Major brands including Bacardi, Clorox, and Cadillac are reportedly planning to change their data collection strategies following changes to Google’s Ad system.
The Wall Street Journal reports that last year Google announced plans to eliminate third-party cookies on its Chrome browser allegedly to improve user privacy. In March, it said that it won’t offer or use alternatives that allow individual ad targeting, putting marketers attempting to deliver the right digital ads to the right users in an awkward position.
The changes are forcing marketers to rely less on Google for targeting individuals, for instance by sending them ads for products based on their previous purchases, and are now finding new ways to collect and use first-party data.
Sebastian Micozzi, senior vice president of digital transformation at Bacardi, stated: “We will need to hold and own a lot more of our own consumers’ data ourselves, and rely less on the gatekeeping of Google and Apple or borrowing in other people’s data. This challenges us to look at new data sets.”
The Wall Street Journal outlined how a brand like Bacardi is handling a lack of access to targeted ads, writing:
Bacardi last October ran a test to tell whether its campaign promoting Bombay Sapphire in the U.K. could boost sales and brand favor—and in the process help answer a broader question about the long-term fate of its digital marketing as the way consumers are targeted for ads faces a shift.
The campaign took 10,000 anonymized identities of people who had visited the gin brand’s distillery or website, and sent them offers like promotional emails or Instagram ads promising drink recipes and early access to new products.
The result was a click-through rate, which indicates how often ad exposures lead to clicks, around 9% higher than previous campaigns that relied on common but now endangered targeting methods, such as using data from third-party sources. The new campaign also saw a 14% increase in cost efficiency as measured by a cost-per-click metric.
Google has promised to help with the issue, stating that it will build tools that allow advertisers to target large groups of people with common traits when sending ads outside of Google. Withing Google properties such as YouTube and Gmail, it will allow marketers to apply their first-party data to target individuals.
Google’s announcement in March reaffirmed the importance of investment in first-party data that brands such as Clorox had already been making. Stacey Grier, chief marketing and strategy officer at Clorox, commented: “We’re working to bring people to our website so they can and will share their data. It helps us understand how we can have a better and more fruitful relationship with them as cookies disappear.”
Read more at the Wall Street Journal here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com
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