Content marketing to make sailing easy when third-party cookies crumble

Marketers and agencies have already started figuring out new means of communicating in a cookie-less world. There is still time till 2023 for third-party cookies to crumble completely. But as the saying goes: ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’. Marketers have to prepare themselves for the times ahead so that targeting and personalisation do not go for a toss.

All this can leave marketers baffled and worried about how to operate in a new cookie-less era.

Aarti Samant

Aarti Samant, Founder, Sorted and Masala Tokri, Head of Content, Future Group, said, “Removal of third-party cookies will certainly have an impact on our overall traffic and on us in building relevance for our funnel. Retention and first-level conversion might get more expensive from a ROAS (return on ad spend) point of view.”

Smita Murarka

Smita Murarka, Chief Marketing Officer, Duroflex, added, “One-on-one personalisation and hyper-targeted communication may get disrupted but as data protection regulations evolve with time, this was unavoidable.”

At present, marketers rely heavily on third-party cookies for consumer retention, retargeting and remarketing on Facebook and Google. For Future Group, 15-20% of its traffic comes from cookie-based interventions.

Intel too relies on third-party cookies for display ads. Duroflex uses third-party cookies largely for e-commerce campaigns, targeting the website audience and picking up from where they left their journey. The story of reliance on third-party cookies is similar for other brands as well.

Coming to the rescue of brands is content marketing. It will help brands build direct relationships with consumers if done in a certain way, as experts discuss below.

Manesh Swamy

Manesh Swamy, Sr VP, Creative, Social, PR, Marcom, Logicserve Digital, said, “Many big brands still don’t have very direct relationships with their customers. Content will help brands of all sizes to build improved relationships with their customers and deliver great customer experiences.”

Gayatri Makhijani

Gayatri Makhijani, Lead, Media, Digital Marketing and Social Media, Intel India, said, “The disappearance of third-party cookies will bring back the focus on owned communities and deepen the focus on content marketing and engagement strategies within. ‘Expand and engage your community’ will be the mantra.”

To make the most of the content marketing that will help brands survive in a third-party cookie-less world, Murarka said, “The brands will have to create content that is worthy of their time and equips them with the right information. Involve the audience, co-create wherever possible, take feedback, ask for suggestions. Use surveys, polls, reviews to collect data wherever possible. See if the content has led to brand preference and has converted into product trials.”

Swamy said going forward the focus should be on how brands are going to be more effective at delivering content tailored to unknown prospects based on a smaller set of information in a narrower window of time.

Checklist for content marketers to prepare for a third-party cookie-less world:

Thankfully, the A&M industry’s reliance on direct advertising has reduced. More and more brands are using content to engage with consumers. To prepare for the times ahead, they must focus on the checklist below to create an effective content marketing strategy:

Act like publishers and creators

It’s about time for brands to behave like publishers and creators. While collaborations with content platforms and creators are on a rise, brands must start thinking of creating and serving content on their own platforms to form direct relationships with consumers. Doing this will give them more control over data practices, have their own first-party data and serve the content that the consumer wants to consume.

Chetan Asher

Chetan Asher, Founder and CEO, Tonic Worldwide, said, “Brands will have to start thinking like content creators and offer a lot more value to consumers. There is immense value in doing that beyond just collecting data.”

Makhijani said that although it’s important for brands to take ownership of content, there is an opportunity to collaborate with publishers to create first-party data with added credibility and industry expertise. “This may mean publishers too need to gear up on content ownership rights,” she emphasised.

Consistently create engaging content

This is not the end of the world. Even if a brand is not serving content on its own platform, it will have an impact on consumers if the content is engaging and interactive enough.

Murarka said, “To collect authentic first-party data, brands will have to engage the consumer more often with superlative content via their preferred mode and personal choices. This will certainly need high-quality interactive content along with the right martech.”

Makhijani pointed out, “Engagement shouldn’t just be about the numbers and metrics from a creative, thumb-stopping and new media-first execution. It will be important for brands to build nimble, cost-effective content and creative models at scale.”

Treat consumer data as currency

Going ahead, every content marketer must do one thing for sure: treat consumer data as cash. Therefore, we must ensure that whenever we use consumer data, we must take permission, be transparent and focus on direct relationships.

Swamy of Logicserve said, “Every piece of a brand’s data management approach needs to put consumer interests first. In the age of greater customer choice, that’s not just good ethics, it is good business. Brands should slowly start investing on first-party data by understanding internal policies, reviewing current data capabilities, and getting the necessary buy-in from their stakeholders.”

Be Contextual

While content is king, context is the kingdom. Content marketing is all about relevance. Being relevant cuts across the noise and makes the brand stand out. There is no point in creating highly creative content if it isn’t served to the right audience.

Siddharth Devnani

Siddharth Devnani, Co-Founder and Director, SoCheers, said, “Being contextual is important — for a user to reach the brand's content when the brand can't easily reach out to the user. In any case, branded content thrives when it is highly relevant to the user's online activity, as opposed to being intrusive — so more of it is needed to ensure the communication resonates with users.”

Samant of Future Group said that with contextual targeting, the ads you see are based on the content you are looking at instead of your overall behaviour profile. “So, when you are looking at your organic food blog, you see ads for organic produce, and when you’re reading up on how to boost the click-through rate on your email newsletters, you see ads for relevant email automation platforms.”

Bank on the power of community building

Brand-led communities are already on the rise. Now is the time for more and more brands to join the bandwagon. As soon as a brand starts doing this, it will have more time until 2023 to garner a consumer’s first-party data, to know about a consumer’s likes and dislikes and behaviour. Brand-mentored communities give a chance to engage, interact with consumers in the most contextual manner.

Murarka said, “Brands need to create a trustworthy and private atmosphere wherein consumers can trust the platform, share their opinions and personal details (voluntarily), and give explicit consent to use such information. Consumers will be much more comfortable and open if they have confidence in the brand. Content consumption can dramatically improve in such an atmosphere.”

SoCheers’ Devnani seconded, “Social media is the best example of this. Consumers engaging with each other in comments of an Instagram post, which is, in turn, attracting other users in their networks to these brands — driving customer acquisition. Each brand needs to do this in its own signature style as there is no one-size-fits-all approach.”

Asher of Tonic Worldwide said brand communities are a potent tool for brands to engage with consumers through content. Instead of focusing solely on paid advertising, brands can encourage retention and concentrate on long-term sustainable growth. Communities will also foster loyalty for the brand and create sustained buzz and conversations around the brand.”

Brands should not just build their own communities, but also collaborate with existing smaller social media communities that have people with similar interests. Makhijani said collaboration will be the key for brands to create content that’s both engaging, cost-effective and credible. She said, “Niche communities have expertise that larger publishers and agencies can often not match. Hence, we see a strong play here for these to become co-creators on content buckets to drive a robust engagement strategy.”

Putting first-party cookies into action to create relevant content for community building is an art and a science. One must have to strike the right balance with how he/she uses first-party data, build trust with probable customers and convert them into a community.

Swamy of Logicserve said, “Brands have to be a bit more prepared for first-party data. Instead of showing you the checkboxes, the site might use first-party cookies to track the type of content you’re watching and use that information to show you similar content even though you haven’t expressly stated it’s your preference. If they use it too quickly, it could make their customers uncomfortable.”

Giving an example, Swamy explained, “Let’s say a customer goes to a coffee shop for the first time and the shop already knows him by his name and his favourite coffee or cookie. This could raise an alarm and he will probably leave and never come back. But if the customer is a recurring customer and the coffee shop knows he is a ‘Regular’ after a few visits, he wouldn’t be uncomfortable or alarmed and he would rather spread the word.”