A cookieless future ‘keeps a lot of CMOs, CFOs, and probably CEOs, up at night’

As the use of third-party cookies in advertising is phased out, what does the future of this marketing environment look like?

Less than one-third of marketers are prepared, according to analysts, with the US market potentially impacted to the tune of US$10 billion as a result.

Speaking at Collision in Toronto, Paul Briggs, principal analyst at EMARKETER, Candy Lee, chief marketing officer at Homebase, and Raj Bhatia, global chief technology officer at Code and Theory (pictured above, from left), each shared their thoughts on survival in a post-cookie world. 

Analyst Paul set the tone for the conversation, stating that “29 percent of marketers worldwide thought their organization was in a good position to measure post-cookie performance” and only “32 percent of publishers said they were prepared for the post-cookie world”.

Candy added that, on the hurdles marketers face, “It’s in a way never more exciting and scary to be a marketer. Apple has added in a lot of these privacy constrictions on rulings, which has made it more expensive to advertise and acquire new users and get revenue. And that’s just been challenging.” 

The CMO went on to explain that the post-cookie fallout means “lots of tech startups see costs rise”.

“For those that are in the paid media space or in the advertising space, it would not be a shock to see that in the last year or two costs are very much skyrocketing. It’s actually not uncommon to see your CPAs or CACs rise from 20 percent to 50 percent, just in the past year or two.”

The biggest impact the disappearance of cookies will have is signal loss, which is the loss of detailed tracking data that has historically helped marketers understand and target users effectively.

“There’s a concerning environment out there if you just look at the US market. You know, there are some stats around there that roughly US$10 billion worth of market is going to be impacted as a result of this signal loss”, said Code and Theory’s Raj.

On the other hand, the global CTO explained that in forcing marketers to find new ways to reach and engage their audience, this is leading to innovation.

“There’s so much AI coming into play that I think it’s a wonderful time for us, a challenging time, but a wonderful time in terms of the innovation that will come into play.” 

Candy added that “it’s definitely something that keeps a lot of CMOs, CFOs, and probably CEOs, up at night, but I think sometimes context is everything”.

“It can be easy to freak out and think: ‘What are we going to do? Google’s gonna phase out cookies by Q4, now it’s pushing 2025. Who knows?’ But context is everything. What is your strategy?”

“A lot of marketers are actually going back to basics”, added the Homebase CMO.

On a final note Candy said that “there’s no shortage of podcasts and newsletters [where] everyone can follow and learn about different points of view and the latest on legislation and changes with Google, Chrome, etc.“

“I would say: Continue to diversify, because you’re only at risk of shortcoming if you haven’t diversified your channel mix or portfolio with the recent delays with Google, I think that buys us a little bit more time.”

Candy, Paul and Raj’s comments were made as part of a wider discussion on third party cookies at Collision, which is returning to Toronto for its sixth year. Global founders, CEOs, investors and members of the media have come to the city to make deals and experience North America’s thriving tech ecosystem.

More than 1,600 startups are taking part in Collision 2024 – the highest number of startups ever at a Collision event. 45 percent of these are women-founded, and startups have travelled to Toronto from countries including Nigeria, the Republic of Korea, Uruguay, Japan, Italy, Ghana, Pakistan and beyond.

In total, more than 37,800 attendees have gathered at the event, as well as 570 speakers and 1,003 members of the media, to explore business opportunities with an international audience.

739 investors are attending Collision, including Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures; Wesley Chan, co-founder and managing partner of FPV Ventures; and Nigel Morris, co-founder and managing partner of QED Investors, as well as nine companies on the Forbes Midas List, and 12 investors from those firms.

Top speakers at Collision include:

• Geoffrey Hinton, Godfather of AI
• Maria Sharapova, entrepreneur and tennis legend
• Aidan Gomez, founder and CEO of Cohere (an AI for enterprise and large language model company, which raised US$450 million at a US$5 billion valuation in June 2024)
• Raquel Urtasun, founder and CEO of Waabi (a Canadian autonomous trucking company)
• Jeff Shiner, CEO of 1Password (a cloud-based password management tool)
• Dali Rajic, president and COO of Wiz (a cloud security platform)
• Alex Israel, co-founder and CEO of Metropolis (an AI and computer vision platform)
• Jonathan Ross, founder and CEO of Groq (an AI chip startup)
• Keily Blair, CEO of OnlyFans
• Autumn Peltier, Indigenous rights activist

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Useful links

• Collision website: https://collisionconf.com/ 
• Collision media kit: https://collisionconf.com/media/media-kit  
• Collision images: https://flickr.com/photos/collisionconf 
• About Web Summit: about.websummit.com