Preparing Your eCommerce Business for the Cookieless Future

Now that Google has announced that their Chrome browser will no longer support third-party cookies in 2023, some eCommerce websites will need to change the way they market to consumers. Today, we will discuss what the end of third-party cookies means for your eCommerce website and how you can get your business ready for the coming shift in digital marketing norms.

How Will This Impact eCommerce?

The imminent end of third-party cookies has several key implications for eCommerce.

Audience Information

The primary challenge eCommerce businesses will face is in establishing their audience’s digital identity. Without third-party cookies, it is more difficult to separate individual users from aggregated data. This complicates some important marketing tasks, such as measuring the number of impressions on a given ad campaign or distinguishing new visitors from returning ones.

Ad Targeting

Ad targeting techniques that depend on detailed user data (such as programmatic display advertising and multi-channel remarketing) are much more difficult to use effectively without third-party data. While there are some potential workarounds, we can expect these types of marketing to become significantly less profitable when third-party cookies are discontinued on Chrome.

Attribution

Measuring attribution is also challenging without third-party data. If you cannot track where a user has been browsing online, how can you tell which of your external ads was most effective in drumming up new traffic for your business?

What You Should Be Doing to Prepare

The end of third-party cookies is inevitable, but you do not need to let your eCommerce business be caught by surprise. The best way to get ready for the upcoming changes is to develop a first-party data strategy.

Your e-commerce shop sells directly to consumers, so you have the perfect opportunity to collect first-party data on their shopping habits. You can still log Chrome users’ browsing habits on your site using first-party cookies, giving you access to valuable data on what types of products your users are most interested in.

If you need more information, you can create marketing campaigns intended specifically to help you collect data on your user base. Offering promotional discounts or a range of exclusive products available only to subscribers are two popular ways to entice visitors to give you some demographic information. Depending on your needs, this might include details such as:

• Their name
• Their age
• Their gender
• Their postal code
• And more

You can even deploy campaign-specific landing pages and promotional codes for easier attribution without third-party cookies.

Once you have this additional information, you can use it to segment your advertising to reach consumers based on their interests and purchase intent. A Toronto SEO company can help you create the necessary campaigns and leverage the resulting first-party data to drive sales for your eCommerce business.

Put Your eCommerce Website Ahead of the Pack

The end of third-party cookies is not the only major change set to disrupt the eCommerce world this year. Shifting consumer privacy expectations suggest that more data-related changes may soon be on the horizon.

The more you know about new developments in digital marketing, the better you will be able to help your eCommerce venture weather the changes. Sign up for WSI Comandix’s educational email program today for more information on how digital marketing is changing and what you can do to ensure your eCommerce website keeps up.

Also Read:

• When and Why You Should Redesign Your Online Store
• Why a Responsive eCommerce Site Matters
• Key Questions to Answer for eCommerce Success
• How Shopify Can Help Your Toronto Business