Google no longer plans to kill off third-party cookies on Chrome.
These cookies track users’ behavior as they visit other sites, collecting information that fuels digital advertising, marketing, and broader customer experience initiatives.
Google made the announcement last week after years of delays.
Indeed, the online search giant first said it would end support for third-party cookies by early 2022 once it could address the needs of users, publishers, and advertisers.
Yet, Google kept moving the goalposts, and, by 2024, it got no closer to addressing those needs.
Indeed, most brands remain completely unprepared for the cookie monster’s death.
One 2024 study from Acxiom even suggested as many as 55 percent of CX teams had yet to start implementing any solutions to directly address the deprecation of third-party cookies.
Sharing his thoughts, Matthew Holman, a Prominent IT Lawyer & Partner at Cripps, told CX Today: “In essence, it boils down to Google’s acknowledgment that the marketing industry was not ready for this change.
[Although,] a cynical view would argue that Google didn’t want to upset its massive customer base for advertising, which makes up 80 percent of its revenue.
To Holman’s point, many customer experience leaders will breathe a big sigh of relief.
Nevertheless, just because change isn’t being forced upon them, it doesn’t mean that CX teams should forget this saga ever happened and carry on as normal.
After all, their cookie-based CX systems are slowly crumbling.
The Sugar High Is Over
Despite their prevalence, third-party cookies come with several challenges for CX teams.
First, they track customer data in silos, making it incredibly tricky for brands to connect information across multiple channels, enable omnichannel experiences, and achieve personalization.
Next, there is a significant risk of inaccurate data. For instance, if multiple people from the same house use the same computer, tracking their behavior becomes unreliable.
Moreover, brands typically review third-party data retrospectively, delaying actionable insight.
These factors combine to hinder a consistent 360-degree of the customer experience.
Yet, these CX challenges aren’t the primary drivers of the cookie come down.
Perhaps most significantly, users are finding more ways to block cookies. While other browsers have shut them down entirely, users can block cookies on Chrome with a one-time prompt.
Regulators will also have an impact, as Google’s announcement won’t halt the worldwide shift to tighter privacy regulations, like GDPR and CCPA.
Of course, regulators still tolerate cookies for now, but they are always considering new moves to empower consumers with more control over their data.
As these trends converge, cookie usage will likely continue to decline, and the data they collect will become increasingly flawed, negatively impacting customer engagement strategies' performance.
