Consumers are becoming more aware of how their personal data is being used.

Marketing like it's 2010 again.

Third-party cookies are a piece of code that allow audiences to be targeted based on what they do on your site and those they visit after yours. 

In 2021, Apple and Firefox phased out third-party cookies to meet rising user expectations of privacy and impending regulatory restrictions. Apple also forced app developers to ask for user permission to track their data.

This resulted in 94% of mobile users opting out of having their activities tracked, causing Facebook – whose audience reach largely happens via mobile – to run head-on into a decreased ability to understand and retarget audiences. You see the impact of that in your skyrocketing costs to acquire new prospects via Facebook ads and in the rising competition in Google search ads.

In 2025, Google’s product, Chrome – which owns 64% of the browser marketshare – was projected to stop supporting third-party cookies, on which 80% of marketers are dependent. While Google moved away from this promise, the ad tech industry has largely already adjusted and left key Google products like Google Analytics in a state of low effectiveness given their reliance on outdated technology. This changes the game of digital acquisition and forces marketers to think more creatively and manually about targeting and tracking strategy.

More than twenty U.S. states are considering privacy legislation.

Privacy initiatives went into effect in five states in 2023, with eight more states passing legislation, and many others considering action as well. On a federal level, data privacy and protection is one of the issues most widely supported across-the-aisle, and the congressional review of a pending federal privacy bill with large implications on consumer data use will determine next steps.

This doesn't have to feel like a loss of control.

While the rising costs to reach consumers because of these shifts are clear, the numbers also tell the story of the positive brand lift seen among your peers when consumer needs are met proactively. The research indicates that organizations that build digital trust are also more likely than others to see annual growth rates of at least 10 percent on their bottom line. 

Moreover, these shifts present the opportunity to dig deep in understanding prospective and current audiences to better collect more first-party information that powers your ability to connect no matter what's ahead of us.

Now is the time to gain fundamental audience insights that equip you for success, less behold to external disruptors. I'll show you how.

Data Sources: TechCrunch, The New York Times, Forrester, CISCO, Harvard Business Review, McKinsey