The big topic of 2024 was third-party cookies – so what’s their status going into 2025? While Google abandoned its plans to phase out cookies, other tech companies have stuck to their guns. Consumers are certainly in favor of cookieless approaches, so will Google’s decision to stick with their old but trusted targeting methods influence marketers?
Despite the search giant’s decisive lack of action, forecasters predict that cookies will go away eventually. Google removed cookies for 1% of Chrome users at the start of 2024, part one of its initial plan to eliminate third-party cookies from its browser.
Marketers scrambled to find new ways to leverage cookieless marketing and fill the gap the change would leave in their strategies. Then, after several delays, the company announced in mid-July that it would no longer be deprecating third-party cookies on its Chrome browser.
But while Google yoyoed through 2024, marketers kept course. Marketers see the writing on the wall and spent most of the last year learning and developing new strategies to embrace a cookieless future. While the tech giant’s decision buys them more time, the ball is already rolling and an object in motion almost always stays in motion. In 2025, marketers will likely continue the cookieless journey they started the year before, diving deep into new, long-term strategies.
Will Google get back on board with cookieless?
In 2023 Google started its cookieless initiative on Chrome, eliminating third-party cookies for one percent of its users, an estimated 30 million people. The move pushed ad executives to start testing alternatives and finding new ways to collect and leverage data for targeting.
The tech giant was methodical with its plan, gradually phasing out cookies as it implemented its Privacy Sandbox. The issue was that the reaction to Google’s Privacy Sandbox was less than positive. After many legal roadblocks over concerns about Google building a monopoly with its Sandbox targeting tool, the company paused its cookieless plans.
That pause became indefinite on July 22, 2024. Google feared losing the cookieless attribution race and said goodbye to any cookie depreciation plans for its Chrome browser. But while this hold is indefinite, it likely won’t be forever.
Google will eventually run out of time to eliminate cookies on Chrome, with major competitors Safari and Firefox already cookie-free since 2020 and 2023. While Google’s continuation was welcome news to marketers, they didn’t lose focus, urging advertisers to stay focused and to continue moving away from cookies.
After Google’s decision, Jeremy Dowdy, president of performance marketing at VML said, “While this news brings a collective sigh of relief from agencies and marketers, we must remain focused on providing privacy-forward solutions for our clients that are based on strong first-party data collection strategies.”
Anthony Katsur, CEO of the IAB Tech Lab had a similar sentiment, “The industry will likely end up in the same place. We’re just taking a different, potentially longer route to get there.” In 2025 and beyond, cookies are still set to disappear – even from Chrome. It’s just a matter of time.
Cookieless marketing strategies for 2025
Cookieless targeting will continue to grow in popularity in 2025. These strategies rely on consent-gathered information and privacy-protected profiles. No one solution replaces third-party cookies, but there are several options that when used together give marketers the data they need to create the personalized experiences their customers love.
Here are some of our favorite ways to target without relying on third-party cookies:
Contextual targeting
Contextual targeting lets marketers target users based on consumed content. For example, viewers of cooking shows are more likely to be interested in kitchen equipment. Marketers can use these context clues to deliver personalized ads similarly to how they would with third-party cookies.
Browser APIs
Browser APIs give marketers insights into user behavior to optimize user engagement and target users based on interests. Chrome’s browser API is one of the most popular APIs, recognizing and tracking topics based on browsing activities. Marketers use this data to tailor
campaigns based on browsing habits.
Identity graphs
Identity graphs create profiles that can be used by marketers to create tailored campaigns by using AI to group identifiers into individuals and households. Identity graphs are already popular among many major brands. TransUnion launched its new identity graph in January 2024 and estimates that it should increase marketable phone numbers by 25% and marketable IP addresses by 54%.
Device fingerprinting
Device fingerprinting collects and stores data through unique fingerprints, tracking behavior on specific devices and websites. Marketers can use this data to understand users’ desires and interests, painting a picture of their behavior without collecting private information. This fingerprinting uses machine and network identifiers rather than individual, private information.
Takeaway:
While Google slammed the breaks on its own cookieless plans in 2024, marketers haven’t stopped their efforts to move up and away from third-party cookies. In 20254 we will see a continued decline in the use of cookies and even greater innovation in the development of reliable, effective replacements.
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