With Google changing its policies and moving deprecation in cookies back to 2024 what will brands and partners need to do to plan for this change? Lee-Ann is joined by a panel of tech peers to discuss the changes Google has in mind for the future. On the panel are Alex Springer, Area Vice President of Impact.com, James Boden, Commercial Director EMEA of Cake, and Allan Petrilli, VP of Sales and Growth at Intelitics.
The panel explores why affiliates must focus on building brands and what program managers should be doing to help this transition. The panel of experts discuss who can talk through potential pitfalls and how to get ahead of this with ease in this user focussed session. If you’re not sure what you should be doing and how to manage this change in your budget or brand strategy – this panel is NOT to be missed.
Tracking
The main issue when it comes to the change from third party cookies to first party, is that the shift in power from the marketer to the marketed causes a loss in tracking. Marketers won’t be able to define as easily what is selling, who is buying it, how they are accessing it and all the other details that data tracking allows. Lee-Ann asked the panel how marketers and brands can prepare for this.
Alex said: “I think in the long run it’s going to lower the amount of track sales, full stop. And when we get to a point, whether it’s Google’s privacy sandbox, what have you, it will become standard. Third party cookies will go away as a primary mechanism and anything that’s left relying on those will end up being missed. We won’t track that. And that is a matter of ‘when’ not a matter of ‘if’ in my mind.”
Planning for the future
The looming idea of Google switching from third party cookies to whatever alternative they have in store is coming, and likely to strike without warning. Remembering the days of the introduction of GDPR, there is likely to be a lot of chaos as web developers and marketers decide on an optimal way forward.
Maybe the answer is to prepare now, as James said: “My consensus is why create extra work for yourself further down the line? It’s a tiny bit longer to get it done properly. … Of course, if the brand’s technology isn’t there yet, then yes, we can or we all could, I imagine, we would adapt to that and set out a plan to upgrade.”
Alex added: “This is the flashpoint. This is the time to go ‘Great. Can we mobilize our teams to upgrade our tech stack to get more reliable tracking?’ The nice thing is that more reliable tracking is through direct API connections. Post backs and even going to my favourite forever technology, CSV files automated to an FTP server to upload actions.”
How will this affect affiliate partnerships?
But what about the men with their boots on the ground? What about the affiliate partners that are looking after programs? How will this affect them? Is there any moves they need to be making right now?
Alan said: “Affiliates need to start looking at the platforms that run the affiliate programs that they promote. I think at the end of the day, most affiliate marketers don’t generally choose products or programs to promote based on their tech stack, and I think that you’re going to start seeing that is more important. I think at the end of the day you’re going to start seeing affiliates want to promote brands that use us or other platforms that don’t rely on cookies just because they understand that you can have less of a drop off.”
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