The Death of the Third-Party Cookie: An Opportunity for Telcos to Build Stronger Customer Relationships

The death of the third-party cookie feels like it has been promised forever. It’s now 2023 and Google keeps pushing back the deadline for its demise. The deadline has been extended again, this time to the second half of 2024. Whatever the date of their final switch-off, it's coming, and it will have a significant impact on everyone - publishers, advertisers, and web users. Consumers will have increased control over their privacy and consent. Digital advertisers and platforms will have to innovate to develop new personalized approaches that don’t use third-party cookies.

One thing's for sure, there will be pain for telecom operators who haven't prepared for the change. Customer development, acquisition, and retention in our sector is more complex than in other industries, with more touchpoints, more digitization, and more competition for customers that have a lot of long-term value. In the telco sector, marketing relies particularly heavily on cookie-driven personalization and digital advertising, to break through consumer messaging fatigue and create effective outreach.

The death of the third-party cookie is a major challenge for telcos, but it also presents an opportunity to rethink their marketing strategies and focus on building stronger relationships with their customers.

Third-party cookies have been used by telcos to track customer behavior across websites and apps and to target them with advertising. But with the death of third-party cookies, telcos will need to find new ways to collect and use customer data.

“ 83% of CMOs in the US say they rely moderately or heavily on third-party advertising cookies.“

Statista, 2022

Of course, there's more than one kind of cookie in the marketing kitchen.

First-party cookies are set by a website that a user is visiting, to make the visitor’s web experience easier. There's a clear benefit to consumers to accepting first-party cookies: the balance of power feels fairer. Information is shared to make their experience better. That's why influential media and advertising platform owners are looking for future-proof solutions that can leverage first-party cookies in place of third-party cookies.

The Impact on Customer Management Tools

The death of third-party cookies will have a significant impact on customer management tools. DMPs must be re-engineered or replaced, and CDPs will become more critical.

CDPs are designed to collect and manage first-party data, which will become increasingly valuable in the post-third-party cookie world. CDPs can also help telcos comply with new privacy regulations.

Conclusion and Next Steps

The death of third-party cookies is a major change for the digital marketing industry, but it also presents an opportunity for telcos to rethink their data marketing strategies. By investing in a CDP and complying with new privacy regulations, telcos can continue to collect and use customer data in a way that is both effective and compliant.