Shaping your identity strategy

The phase out of third-party cookies to improve user privacy is driving a considerable shift in the advertising industry, and participants must approach ads personalization with a different lens. Google's latest update on its plans to end third-party cookies in Chrome allows extra time for stronger alternatives to be developed. Right now, advertisers have the opportunity to re-evaluate their identity strategies and adopt a proactive and well-rounded approach that doesn’t rely on a single solution.

Microsoft Advertising's identity solutions offer a multifaceted approach to navigate the post-cookie era—one that ensures scale and choice for businesses. With Microsoft at the forefront of privacy-preserving initiatives, we advocate for an advertising industry that balances privacy with personalization, creating superior browsing experiences while respecting user choices.

We understand that solving for ad personalization and measurement can seem complex. This is why we are actively working in the backend to futureproof our platforms and enhance our existing capabilities to make it seamless for you. All you need to do is to follow simple steps to ensure that your identity strategy is comprehensive and robust.

Step-by-step guide

Step 1 – Update your Pixel strategy to benefit from privacy enhancing technologies

The more informed you are, the better choices you can make for your business. The first, and most important, step is to implement a JavaScript-based tag on your site to ensure you are still able to receive and leverage relevant data signals without relying on third-party cookies. Browser technologies, for example, the Protected Audience API and Microsoft Edge’s Ad Selection API require JavaScript tags to function optimally.

By ensuring that Universal Event Tracker (UET) – or the Universal pixel on Microsoft Invest – are implemented on your sites, you will automatically ensure your conversion tracking and retargeting continue to function when third-party cookies are removed, and that your campaigns will benefit from browser technology and privacy-preserving identity solutions.

Step 2 – Leverage first party data

One of the most strategic things you can do to prepare for the cookieless future is capitalize on every opportunity to integrate more first-party data into your funnel. Luckily, you don’t have to do it all alone when you select data-rich partners who can help you maximize the utility of your data.

Microsoft’s unique position in the market – with Windows powering 1.4 billion devices worldwide and the deep integration with Edge, Microsoft Start, Bing and others – unlocks unique user value by bringing scalable, valuable, and permissioned first-party data. When you layer Microsoft’s in-market audiences on top of your own signals, your targeting becomes crisp and focused.

Combining our audience intelligence with your unique first-party data will unlock even more value, by using Customer match to easily on-board your audiences and re-engage your known customers in a streamlined way.

To complement the reach of your first-party data, Microsoft’s AI-powered capabilities include Predictive targeting, which helps you achieve better performance by finding and targeting new audiences that are more likely to convert. Lookalike audiences can expand the reach of your first-party audiences, increasing your pool of potential customers over time.

Our platforms are also integrated with market scaled, reputable universal IDs, allowing you to onboard your audiences and measure success using the identity solutions that you need.

Step 3 – Future-proof your measurement and attribution

The best way to inform your buying strategy and improve campaign performance is to ensure that you are able to consistently and effectively connect and measure touchpoints across the consumer journey. Microsoft’s approach is to build privacy-forward measurement solutions combining unique first-party reports and strategic collaborations with a range of measurement partners, effectively enabling advertisers to measure audience reach, brand lift, viewability and more, across channels and formats. More importantly, our deterministic data leveraging search intent signals from Edge and Bing enables you to measure the precise impact your ad had on searches across channels.

When it comes to attribution, as per step 1, simply implementing UET on your sites will ensure conversion tracking continues to work post cookie deprecation. In addition, you can use Enhanced conversions to complement and improve accuracy, by using first-party data to track conversions, whether they are happening online or offline.

Conclusion

It is clear that there won’t be a straight-forward replacement for cookies, but rather privacy-compliant advertising will rely on an array of strategies; experimenting and keeping an open mind about these will be key. Microsoft is at the forefront of setting and influencing privacy-preserving standards, and we make it easy for you by ensuring our platforms work with the most widely used industry solutions to preserve addressability without relying on cookies. By partnering with us, you can make sure that you are well equipped to navigate a future without cookies.