- GroupM launched the primary global post-cookie technology readiness program in partnership with Google Chrome, based on a press release. The goal is to assist clients of WPP’s media-buying arm speed up their understanding of Google’s Privacy Sandbox APIs.
- Participants will have the ability to evaluate and improve their readiness for third-party cookie deprecation in a real-life environment, using their very own products and audiences. GroupM will design a unified framework for testing, conduct anonymized meta-analysis of tests and supply access to GroupM alpha and beta tests with its ad-tech partners.
- The program addresses the necessity for advertisers to organize themselves for the deprecation of third-party cookies, which is scheduled to start in Q1 2024 for about 1% of Chrome users before being fully deprecated in the course of the second half of the yr.
Google this week confirmed its plans to start the phaseout of third-party cookies in Chrome in Q1 2024, despite some industry rumblings that the tech giant could again delay deprecation. GroupM’s introduction of a post-cookie readiness program in partnership with Google suggests that the top is indeed near for the long-standing tracking and targeting technology that has served as a key pillar of digital marketing.
“Since Google publicly declared their intention to deprecate third-party cookies, we’ve been collaborating closely with the Chrome team, our clients, and other partners to make sure our clients won’t miss a beat when the transition happens,” said Christian Juhl, GroupM’s global CEO, in a press release. “The program we’re announcing today is an exciting step forward in that collaboration that may allow our clients to check existing preparations and enable us to develop recent approaches where obligatory.”
Key to the program is the design of a unified framework for testing that may help advertisers and ad-tech partners understand plans to integrate privacy technologies, including Google’s own Privacy Sandbox APIs. The framework can be informed by guidance from the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority, a regulatory body that previously has secured commitments from Google that its post-cookie plans will promote competition, boost online publishers and safeguard user privacy.
GroupM will leverage its scale as the world’s leading media-buying agency to conduct a meta-analysis of individual brand tests, anonymizing and aggregating the info to tell its learnings and, eventually, compile a meta-study. Similarly, participating advertisers can be first-to-market testers of solutions from GroupM’s ad-tech partners.
The program is predicted to tell client knowledge across the targeting, optimization and measurement of digital investments across display and video in a post-cookie world. Brands participating within the initiative can use existing media plans and budgets with none mandatory additional investment, based on GroupM, as well as share feedback on Privacy Sandbox features.
Google first announced plans to deprecate third-party cookies in Chrome in January 2020 before pushing back the deadline several times as the ad industry continued to work out alternative solutions. The company in April shared results from tests around interest-based solutions just like the Topics API, which delivered a “relatively small” impact on performance.
In May, Google said it might wind down cookies for 1% of Chrome users in Q1 2024. The move will allow developers to check the readiness and effectiveness of their cookieless products in real-world environments, as even 1% of Chrome’s 3 billion worldwide users still represent a large user pool.
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