APAC marketers say cookie wipe-out will 'devastate' biz, yet 79% up spend on cookie-led activations

Across APAC, the majority (79%) of brands still rely heavily on third-party cookies, with over half (56%) of leaders expecting the end of third-party cookies will hurt their businesses.

Currently, 52% of APAC leaders still spend at least half of their marketing budgets on cookie-based activations – and

79% actually plan to increase spending on cookie-dependent activations this year.

Most (81%) leaders in APAC still rely heavily on third-party cookies because they feel they’re very effective. Research shows that ambiguity over cookie deprecation is causing confusion and, in some cases, inaction, with one in three (38%) APAC leaders stating they are not changing their marketing strategy out of a perceived lack of urgency, while others plan to change but are delaying cookieless preparation.

These findings, uncovered by Adobe based on a global survey of more than 2,600 marketing and consumer experience leaders (including 656 APAC respondents) detailed that brands aren’t taking the necessary steps to evolve their data strategies, despite serious near and long-term impacts on their businesses.

“Companies that aren’t diversifying their strategies are leaving money on the table today, and hurting their chances of gaining competitive advantages in the future,” said Gabbi Stubbs, product marketing and strategy, Adobe APAC. “While a wholesale change in strategy takes commitment and long-term investment, the benefits are undeniable across all currencies that matter—from customer loyalty and satisfaction to a better bottom line.”

The majority (86%) of APAC leaders at cookie-dependent companies say that at least 30% of their total potential market is in environments where third-party cookies don’t work, such as social media platforms and on Apple devices. Around 59% say that half or more of their potential market is in cookieless environments.

Beyond the immediate consequences of being unable to reach 30-50% of potential customers, the impacts of this mistake will only compound with every passing quarter as the cookieless frontier continues to expand.

An overdependence on third-party cookies is about to backfire on brands

Many APAC leaders expect the end of third-party cookies will hurt their businesses - in some cases profoundly.

Some 34% said it would “devastate” their businesses, 21% anticipate significant harm, and 25% predict a moderate negative impact.

Many heavy third-party cookie users believe they don’t have a choice, with over half (60%) of cookie-using leaders saying they view cookies as a “necessary evil,” even though many realise that continued overreliance is a losing strategy for the long-term. One in three respondents (37%) say they can’t get the resources to evolve their strategies, a number that rises to over half of leaders (56%) in Australia.

While many companies are now on the path to abandoning cookies, a third (38%) are not with many having plans to change but are delaying preparations.

Google eliminates cookies 

Big tech firms such as Google are even moving forward into a cookie-less world.

Last July, Google wiped out cookies and it was a hot topic of conversation between advertisers and agencies alike, given the potential implications it might have on a company's revenue. Lotame's report published last year titled "Beyond the Cookie" found that 57% of marketers expect the deprecation of third-party cookies to reduce ad targeting opportunities, with 66% expecting a 10% to 25% dip in revenue as a result. On the publishers front, 57% of them expect to have to reduce their workforce due to revenue loss brought on by the deprecation of third-party cookies.

In addition to that, Google unveiled Topics last year, a new Privacy Sandbox proposal that is touted as the solution to the deprecation of third-party cookies. Topics replaces Google's earlier Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) proposal and enables browsers to determine a handful of topics, such as "fitness" or "travel and transportation", that represent consumers' top interests for that week based on their browsing.

Topics are kept for only three weeks and old topics are deleted. They are also selected entirely on consumers' devices without involving any external servers, including Google servers. When consumers visit participating sites, Topics will pick out three topics, one from each of the past three weeks, to share with the site and its ad partners.

According to Google, Topics enables browsers to give meaningful transparency and control over this data, and the tech giant is also building user controls in Chrome to let users see the topics, remove any they dislike or disable the feature completely.

Brands may understand the dangers of following down this path, but if they want to remain competitive, the answer is to adapt. “Companies that aren’t diversifying their strategies are leaving money on the table today, and hurting their chances of gaining competitive advantages in the future,” said Gabbi Stubbs, product marketing and strategy, Adobe APAC. “While a wholesale change in strategy takes commitment and long-term investment, the benefits are undeniable across all currencies that matter-from customer loyalty and satisfaction to a better bottom line.”

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