Advertising and privacy: what changes?

Find out how to move into a world without cookies for your Web Marketing activities

To achieve effective online measurement so far we have relied almost exclusively on cookies to record useful information about what happens after a person clicks on an ad. On July 10, 2021, the Italian Data Protection Authority published new “Cookie and other tracking tools guidelines,” giving six months for systems and processes already in place to adapt.

The new guidelines incorporate many of the innovations introduced by the GDPR and provide that online service providers are always required to request consent to use cookies or other tracking tools for purposes other than technical purposes, i.e. strictly necessary for transmission over an electronic network. Only after having acquired the consent in an “unequivocal” way, according to the modalities indicated by the Guarantor, will it be possible to use cookies or other tracking systems for non-technical purposes.

How to measure ad campaigns with the new guidelines?

Digital advertising allows you to reach people wherever they are with relevant and timely messages. When it comes time to evaluate ad effectiveness, advertisers now expect a complete and direct view of the customer journey, from awareness to conversions.

This journey has become increasingly difficult to measure: due to cookie restrictions in browsers and blind spots in cross-device shopping, more and more situations are being created where it’s no longer possible to tell if a conversion has occurred.

How can you accurately assess the effectiveness of marketing investments when there are so many potential gaps in the customer journey? By using conversion models.

Conversion models with machine learning

Conversion models use machine learning to quantify the impact of marketing operations when a subset of conversions cannot be tracked: observable data is used by the algorithms along with past trends to validate the measurement and give it information to build on.

Models allow for precise measurement while generating reports based only on aggregated, anonymous data: we thus gain detailed insight into customer behavior while respecting their privacy and maintaining normal performance even when direct measurement is not possible.

Conversion models can help fill in the blanks in measuring the performance of media campaigns at times when the path between ad interactions and conversions cannot be observed.

We’re in the midst of an evolution in measurement, and the worldwide changes in the ecosystem are forcing marketers to be forward thinking and think about privacy.

Advertising and privacy: generating trust in customers

Developing strong customer relationships has always been critical for brands to build a successful business, and this becomes even more vital in a world focused on privacy.

Keeping the Internet open and accessible to all requires doing more to protect privacy, and that means an end to not only third-party cookies, but also any technology used to track individuals as they surf the Web.

If done right, digital marketing can respect users’ data usage choices while bringing added value to brands and customers: according to research by Google and Ipsos, people willingly provide personal information to companies they trust, as long as they know how it will be used and what they will get in return.

To win customers’ trust, brands should focus on exceeding expectations rather than simply meeting legal requirements for data management. Brands that can exceed expectations will likely gain a competitive advantage over those that consider privacy a secondary issue. Brands that don’t give privacy the attention it deserves risk losing the trust and respect of their customers.

Andrea Ponzi
Web Project Manager
@ Starsystem IT

Pubblicato il 1 September 2022

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