Options for targeting digital advertising in a way that doesn’t rely on cookies are increasing, thanks to advances in predictive analytics and AI that will ultimately lessen the current dominance of Google, Facebook, and other large-scale content aggregators.
Google announced earlier this month that it will no longer allow third-party cookies to collect data via its Chrome browser. Many companies have historically relied on those cookies to better target their digital advertising, as the cookies enable digital ad networks and social media sites to create a profile of an end user without knowing specifically who that individual is. While that approach doesn’t necessarily breach anyone’s privacy, it does give many users the feeling that some entity is tracking the sites they visit in a way that makes them uncomfortable.
Providers of other browsers, such as Safari from Apple and the open source Firefox browser, have already abandoned third-party cookies. To be clear, Google isn’t walking away from tracking user behavior. Instead, the company has created a Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) mechanism to track user behavior that doesn’t depend on cookies to collect data. Instead of being able to target an ad to a specific anonymous user, advertisers are presented with an opportunity to target groups of end users that are now organized into cohorts based on data Google still collects.
It remains to be seen how these initiatives might substantially change the user experience. However, some advertisers are now looking to employ machine learning algorithms and other forms of advanced analytics being made available via digital advertising networks to reduce their dependency on Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, and other entities that control massive online communities.
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