Many advertisers and webmasters are now preparing for a cookie-less digital advertising future as Google tries to constantly change its web browsing usage guidelines. Owing to these changes, online advertisers need to change their marketing research tactics so that will be more ready to embrace the future of a cookie-less web browsing activities in the future.
Instead of feeling panicky and adamant about the way Google is forcing online marketers to take a different direction in promoting their website, it is high time to gauge your ability to adapt to these changes and here are some insights on how to prepare for the future.
What are tracking cookies?
A tracking cookie is a small piece of information which is collected during the web browsing activity of a user. It is also known as browser’s cookie or HTTP cookie, which works to collect the data involving the browsing activity of an internet user each time they visit a particular website. Whenever they visit that particular website again, the tracking cookie will then send the browsing activity information to the visited website about the previous activities of the user.
Some find the tracking cookie to be invasive to a web user’s privacy. While the cookies do not work like a virus or a malware, it is capable of collecting information like the user’s IP address, credit card information, passwords, most visited sites and many others. Most tracking cookies are harmless and mainly used for marketing analysis by most websites.
Standardizing data collection independent of cookies
Blocking a tracking cookie is actually optional upon the web browser users. An internet user may opt to block the tracking software from a website they visit or not but with the upcoming updates of web browser with the no tracking features, it is likely that not all web users will be spending the time to manually enable their browser’s tracking cookies feature.
They also require the establishment of a standardized regulation on how a tracking technology may be introduced to the consumers and web users without compromising the user’s privacy.
Preparing for the future of cookie tracking
Because the changes on how cookie tracking will be implemented in web browsers appear to be indispensable in the future, here are some ways to help you prepare to reduce its impact in your online marketing strategies using tracking cookies:
1. Educating the web browser users
You will likely become more prepared for these changes if you leverage on educating your website visitors about the tracking cookie software running on your site. Your best bet is to make your website visitors understand how enabling the tracking cookie on their browser will help you in your market industry analysis and research.
Updating your privacy policy will help you reach out to your audience and make them understand about the scope and limits on the data obtained from their web browsing activities. This can, in a way, help you obtain your visitor’s consent to allow the tracking cookies to run on their browser.
2. Explain the usage of third party cookies
It is common for web browsers to block third party cookies in order to make sure that the data collected from a browsing activity is sent to the proper recipient. Because of the stringent regulations on how tracking cookies may be used and allowed to be collected, you can always explain to web users how the data of their browsing activities are collected and how their web browsing experience and functionality will be affected when they disable this feature.
Complement this effort by explaining on your privacy terms to your website ranking visitors.
3. Obtain your website visitor consent
Your ultimate goal is to convince your website visitor to consent to the tracking cookies to run on their browser. Without their consent, there is not much you can do to successfully use the tracking cookies’ ability in providing you with the comprehensive data you need for marketing analysis when the same is blocked by the web browser by default.
You have a better chance of obtaining consent from your visitors by using less legal terms on your terms and conditions when using your website and try to add more transparency in its content instead. This will educate your visitors better without either scaring or confusing them with the legal terms that you use on your site. It is best to provide a separate data consent agreement for this purpose in order to emphasize to your readers this option.
If you are using another independent digital tracking technology, you can introduce the same by providing the users with the information they need to understand how it works in collecting their data and for what purpose they will be used. This will help you obtain their consent more conveniently.
While this may be a difficult process from the beginning, acting as early as now in preparing for the cookie-less web browsing trend will help you to enhance your ability to embrace these changes for the near future.