With the rise of stricter cybersecurity regulations and privacy concerns, the digital world, especially its tracking aspect, is changing significantly. Cookies, the building blocks that once laid the foundation of online tracking and digital advertising; facilitated websites in remembering user preferences and gathering key user behavior data, are gradually becoming a thing of the past.
So what is enabling the modern digital market’s upkeep then? Cookieless tracking! A new and privacy-respecting approach to garnering user insights without the traditional reliance on cookies.
Don’t know what it is? Read along to understand all about cookieless tracking and its growing importance.
Simply put, cookies are small text files that are stored in any internet user’s browser keeping an eye on their surfing behavior when they visit a certain website. In other words, they are text files that store information about the browsing activity of users. They facilitate websites in remembering crucial user information like their login credentials, preferences, and their searching or browsing history.
Imagine yourself as an internet user. When you visit any website, your server will send a cookie to your browser which then stores it locally. Now the next time you visit that same website, the browser will send the cookie back to your server so that the website can recognize you as a user and tailor your experience accordingly. This can include improving suability for you by remembering your settings, maintaining session states, and providing you with personalized content. This whole process is how cookies work.
Here’s why cookies are important and been a go-to tool for many digital marketers:
Cookies allow websites to remember the preferences of users such as their language settings, themes, and items they added to their cart in their previous visit to the website. This personalization enhances the experience of users and promotes return visits.
The most important thing about cookies and their prevalent use is that they can track user behavior across websites. So for marketers, cookies are like a digital currency that can help them get the hang of how users interact with their websites, the pages they visit, and how often and how long they stay on them. All this information is imperative for improving the website experience for users and working on user engagement.
Advertisers use these information-rich cookies to make user profiles based on the browsing habits and preferences of users so that they can give them targeted ads and increase the conversion rates and ROI for advertising campaigns.
Since cookies play such a crucial role in segmenting audiences and delivering targeted ads, they also enable digital marketers to understand the effectiveness of their campaigns. By keeping track of user behavior and conversions, they can understand which of their strategies are fruitful and which aren’t to make data-driven decisions.
Now when it comes to cookieless tracking, it is a method of gathering insights about user behavior and on-web preferences of users albeit there are no cookies in the picture. Cookies have gained significant side-eyes in the digital world where privacy concerns are at an all-time high and more and more people are using cookie blockers.
In this scenario, cookieless tracking typically involves using scripts that can run whenever a user visits any webpage eliminating the need for cookies on users’ or visitors’ devices that can store information.
Because cookieless tracking doesn’t employ cookies, it uses various other techniques to collect data like:
Browser fingerprinting is a method in cookieless tracking in which according to a user’s browser settings and device permissions, a unique identifier is created for that particular user. This enables tracking user behavior without storing any identifiable or private information.
Instead of explicit decoding of IP addresses, cookieless tracking employs anonymized IP addresses which mask personal information. That way, companies can keep track of user behavior without compromising on privacy compliance.
For first-party data, instead of third-party cookies that are characteristic of cookie tracking, in cookieless tracking businesses can still use first-party cookies. They are created by the websites that users visit and can remember users’ preferences without infringing privacy rules.
Cookies, which are being used for more than just market behavior analysis and tracking in things like digital espionage, have come under negative light. Add to that the privacy compromised aspect and stricter cybersecurity regulations and there you have it, a need to track without reliance on cookies. Marketing platforms that uphold cybersecurity and user privacy in high regard are turning to overcome the reliance on cookies. This shift is driven by many factors such as:
Now that more and more people are using ad blockers and denying and restricting cookies on their browsers, marketers are unable to accurately track the user behavior of their target audience. The effectiveness that traditional cookie-based tracking was known for is facing constant degradation, making it even more difficult for marketers to gather reliable data about consumers’ interactions and preferences across different websites and platforms. Consequently, they aren’t even able to judge how well their marketing campaigns are performing and deal with increasing efficiencies in advertising expenditure and development of strategies.
Now that more and more web browsers including major ones like Safari, Firefox, and Chrome have implemented strong protocols to limit the use of third-party cookies, the advertising ecosystem is facing significant impacts and barriers. Moving forward, as these browsers adopt default settings, which include blocking tracking cookies or third-party cookies, the marketers have no option but to reconsider their strategies for cross-site tracking and user behavior and engagement analysis.
The difficulty in tracking and the restrictions on users’ end aren’t the only concerns of marketers making them turn to cookieless tracking. The introduction and demand to comply with strict privacy laws like the General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR in Europe, and the California Consumer Privacy Act, CCPA in the US has further complicated the landscape for marketers. These regulations now require digital marketing platforms and companies to ask for permissions before doing any kind of tracking and using any kind of cookies as well as completely restrict some cookies to track user behavior data. These rules have changed the face of how companies collect, store, and utilize the personal data of users and consumers to shape and modify marketing campaigns and give them targeted advertisements. That’s why more and more companies are now turning to cookieless tracking and becoming part of the shift towards more compliant and privacy-conscious data collection and storage practices.
On the one hand, rules and regulations by Government bodies and safety organizations rules are tightening the boundaries for marketers. On the other hand, consumers and common users themselves are increasingly becoming aware of data privacy, encouraging them to increasingly use ad blockers and deny cookie permissions. As users proactively safeguard and conceal their data, the effectiveness of cookie-based tracking further diminishes. This trend doesn’t just keep marketers from tracking user data but also inhibits delivering targeted ads and offers to consumers, hampering the overall growth of digital advertising campaigns.
As privacy regulations become stricter around the world, particularly with the enforcement of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union, businesses and digital marketing executives find it mandatory to resort to novel methods of user tracking and personalization. Understanding its basics is key to complying with it so let’s get to it.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European Union law that is all about protecting the personal data of users and protecting the privacy of all EU residents. However, it’s not just limited to Europe or European businesses and platforms but has wider implications for all businesses across the globe that EU residents can access and benefit from. Here are some of its implications:
This game-changing law, GDPR, has been effective since May of 2018 and makes it compulsory for websites to get explicit consent from users before placing any non-essential and third-party tracking cookies on their browsers that can track their behavior across different sites.
GDPR aims to give users more control over their data in the increasingly digitized market, mandating transparency about cookie and data usage and the ability to withdraw their consent easily at any point in time.
GDPR also imposes strict guidelines and regulations on the processing and storage of user data. It necessitates storing only the most needed data and that too for only as long as it is used for the specified purpose.
Consequently, traditional cookies that derived the cookie-based tracking mechanism have been severely impacted by these regulations posed by GDPR as they collected data without adequate user consent. Regardless, GDPR on the whole necessitates safe and careful management of user data and sheer transparency in tracking practices.
Against the backdrop of rising security concerns and regulations like GDPR, cookieless tracking solutions have come through as a pivotal way to adapt to these regulatory changes and comply with privacy standards and laws. Marketing platforms and executives are actively exploring cookieless tracking methods that focus on leveraging first-party data, more reliable and relevant one, and contextual advertising that delivers advertisements based on website content rather than individual users’ interests, thereby respecting user privacy while also delivering relevant advertising experience.
Innovations in technology, such as server-side tracking and the use of machine learning algorithms, are also emerging as viable solutions. These technologies allow for more sophisticated data analysis while maintaining compliance with privacy regulations, enabling marketers to deliver personalized experiences without relying on third-party cookies.
Cookieless tracking includes some of the following methods that enable data collection and analysis in a more sophisticated way while also complying with privacy regulations like GDPR. Here’s how:
Unlike the traditional cookie-based tracking that records and stores user’s data on the user browsers, the server-side tracking method of cookieless tracking processes data on the server. By taking the central power from cookies away and relying on servers for data management, this cookieless tracking method enables more secure and GDPR-compliant data handling.
Device fingerprinting is another technique of cookieless tracking in which instead of using the personal information of users to remember them, it collects information about a user’s device settings like the screen resolutions, plug-ins or operating systems, and fonts to create a unique identifier, called “fingerprint” without storing the data in cookies.
Cookieless tracking methods involve collecting data directly from users, which means they rely on reliable first-party data through the interactions that users do on certain websites or applications. This stands in compliance with GDPR as it collects first-party data after explicitly asking for consent from users.
Contextual tracking, unlike specific tracking which is part of cookie-based tracking, analyzes the content of different web pages that users visit rather than storing or assessing their personal data. This facilitates companies in providing consumers targeted advertising based on the context rather than the individual or personal information.
All these methods align with GDPR, especially the aspects regarding minimization of data collection and purpose limitation, ensuring that only the necessary data of consumers is collected and that too for specific purposes for a certain time period.
Cookieless tracking method of tracking and creating digital advertisements that rely on anything other than third-party cookies has become all the rage these days and rightly so. For the benefits, like greater accuracy, precision, contextual advertisements, and compliance with strict cyber security and privacy regulations like GDPR, cookieless tracking is the only way forward for marketers to continue thriving in the digital marketplace without infringing on consumers’ privacy.
Yes, cookieless tracking is very much legal as long as it complies with privacy rules and regulations like the GDPR, CCPA, and the like. As the rules necessitate, it takes user consent before tracking personal data and relies on first-party data, which is considered more privacy-friendly.
Cookieless tracking, in the basic realm, typically does not always require explicit consent as it relies on anonymized data rather than personal individual data and first-party cookies. However, some cookieless tracking methods like browser fingerprinting, and using first-party cookies for some specific purpose require full disclosure and direct permission from users.
In order to respect privacy and take the idea of cookie consent banners out of the picture, companies and marketing platforms should adopt cookieless tracking methods that rely on anonymous data collection and first-party cookies, both of which align with privacy regulations and reduce the burdens even on the users to manage their cookie preferences.
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