Cookie-based measurement is no longer enough. It’s time to expand your marketing strategy for better insights and accuracy.

The ongoing debate about Chrome and third-party cookies is missing an important point: Third-party cookies shouldn’t be the only method we use to measure performance.

They can still be useful, but only as part of a bigger picture. This article highlights seven reasons why you need to broaden your approach.

Those include: 

• The impending Chrome opt-out feature.
• Attribution limitations.
• Current and future privacy regulation.
• Non-Chrome browser cookie tracking.
• Cookie deletion time frames.
• Vulnerability to browser shifts.
• More important measurement challenges.

Each of these reasons could justify the need to diversify your measurement resources right away. Together, they emphasize the urgency for anyone relying only on third-party cookies to strengthen their measurement strategy.

1. The Chrome opt-out feature

This is a key reason to seek alternatives to third-party cookies: at some point, Google will allow users to easily decline cookie tracking.

What we don’t know is when this will happen or how it will look for users.

What we can guess is that it won’t be something completely new (you can already opt out of Chrome), and many users are likely to block cookie tracking.

If your business relies on tracking through third-party cookies in browsers, you’ll have less data to work with. For example, studies showed that after the iOS 14 update, between 80% and 96% of users chose to opt out.

2. Attribution limitations 

Third-party cookies don’t do a good job of tracking conversions across different devices, browsers, and websites.

When businesses rely on these cookies for attribution, they often use simple models like last-click, which doesn’t show the whole marketing journey. This can lead to ad platforms taking more credit than they deserve.

3. Current and future privacy changes

Even if changes brought by GDPR and CCPA didn’t significantly affect your data, they should serve as a warning that similar rules will come your way eventually.

Government regulations take time, but user privacy is an important issue with supporters on both sides. You can see the FTC’s recent position on hashing as more proof that user privacy is under scrutiny.

If you don’t control your data (more on that later), you need to be prepared for rules—whether local, national, international, or a combination of them—that could greatly restrict your access to it.

4. Non-Chrome browser cookie blocking

Yes, Chrome is the most popular web browser. In the last year, it made up a bit more than 50% of the browser market in the U.S.

However, if you consider other browsers, Safari and Firefox together make up over a third of that market. Both of these, along with other browsers like Brave, have already stopped using cookie tracking.

In summary, using measurement methods that rely on cookies misses out on a third of the data, even when everything else is working well (and it often isn’t).

5. Cookie deletion timeframes

Each web browser has its own rules for tracking and how long cookies can hold user data. Generally, third-party cookies expire faster than first-party cookies.

For example, Apple’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) limits first-party cookies to just seven days in Safari. If you revisit a site within those seven days, the cookie’s lifespan gets extended by another week.

If Apple identifies a click from a tracker, that cookie will expire in just 24 hours. Third-party cookies from trackers without user interaction last only one hour.

In Chrome, both third-party and first-party cookies can last up to 400 days if you don’t return to the site.

Most other browsers also limit first-party cookies to seven days unless there’s user interaction, and they have stricter rules for third-party cookies.

A shift to a user-focused measurement approach

One reason people have stuck with cookies for so long is that they are familiar, easy to set up, and don’t need big changes in your marketing technology or team roles.

Keeping things the same also helps avoid new office politics or disagreements over budget. However, just because it’s comfortable doesn’t mean relying on cookies is a smart choice.

There isn’t a perfect measurement solution that works for everyone (if there was, we’d all be using it). Adding new methods alongside cookies can be tricky and messy. It’s time for marketers to stop ignoring the changes and start getting involved.