Whether you are a recruiter in search of therapists or a healthcare marketer trying to reach a targeted audience, the data that drives your daily routine is critical to your success. Your execution will only be as effective as the data behind it. That is why you should care that the third-party cookie is going the way of the dinosaurs.
Third-party cookies aren’t gone yet, but they are starting to disappear. They will be completely gone by this time next year. Apple and Mozilla have already taken active steps to block all third-party cookies in their respective web browsers, and Google has announced the end of the third-party cookie through its popular Chrome browser within the next year.
If you are not quite sure why all this matters, do a little research on third-party cookies and what they do. Then realize that the death of the third-party cookie will ultimately change the data you rely on to do what you do. Needless to say, in the future, first-party data is going to be more important than ever before.
Tracking You Online
Third-party cookies are cookies that get downloaded to your computer or phone and stored in your browser’s cache. As you navigate around the internet, those cookies collect information and send them back to website publishers. The data can be used by the publisher, sold to other marketers, or both.
The thing about third-party cookies is that they are a major violation of privacy. Companies like Apple and Google have purposely decided to give up on the third-party cookie because of the legal implications behind it. With regulators getting seemingly more uptight about privacy with every passing year, big tech understands the need to get rid of third-party cookies or eventually face legal action.
Unfortunately, digital marketers have relied on the data generated by third-party cookies for more than two decades. Cookies going away will not be the death of digital marketing, but it will force marketers and recruiters alike to change the way they do things. That brings us back around to first-party data.
From the Audience Itself
We take great pride in the fact that we generate first-party data that marketers and recruiters find invaluable. But what is first-party data? It is data that comes directly from the target audience itself. For illustrative purposes, imagine your job is recruiting physical and occupational therapists. You would want access to an up-to-date therapists database you could trust.
If that database is populated mainly by third-party data, the data sets you have to work with could be incomplete or outdated. You are also working with data that your target audience didn’t submit voluntarily. First-party data is different. Not only does it come directly from the audience you are attempting to target, but each member of that audience voluntarily provided the data in question as well.
Our first-party therapists database is up to date and more complete. It includes valuable information third-party cookies often lack – like personal email addresses. You get contact information entered individually by each person appearing in the database. You can count on that information being accurate and complete.
The death of the third-party cookie means marketers are going to have to rely more on contextual marketing. As for recruiters, you are going to have to get your hands on first-party data you can trust. Whether it is a therapists database or a database of doctors and nurses, you need the kind of data that only comes from first-party sources. It is time to say goodbye to the third-party cookie. It will be gone before too long.