Gaining the first-mover advantage in a cookie-less world

Evolution of digital ads

Billions of people online experience a world of advertising that feels personal to them. That personalisation is powered by data and machine learning, which helps ensure people receive the most relevant message at the right time across the customer journey. 

Digital ads ecosystems have presented a great number of opportunities for advertisers to reach their customers. But all this is going to change as customers are also demanding greater data privacy, and the ecosystems need to rapidly shift in an effort to meet those expectations. 

The biggest change expected by 2022 relates to data privacy regulations and data restrictions from web browsers on websites that have enabled data sharing properties. These changes primarily affects advertisers that target customers using third party cookies, their over-dependency on pixel data, and how the user’s data is ingested by advertising service providers. 

Once these changes come into effect, advertisers’ performance is set to drop by >40%. While this is deemed to be a huge setback, brands can stay a step ahead and prepare for what is to come, with a solution to mitigate the issue. 

Cookies revolutionised the advertising analytics world

Cookies have been an integral part of digital marketing for years and have helped brands identify target audience, understand their behaviour on websites and track efficacy of performance campaigns. However, this came at a price – the price of  the privacy of users, whose behaviour are being tracked, and misused by some. 

Nevertheless, privacy laws are catching up and cookie-less tracking is fast becoming the preferred solution. This has been further fuelled by tech giants introducing improved tracking methodologies (drifting away from cookie data), users getting more conscious on what data they are sharing while browsing, and governments introducing new restrictions and laws to curb the exploitation of personal data. 

ADA, the largest independent data and artificial intelligence (AI) company across ten markets in South and Southeast Asia takes data privacy seriously. With proprietary technology IP in data processing, data ingestion, and consumer AI models that is gleaned from 375 million consumer profiles across the region on a monthly basis, it places the utmost importance on how data is captured, stored, and used, in compliance with all General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR; EU regulations), and Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA; Malaysia regulations). 

Dealing with browser policy changes and data restrictions with Facebook Solutions

In the cookie-less future, advertisers will not have long-term visibility of digital user identification. Without visibility into their customers’ activities and preferences, businesses will experience an impact across all stages of their digital marketing efforts. In response, businesses who value data-driven outcomes are taking steps to establish more reliable data connections with their ad platforms.

Facebook is helping advertisers adapt to these changes in the ads ecosystem with Facebook’s Conversions API solution. Conversions API is designed to support brands by delivering business results with full transparency. Advertisers control what information is shared with Facebook; and limiting the dependency on browsers for data sharing. 

This solution essentially makes cookies redundant, while keeping user privacy intact. 

As Brenda Chuah, our Agency Partner says, "We’re in the business of building experiences that meaningfully improve people’s lives and delivering business outcomes for businesses of all sizes. Since COVID-19, with more people turning to digital channels, so have businesses. And our platform has shown to deliver high marketing returns. Our studies have shown that when conversion data can no longer be passed through a browser, cost per action on your campaigns increase by more than 150%. That's because, if you can't optimize your campaigns based on conversions, you might have to optimize for something else, like whether people clicked on the ad--which doesn't consider if a purchase actually happened. Conversions API safeguards data driven marketing and future proofs businesses as it lets advertisers share their data directly from their server to Facebook’s which makes it less susceptible to browser changes while balancing users’ privacy choices and maintaining campaign performance."

How Advertisers Can Benefit From Conversions API

Digital advertising forms a big part of marketing budgets and advertisers want to ensure that their marketing dollars are well-spent, tracked, and able to drive business goals – all this while keeping the interests of the brand and customers in mind. Conversions API will enable advertisers to:

 - Measure and report reliable data

- Reach high intent users

- Deliver relevant and personalised ads to customers

- Optimise for conversions 

This solution will also allow advertisers to control what data is shared and its frequency with Facebook. The seamless API sharing also warrants better reliability of the data than dependency on browser-based methods. This will help advertisers derive meaningful insights and full-funnel view by leveraging website, offline, and CRM data. During the transition period, Facebook recommends using Conversions API in addition to their existing Facebook pixel for maximum performance. 

First-mover advantage

To begin, you need to consider your business objectives when deciding what data to leverage, because including more data sources can lead to better marketing. For this to happen, you will need full-funnel visibility, which will be limited once browser privacy policies take effect. 

Here, the first-mover advantage is essential for business growth. Those who take the plunge by Q2-Q3, 2021 will be able to test out new tracking and measurement systems while still in beta, and be prepared for changes in 2022, with the ability to optimise performance as they go along. The luxury of testing multiple tracking mechanisms may not be of much value once the majority of the industry shifts to a cookie-less way of tracking. 

As a Facebook Partner, ADA has taken the first step towards a pixel-less future in educating clients on Conversions API and helping them achieve business outcomes, whilst keeping user data privacy at the front of mind. The in-house operation and technical departments’ capabilities give ADA an edge over other digital and advertising agencies in the effort to test the Conversions API solution with three to four clients across a selection of industries, allowing them to be well prepared for the radical changes that are expected to take place in early 2022. ADA is optimistic that this move will ensure that clients’ digital campaigns and outcomes see minimal disruption as we adopt cookie-less tracking solutions of the future.

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With over 800 data scientists, digital media gurus, industry experts, management consultants, and eCommerce practioners across 10 markets in South and Southeast Asia, ADA is constantly enhancing and expanding data sources to help clients stay ahead. Our technical expertise combined with data prowess has resulted in a consistent growth trajectory for our data-led marketing solutions for over 1,300 and growing clients.