- March 4, 2021
- Posted by: JPM 4 Marketing
- Categories: Content Strategy, Digital Marketing, Legal Marketing, Marketing Analytics, Marketing ROI, SEO Strategies
Google announced yesterday that it will phase out the practice of allowing businesses to track individuals on the internet through cookies by next year. It also promised to deliver an alternative practice which will focus on groups with similar interests rather than individuals. This is Google’s attempt to create a program that is less privacy invasive.
Cookies are the reason that that new treadmill you saw on Amazon keeps showing up when you’re reading an online article about health and fitness. They are the digital crumbs that you leave as you browse the internet. The explosion of internet advertising was built on cookies.
Google Ads will still be able to target audiences on the internet but it will focus on targeting groups of people rather than individuals. The ads will target groups with similar interests thereby providing more protection for individual privacy. The company is also reassuring individuals that it will not be replacing their cookie tracking capability with an alternate practice.
With countries around the world embracing a “privacy first” mindset, Firefox and Safari started blocking cookies a while ago. Google Chrome has approximately 60% of market share so this announcement effectively ends the practice of tracking cookies on a broad scale.
Google’s Director of Product Management for Ads, David Temkin also said that there are still ways individuals can be tracked:
“We realize this means other providers may offer a level of user identity for ad tracking across the web that we will not – like graphs based on people’s email addresses. We don’t believe these solutions will meet rising consumer expectations for privacy, not will they stand up to rapidly evolving regulatory restrictions, and therefore aren’t a sustainable long term investment.”
Remember that ads will still be targeted but will focus on “look alike” audiences with similar interests and respect individual privacy. While targeting your Google Ads will not be as precise in the future your ads should still be highly effective!
If you want help improving your SEO rankings or reviewing your Google Ads strategy please feel free to schedule a call with me!