How to Rule in the Cookieless Era with Cape

time icon4 min read

calendar icon29 March 2023

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Third-party cookies gather information about consumers to ensure that everyone gets to see ads that resonate with their individual preferences. But with these personalised ads also come some privacy issues. Safari and FireFox have stopped supporting third-party cookies almost a decade ago, but now the biggest browser Google Chrome also enters the cookieless era. One of the most important regulations for advertisers is the prohibition of selling third-party cookie data. There is less data available about individual users and transparency regarding cookies is now mandatory, requiring user consent for their use.

The cookie challenge

Due to the regulations, the so-called walled gardens arose. Secluded platforms like Facebook and Google have a lot of customer information, yet the data connection cannot be made. This causes a major problem for marketers and advertisers, who lost access to about 80% of their data.

Normally, marketers use this data to make personalised and relevant ads, while advertisers use this information to learn more about their visiting customers. Now, marketers who rely on cookie data for their advertising need to find new approaches, and advertisers need to think about different ways to target and engage their audience.

Cape’s solutions

Cape offers the solution to create relevant ads despite the arising customer data challenges.

Contextual advertising

One effective solution to create relevant ads is through contextual advertising. This approach uses information from the receiver’s environment to make ads personalised and stand out. With Cape, it is possible to integrate factors like the time of day, specific locations, or other contextual data to create super relevant ads without using third-party cookies.

For example, a connected weather feed API can contain a list of cities with temperature or sun-hour forecasts that automatically integrate into ads. These ads can be easily published to DV360 or CM360 to create ads that update in real-time.

Essent uses this technology to display how much money their customers can save with solar panels based on the current weather conditions. When it is sunny in Rotterdam, people will see an ad that says ‘Save €20 with solar panels’, while no ad is shown in Amsterdam as the weather conditions are below the threshold. All done automatically!

Or look at Just Eat Takeaway.com, where they set up video ads based on factors like the weather, location, day of the week, and even time of day! This strategy enables them to display highly relevant ads, showing breakfast options in the morning, updating copy as quickly as the weather changes ('it's raining, we've got you covered for dinner!'), and promoting restaurants only within the audience's service area.

  1. Another effective solution to create relevant ads is through retail media, or in other words, advertising on the website of retailers. Retail media can be described as a win-win-win-situation where the retailer gets an extra source of income, the advertiser gets to use first-party data and the customer gets to see relevant ads. With Cape, you can manage all campaign types, budgets, and creatives in one place, including budgeting, creatives, validation checks, and precise audience targeting for any chosen platform, complete with the necessary campaign setup and naming conventions.