The cookieless future and the disappearance of third-party cookies are everywhere. Sometimes because the date marked in red on the calendar has arrived and sometimes because the date has been postponed for a few months. But whatever the case, it is clear that the future without third-party cookies is getting closer and closer to the present and that we must embark on the adventure proposed by ‘first-party data marketing’ and the implementation of a CDP.
While this change has sometimes raised doubts and uncertainty among marketers, it is clear that it offers companies a challenge linked to greater control over data and, in turn, empowers customers to shape their online experiences and interactions.
Taking control of data
Until today, companies relied heavily on third-party cookies to track user activity and understand user preferences. However, with web activity primarily in Chrome and Safari and with walled gardens owning most of the data used for targeting, brands had blind spots about individual audience members and lacked visibility into their customers’ individual preferences.
Now companies have a significant opportunity to regain control over the data of the individuals they engage with. And cloud solutions provide a secure, centralised space to store proprietary data that makes it easier than ever to organise, grow and maintain. This is a change that, in addition to improving data security, is perfectly aligned with the growing demand for transparency and ethics in working with this information.
Where to start?
A good starting point is to ask customers for their consent and think of ways to provide outstanding and valuable experiences – relevant because they are hyper-personalised – in exchange for first-party data that you want to collect and that should allow you to better understand them and keep them happy and loyal.
Understanding customers more and better
But the shift to the cookieless future is not just about data ownership. We need to go further in understanding each and every individual who engages with brands. Now more than ever, we need to listen carefully and study the signals from prospects and customers to gain new insights and guidance in defining marketing strategies. More than possessing experiential data, it is necessary to understand the trail of customer activities in order to establish direct and individualised connections with them.
People are on a quest for personalised experiences and we expect the brands in our lives to not only know us, but to recognise us as unique. In this context, collecting and analysing first-party data obtained directly from customer interactions and reinforcing it with zero-party data provided directly by customers is essential to gain a deeper level of understanding and better tailor messages to meet every want and need.
How to track?
People engage with brands in many different ways, through many different channels and at many different times. However, in each of these interactions, they expect brands to have the full context about them, without forgetting any detail or overlooking anything. To meet this expectation, it is essential to have a holistic view of each individual or, in other words, to have a Customer Data Platform.
A Customer Data Platform with AI
In the CDP, brands are able to unify all their customer profile data, aggregating data from multiple sources – both transactional and behavioural across digital properties – and activate it in the most appropriate way at any given time. Marketers no longer have to rely on third-party cookie information, but can adapt their marketing strategies based on their own data to meet the changing expectations of their customers.
With a Customer Data Platform like Salesforce Data Cloud, it’s possible to ingest CRM data, aggregate behavioural data across channels – from Marketing Cloud to web and app engagement – and add contextual data by querying it through zero-copy connections; enrich all this information with calculated insights; build audiences with advanced segmentation; and enable hyper-personalised experiences through Journey Builder, in paid media and also in the CRM itself. All of this is done by making unique and relevant experiences specific to the context of each consumer a reality.
What about Artificial Intelligence?
With an open & extensible platform like Data Cloud and with the help of Einstein 1 it is possible to go one step further and enjoy predictive AI – combining different models that make predictions that serve to personalise experiences across all channels – and generative AI – both to help the marketer to generate and streamline their tasks and to launch flows in the CRM that automate the right task at the right time.
Next steps?
Understanding audiences at this level of granularity and being able to act accordingly with messages adapted to the reality that each individual lives at any given moment is a significant change for companies, which can anticipate needs, personalise offers and foster the engagement and long-term loyalty of each customer. There are three things to bear in mind in this regard.
First, one of the benefits of cookie-less marketing is clearly the empowerment it offers to customers and prospects, who will no longer be overwhelmed – to put it mildly – by ads that ‘chase’ them all over the Internet and do not always align with their interests. And they will have explicit control over their online experiences, with the ability to freely provide information and preferences.
Second, having a scalable CDP with high artificial intelligence capabilities is the cornerstone where privacy, hyper-personalised experiences and long-term relationship management come together. Cookie-free marketing is no longer a trend but a strategic imperative for companies looking to maintain success and engagement. The Customer Data Platform is the technology solution needed to take ownership of data, understand customers at a deeper level and empower them through consent, while forging genuine connections with every audience member time and time again. And AI is one of the best allies when you have the requisite trust context – for example, Salesforce’s Trust Layer.
And third, to begin this journey, it is essential to see the shift to cookie-less marketing as an opportunity rather than a challenge. Adopting customer-centric practices not only aligns with ethical standards, but also positions companies as pioneers in a landscape where customer trust is paramount. And here it is important to be clear that no technological change is sufficient on its own, but has to be accompanied by a strategy of use cases that make the most of the capabilities acquired in this new present by marketers and that are translated into learning and success stories.
