Two fifths (42%) of marketers say the loss of cookies will decrease revenue and over half of these (57%) expect a drop of 10-25%.
This is according to a study by data management firm Lotame. The company surveyed 200 UK senior decision-makers in digital media and marketing to evaluate identity solution adoption amid the flurry of data privacy changes reshaping the open web. Respondents were polled in September 2021, after Google revealed another delay to deprecating third-party cookies to 2023.
The study also revealed that just over half (53%) of publishers foresee having to reduce their workforce due to revenue loss as a result of third-party cookie deprecation. Three out of seven (43%) publishers also see significant loss of programmatic revenue and loss of ad spend to walled gardens.
Two out of five (41%) respondents expressed concerns about Apple’s Privacy Relay saying “I’m concerned for the impact on email hash identifiers”, while a similar amount (44%) said “I’m concerned for our ability to monetise our email channel”.
Relatedly, email-based identity solutions (66%) were the most popular choice when asked what types of ID solutions marketers and publishers were planning to test in the next six months to one year. Contextual (51%) was in second place, followed by cohorts (33%) and probabilistic (28%).
Four in five marketers and publishers are open to using multiple ID solutions. 60% of marketers currently work with an identity partner while a majority are keen to test further partners in the future.
While marketers said their primary reason for adopting new identity solutions is to support audience targeting (54%), for publishers, the central reason is data privacy (70%).
More than half (57%) of marketers and publishers said they are glad of the extra time to prepare afforded by Google’s cookie delay, whilst many said they expected the delay (39%) and that they were also suspicious of the reasons behind it (41%).
Chris Hogg, MD EMEA at Lotame, said: “The industry knows change is coming, Google’s 2023 deadline gives marketers and publishers some breathing space but it’s imperative not to take this time for granted.
“Open discussions and rigorous testing with a variety of providers – from authenticated to probabilistic – are an essential part of this journey. Only then can marketers and publishers really develop optimal, privacy-first identity portfolios to meet their full funnel strategies in a post-cookie world.”
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