Crumbs! Part 1 - The 4C’s of “Cookieless” Data Collection

Welcome to the New Normal

If you’ve checked LinkedIn recently, you’ll be aware that it’s D-day for the 3rd party cookie. Google has finally begun removing cookies from its cookie jar, and the shelves are beginning to look bare for marketers, who are now preparing for the inevitability of a cookie-free future.

Luckily, far from it being a panicked frenzy, most advertisers took heed of the warning signs and acted accordingly, exploring, and piloting a range of different cookie-free alternatives, and restructuring their technology and processes across data collection, audience targeting, and measurement. Those that did are now poised and ready to enter a new era of digital advertising.

For those that are a little slower off the mark, there is no time like the present, and hopefully this 3-part article series covering data collection, targeting and measurement will help!

You Can’t Measure What You Can’t See

Now, in the face of losing 3rd party cookie tracking, the first concern advertisers often have is how they can continue to collect useful insight on potential and existing customers to enable and empower downstream analytics.

Fear not, the reality is that data collection across owned and operated properties like your website is still possible through alternative collection mechanism’s, such as 1st party cookies, or through the submission of authenticated personally identifiable information, such as email address. Although some browsers have already begun placing restrictions around these alternatives, overall, these continue to be viable data collection methods for the foreseeable future.

But holistic and sustainable data collection goes beyond the mechanism. It goes beyond the cookie. Marketers ought to take this moment to reflect and to address broader concepts around how data sharing plays into the relationship and value exchange between them and their customers. Brands should set data collection as a core pillar within a broader strategy aimed at building trust and reciprocity with potential and existing customers, ultimately delivering value to them.

The 4 Cs of Data Collection

This broader philosophy on data collection can be distilled into the 4C’s - Compliance, Customer-Centricity, and Connectivity, which we can outline below:

Compliance - First we want to ensure we have an appropriate compliance infrastructure, and that through consent management platforms (CMP) and user preferences, we’re providing transparency, clarity, and an unambiguous choice to users around what data they are sharing, for which purposes. Ensure that the CMP is configured correctly in terms of both the user preferences and choices, but also in terms of the implications for consent sharing amongst downstream marketing and advertising partners and platforms.

Customer-Centricity - We want to create a natural and streamlined customer experience, putting users in control of the data they share and establishing a clear value exchange as the basis for a mutually beneficial long-term relationship. Voluntary and elective data sharing in return for greater personalisation or value through early access or other benefits can be powerful tools. Data collection instruments must be considered alongside the customer experience and should be additive to the user journey, not distract from it. This will help you to continue to collect consumer data in a way that is congruent with a great experience.

Connectivity - Finally, we want to ensure we’re connecting customer, event, and conversion data through to the appropriate ad delivery platforms to enable in-platform targeting, reporting and optimisation. For customer data, the Customer Data Platform (CDP) is a powerful asset in the management of customer data, where PII is provided. CDP’s can link customer data through ad delivery systems directly, or through neutral clean rooms, supporting distributed audience insights and activation capabilities. But we’ll cover more on targeting in the next article.

Connectivity is also, perhaps more so, focussed on connectivity of event and conversion data. The days of post-view conversion reporting could be behind us, but post-click conversion tracking and server-side delivery of conversion data can still provide powerful signals in the measurement and optimisation of campaign performance. Brands should look to implement server-side data collection and transfer solutions like Facebook Conversion API, or CAPI, as well as Google’s Server-Side Tag Manager, and Google’s Enhanced Conversions. These solutions, and many others like them, can help advertisers to capture as much conversion data as possible using 1st party cookies or PII, and pass that data server-side to the appropriate media platform.

What’s Next

Once we have established a robust data collection framework, aligned to the 4C approach, we’re ready to start thinking about audience targeting. How will audience targeting evolve in 2024, and what cookieless alternatives look most promising. We’ll look at all of this and more in Part 2 of the Crumbs! series.