The new way of advertising: reach your potential customers without cookies

17 Jun 2020

The blog was written by Mark van Dam, product manager at EDM, and was published by DDMA. EDM is a sponsor of the DDMA Customer Data Award: this award will be presented on November 19 during a special Award Night on the Westergasterrein.

The world of cookies is under severe pressure. Both Safari and Firefox block the much-discussed tracking cookies and Google has also indicated that it will automatically block third-party cookies. This has major consequences for advertisers and publishers, as these three browsers together account for more than 80% of web traffic. If an advertiser wants to reach his target group via display, cookies cannot be used for this. Fortunately, there are plenty of other ways to reach your potential customers without cookies, such as focusing on the context of pages or creating profiles based on data.

Context-driven advertising
A good alternative to advertising with cookies is to use advertisements based on the content for a page, for example, travel, sports, or nature. Advertisers that want to purchase video and display space from STER (operator of the public broadcasters) can already use this. After a test phase, STER has decided to say goodbye to cookies and switch to context-driven advertisements. A big advantage of this form of advertising is that consumers are not tired and confused with unclear cookie banners. It takes some time to get used to because advertisers have to find their way into completely different datasets that context-driven advertising entails.

Profile-oriented advertising
Another development is that browsers or publishers create profiles themselves. This can be done in two ways: by setting up a profile using the surfing behavior or by linking a login ID to external data. A profile based on surfing behavior is constantly changing according to the needs of the user, for example, the surfing behavior during the holidays or when they are orientating themselves for a new car. External data (from a customer database) can create a profile based on characteristics that have been fixed for a longer period of time, such as income or family composition. In principle, any website with a high number of logged-in users can respond to this development, reducing dependence on major players such as Google and Facebook. This allows publishers such as DPG Media, but also websites such as Marktplaats, to better manage their platforms because they can create the profiles themselves, after permission from their users.

A big advantage of using external data is the possibility to recognize (offline) customers online, for example, to exclude them from acquisition campaigns. Marktplaats offers Custom Audiences in collaboration with EDM, where customer data is anonymously linked to the opt-in Marktplaats IDs. EDM is a matching partner within this service and Marktplaats not only provides the (external) opt-in data but also offers a platform with more than 8 million unique visitors per month.

Conclusion: cookie-less does not mean target-less
Advertisers may see the possibilities with cookies disappear, but the developments in context-driven advertising more than make up for this. Context-driven advertising, for example, ensures that advertisements match the current interest of consumers. Formulating and establishing profiles that fit the context of information allows advertisers to create intelligent campaigns, such as excluding current customers or targeting based on predefined characteristics.

Relevant cases