the inevitable. They behave like children who have just learned that there will be no more Christmas cookies from now on. At least those that are bought. That's embarrassing, because it's serious now.
No more buying biscuits
You are only allowed to offer what you have baked yourself. And that's a good thing. Because, as we know, convenience food is expensive and unhealthy. This is the same for real biscuits as it is for digital biscuits. It is therefore important to know how the change will affect online advertising and marketing. The problem is that most people don't even know what it was like before, with the tracking of users and collection of analytics data. The terms and conditions, which online users simply click on or off, would explain this if they were to read them. But anyone who has ever tried this realizes that they are no smarter afterwards and from then on simply opts directly for the "Accept all" option that lights up so beautifully and invites them to click.
Terms and conditions are so incomprehensibly worded that neither clients nor agencies really had any idea what they actually meant in legal terms. By contrast, lists of ingredients on convenience food products read like children's fairy tales.
Since the main purpose of cookies is identification, they are largely used for this purpose: to tell websites who their visitors are. But what exactly are cookies? Just like their namesake, biscuits, cookies also come in different flavors. Our own cookies (first-party cookies) and cookies from third parties whose services we use (third-party cookies). These third-party cookies, which are not located on the website we visit, are now abolished. Browsers other than Google Chrome have been blocking third-party cookies for some time, and trackers simply use other methods and technologies that allow them to track users.
So it's not just cookies, which are usually linked to third parties via banners or other functions and reveal our behavior on websites to these mysterious third parties. Like children who secretly steal biscuits, we leave our traces everywhere. And in the form of cookies, which then betray us and are sold again. So it's no wonder that everyone who has made money from them is a little nervous. It's like if we were only allowed to eat homemade biscuits and couldn't buy any more. Healthier, but not as convenient.
* Benno Maggi is co-founder and CEO of Partner & Partner. He has been eavesdropping on the industry for over 30 years, discovering words and terms for us that can either be used for small talk, pomposity, excitement, playing Scrabble, or just because.
