In 2024, Chrome will end third-party tracking cookies once and for all, forcing some marketers to look for alternatives.
Google Chrome is the world's most popular internet browser, accounting for over 65% of the global market in February 2024. According to the Bureau of Statistics. Chrome started removing tracking cookies for about 1% of its users last month and plans to remove them permanently. Removed third-party cookies by the end of the year.
Chrome is one of the last bastions of third-party tracking cookies. Until now, Google has allowed tracking while coming up with ways to soften the impact of going cookieless on its advertising business. Meanwhile, Apple's Safari, Mozilla's Firefox, Opera, Brave, and the proliferating Arc Browser are all being phased out.
signal loss
Google, Facebook, ad networks, and retargeting platforms have long relied on third-party cookies to serve targeted advertisements for their clients. By placing cookies on millions of websites, these providers are able to track individual consumer behavior across the web and serve relevant and high-performing advertisements.
The end of cross-site tracking cookies means advertising networks will lose their signal and become relatively less effective.
As a result, most marketers will develop more direct relationships with consumers.
direct message marketing
Direct message or lifecycle marketing uses email, text (i.e. SMS and MMS), and messaging apps to communicate directly with customers and prospects.
Direct message marketing is already a popular promotional channel for many good reasons.
Powerful engagement. Emails and text messages are sent directly to subscribers and tend to have higher engagement rates.
For example, at least 1 report The average return on ad spend for email marketing in 2024 is estimated to be 3.5 to 1. Compare this to 1.8 for Facebook ads and 1.55 for pay-per-click search ads.
Text message marketing may be even better. A prime example is Gary Vaynerchuk's Wine Text. The service sends wine offers to motivated shoppers on a regular basis.
3 Wine Text offers from February 2024. Text messages have very high engagement rates. Click on the image to enlarge.
Personalization and targeting. Direct message marketing allows marketers to use subscriber interactions and behaviors to tailor messages and increase engagement and conversions.
If subscribers tend to buy more red wine than white wine, WineText can send them offers for the former or bundle bottles to showcase different varieties.
Cheaper than advertising. Direct message marketing is relatively more cost-effective than top-of-funnel advertising. By focusing on individuals who have expressed interest in your product or service, you reduce costs.
strong customer relationships. With direct message marketing, the company “owns” the relationship. Subscribers are familiar with the company and will likely welcome the invitation.
Get subscribers
Indeed, long before third-party cookies were phased out, email and text marketing always had high ROAS. So if direct messaging is so powerful, why aren't marketers paying attention to it?
The answer is that it's hard to get email and text subscribers. For example, Mailchimp estimated that the average email subscription rate for e-commerce businesses in 2024 is 0.19%. This means that for every 500 people who see her e-commerce email subscription form, slightly less than 1 of her people will sign up.
Many online stores recruited subscribers to coincide with their first sale. It's easier to acquire customers through things like meta ads than to drive them to your website and subscribe.
As you can see, direct message marketing is effective, but getting subscribers isn't easy.
