A recent March 3,2021 article in the WSJ reported Google’s plan “that its ad tools would no longer support individual tracking of users across websites starting in 2022”. Couple that with their move away from third-party cookies, digital marketers are going to have to make some changes to measure marketing ROI.
Because of the anonymous nature of digital (by digital, I mean online ads, social media feeds, but not email), marketing measurement has always been closer to brand advertising measurement than direct marketing. John Wanamaker famously quoted, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half”. Without third-party data and user tracking, unprepared digital marketers will be thrust back into the same conundrum Mr. Wanamaker surmised in the early 1900’s. I know what you are thinking. In the age of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (both of which have been around since the mid-1900’s btw), iPhones, digital everything, where we can buy our car insurance based on the number of miles we are driving as long as we permit a tracking device on our car… how can we possibly not be able to track our online marketing results? The answer my friends is two-fold.
First, as controversial as this might be, but the digital players, including Facebook and Google, don’t want you to be able to track actual ROI any more than CBS, ABC and NBC wanted Coke, Kellogg or Chrysler to track the value of their advertising dollars. How many bottles of Coke did that ad sell? Coke was selling a brand and they had millions and millions of dollars to do it. But, the brand advertisers knew they were better off selling the image and the dream… they didn’t need to sell the results. It’s the Zicam of the ad industry. Take this medicine and your cold will be less than it would have been. A disprovable promise. Ingenious! Why should Facebook and Google want you to track ROI on ads? For Google, their crown-jewel is search and it is an easily trackable ROI… at least in relation to click-throughs for online sellers. The digital players do not want or need to provide ad tracking to sell their services. They are selling a promise.
Second, with the anonymous nature of third-party data, it is very difficult to track anyway. Through the use of IP addresses, on a limited basis and cookies, again limited, there are adequate ways of tracking digital marketing spend. But, it is far from perfect.
So, who wins? Companies with robust first party data, or data that they have accumulated on their customers and prospects and maintained over time. Also, companies adept in using personally-identifiable data. By using specific company or household-level data, you can better target your prospects particularly for financial, insurance and healthcare offers, onboard these prospects to digital platforms, and you can track actions back to your marketing efforts.
The good news is, change is slow. We all have time. Google’s new rules aren’t set to kick-in until 2022.
A marketing blog. 