News this week that Google will delay its cookies sunset from 2023 to 2024, may be a welcome extension for publishers, brands (and their agencies) and the ad tech platforms, who have been hoping for more time to adjust to a new data landscape.
Given the complexity of the challenge, the worst response for anyone in the industry would be to kick the can down the road at a time when most companies were already late in creating a forward strategy regarding a cookieless future.
Regardless of whether cookie-loss looms large on your list of priorities, inarguably we are in a period of rapid change as an industry. Two non-cookie examples that we’re also living through are the impact of Apple’s ATT/Relay VPN changes and Google sunsetting its baseline Google Analytics offering.
In the face of all of these changes, the key to understanding site visitors, app users, and video streamers across all devices and audiences will be consistent, timely, and complete measurement with rigorous methodology.
In this blog article, I’ll share what we’re doing here at Comscore to solve the Third-Party Data problem and how you can work with us to emerge stronger from any challenges that arise.
1. Work with a Trusted Measurement Provider to Enable a Seamless Transition
At Comscore we’re working to preserve both consumer privacy and ensure the continued granularity of our unduplicated, person-based measurement of online audiences, which is unmatched in market.
With Comscore’s measurement tools, one can understand how their audiences engage across their owned property, competitive properties, and what their other attitudes, interests and lifestyles are – on desktop, mobile browsers, mobile apps, social, and connected TV. We are first to market with a complete measurement product by using our massive and global digital panel as a source of truth, and this as a data source will not diminish with the demise of cookies. In 2010, we pioneered the use of census event data collection and usage with panels. Through the advent of tagging content and ads, Comscore has been measuring more entities and campaigns as consumer’s media consumption grows across channels, devices, and environments. Grounded in rigorous methodology and by tying this data to panel observations, we use these assets together in what we call Comscore Unified Digital Measurement (UDM). We’re ensuring our new iteration (UDM 2.0) will stand the test of time whether that’s in 2024 or beyond.
2. Guard against complacency
In the coming weeks, we encourage publishers and advertisers to begin the discussion with us to understand their best path forward in transitioning their measurement to a cookieless future. We’ve been talking to many of you and what’s become clear is that we all need to maintain momentum to meet even a 2024 target. History will show, the market will move with those who paid attention and took action, while those hoping to ‘wait and see’ what others decide, will fall off the proverbial data cliff.
If there’s only one takeaway you remember from this update, it’s that we are here to help with the transition to a cookieless world in any way that works for you as publishers or brands, whether that’s via website or video streaming tags, app SDKs, or via Server-to-server data sharing. We’ll work with you on “where your data resides” to ensure accurate and robust reporting.
Connect with us to begin the discussion. If you are already tagging with Comscore, and have any questions, reach out to your account manager to learn more about measurement solutions for the cookieless world ahead. If you’re not currently tagging with Comscore to participate in UDM 2.0, reach out to me here and share your thoughts on navigating the loss of cookies.
