POV: On Google’s Latest Announcement

Although last week’s blog post caused a storm across Ad Tech twitter accounts and in the trade press, Google didn’t actually announce anything new. That “we will not build alternate identifiers to track individuals as they browse across the web, nor will we use them in our products,” does not present a change in policy.

However, while reiterating their already stated position, they took the opportunity to control the conversation and take a swipe at alternative open internet approaches.

In doing so they:

1) Openly indicated regulators should be investigating alternative approaches, i.e. “Don’t look at us, look at them”

2) Are trying to persuade ad tech players to invest in the development of Google’s solutions instead of adopting the alternative authenticated identity approaches.

While the ‘them or us’ narrative suits Google’s purpose, it also over simplifies the state of play. In reality, the chrome changes announced over a year ago have inspired the ever resourceful Ad Tech industry to create a whole range of innovative solutions that neither rest on tokenized email addresses nor chrome’s sandbox initiatives to deliver relevant and effective advertising. While inventory continues to diversify, the value of using rich first party data becomes even more apparent, advertisers are looking for targeting solutions that reach previously unaddressable audiences.  

Captify and a few other players in the industry never believed that signed-in identity could be the primary cookieless approach, given it could only reach 20-30% of the open web. When the storm has calmed down, solutions that provide a better, more relevant and enjoyable experience for the consumer will be the ones left standing.   

So, as brands and media agencies seek out new solutions, where do they go next?

Captify remains in a unique position in-market in a post-cookie world. Neither relying on identity nor sandbox initiatives, Captify is the only cookieless targeting solution with Search Intelligence and scaled consumer intent groups at its core, for both brands and publishers.

About Captify’s cookieless solutions

Google’s latest announcement heightens the value of Captify’s first-party publisher data and cookieless technologies that do not require or target against individual identifiers. Captify’s planned integration with the newly proposed Chrome interests groups/cohorts solution, that Google have laid out to replace the third-party cookie, remains the same. 

Google’s limitations on cross site targeting continue to enhance the value of Captify’s unique search data and targeting. Targeting based on onsite search behaviors provides brands with the most rich and direct insight into consumer intent – and therefore more effective campaign results. Captify’s cookieless products ensure brands can achieve the same results from Search Intelligence in a post-cookie world.

What value can advertisers unlock from Captify’s cookieless solutions?

• Search Intelligence will continue to support media planning and strategy through unique, connected consumer journey insights

• Dynamic, Search-Powered audiences will continue to power omni-channel cookieless targeting, at huge scale

• Continued performance across all KPIs, with no interruption to how brands currently work with Captify

• Continued access to Captify’s audiences and insights via Sense: The Search Intent Platform, Programmatic Search Intelligence (PSI) or managed service solutions

As such, Captify is the only cookieless targeting solution with Search Intelligence and scaled consumer intent groups at its core, for both brands and publishers.

For more information on Captify’s cookieless solutions or to book an educational roadshow, email marketing@captify.co.uk.