Payouts Pulse (Edition 010): Google Says Third-Party Cookies Are Here To Stay 🍪
It’s the tenth edition of The Payouts Pulse! 🎉 Whether you’ve been here since the beginning or this is your first issue, thanks for reading. Here’s how we’re keeping your finger on the pulse:
Google Won’t Be Deprecating Third-Party Cookies After All—But What Does It Mean for the Ad World?
After years of delaying their cookie deprecation plan for Chrome, Google announced last week that cookies are here to stay—but companies’ efforts to figure out how to navigate a post-cookie world have not been in vain.
In lieu of scrapping third-party cookies altogether, Google will be letting people make an informed choice that applies to their web browsing that they can adjust at any time. That’s all the detail we have as of now.
The writing is on the wall for third-party cookies, though. There will come a time when they’re not widely available, so anyone who has put resources and effort into testing cookie-less alternatives still stands to benefit in the long run.
Bottom line: After four years of delays and mounting pressure from the ad world, Google has decided that third-party cookies can stay, for now, with increased attention to user choice and privacy.
Why we care: This decision has huge implications for the affiliate marketing industry—more on that in our “Ask an expert” section below.
Key quote: “A lot of the good work that was done to prepare for the cookie-less future will continue to apply to omnichannel advertising…With the emergence of social media, CTV and other cookie-less channels, advertisers were already adapting to working in a multi-ID, multi-signal environment, and Google’s change of plans won’t change this basic reality.”
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Ask an expert
Vincent Guérin, VP Marketing at Trolley, shares insights on Google's cookie decision and its impact on the creator economy:
“Because Google Chrome is the web's most popular browser, this decision has significant consequences for the creator economy. Take affiliate marketing, for example. It depends heavily on third-party cookies to track user activity, ensuring accurate referral tracking, conversions, and commission payouts.
Cookies aren't just technical tools; they're the backbone of personalized content and offers, making each user experience unique.
They also provide a reliable method for measuring performance, helping affiliate marketers demonstrate clear ROI to their partners.”
While a shift to new, cookie-less tracking is inevitable, this extension gives whole industries more time to adapt and find new ways to build a world beyond cookies.
Anything you’d like to see in future issues?