With The “Cookie” Jar Empty, Is Email Marketing Making A Comeback?
The truth is that email marketing never really left the building. Google announced the demise of 3rd party cookies in 2024, in addition to Apple’s release of mail privacy protection (MPP).
Quick recap: What is a Cookie?!
Cookies can be described as “a reliable means of passing on information about the online behaviours of individuals.” Most companies have relied on “3rd party cookies” to monitor users as they move across websites, pages, to and from Social Media and beyond. We have relied on these to provide online customer journey maps, understand when to upsell, when to cross-sell and when to retarget website visitors that haven’t purchased through personalising retargeting campaigns.
Moving forward, monitoring the customer journey will be trickier in the online world, but not impossible! As a business owner, it’s important to understand how your current enquiries, sales and leads are generated. How do people find your business? What is the first way they interact (in person, on social media, via a website)? What is a typical customer journey?
Once you have this information to hand, it will make the exclusion of third-party data a little easier to swallow – however we’re going to miss retargeting websites just as much as everyone else!
As with all big announcements, we imagine there will be a new AI launched soon that will help those advertisers who rely on third-party data, however, until then, we all need to get a little more creative about targeting.
In order to advertise successfully, a business will need to demonstrate that customer data can be handled responsibly and remain secure. Simultaneously, a business will need to make evident that in exchange for sharing their sensitive information, the client can assume a much better service. After all, with data privacy becoming more important, people will only share their information with businesses they trust.
Sources of first-party data include:
- Website or app behaviour
- Email and newsletter subscribers
- Lead generation campaigns
- Surveys
- Social media
- Subscriptions
- Customer feedback
- Customer service/sales conversations
- Online chat
Businesses using first-party data to drive advertising, such as database and Social Media re-targeting and email marketing, will be one step ahead of the game whilst this new phase is implemented in 2024.
If you want to book a call to discuss your customer journey or how the phasing out of third-party data will affect your business, click here.