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This year, third-party cookies are set to disappear, and with them, several other mainstays of digital advertising, like measurement, spurring marketers to look at transaction data and attention metrics, and critique alternative forms of media.
“There has been a lot of talk whether CPMs (cost per thousand impressions) or CPAs (cost per acquisition) even still make sense as a metric, whether viewability is a viable metric in this media universe,” said Ana Milicevic, co-founder of programmatic consultancy Sparrow Advisors, at Adweek’s Outlook 2024 event in New York earlier this week. “I’m not convinced we should be carrying [over] those old-school metrics.”
Panelists were not only skeptical of the longevity of measurement frameworks facilitated by third-party cookies, but also whether whole swaths of media would prevail if advertisers didn’t have this mechanism to find their audiences.
“I think long-tail publishers don’t have a long history left in them,” said Josh Lowcock, president, media at Quad. “They’re destined to die.”
New measurement paradigms
Instead of cookies, Lowcock said, Quad’s brand clients are going to rely more on transaction data, as it “doesn’t lie” on the connection between advertising and outcome. However, he cautioned against overly deterministic approaches.
“Other surveillance-based proxy measurements are going to be challenged,” he added, noting the Federal Trade Commission’s recent crackdown on location data brokers. “[We’re] being wary and making sure we don’t lean on those.”
While The New York Times has been investing in developing its stores of first-party data, Gabriel Dorosz, its executive director of audience strategy and insights, said advertisers need to think beyond simply deterministic, lower-funnel strategies, especially in an era without cookies.
“I hope for a meaningful conversation about whether the constant quest for knowability in all respects is actually an effective strategy,” Dorosz said. “Is contextual just as performative?”
