Henry Ford once said, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." If he had asked marketers, they probably would have said more cookies! Ford’s quote isn’t as straightforward as it sounds, though: he’s not saying people want something new; they want something better. It’s the same for advertising. For a decade, ad systems have been using cookies to track users around the web: to learn about their habits and preferences and ultimately ensure laser-sharp content targeting. At the same time, there are already tools that let you engage with your customers, stay relevant, and be effective without accumulating data through third-party cookies and jeopardizing user privacy.

Welcome to the cookieless world!

Browsers and operating systems have been working extensively to let users decide what kind of personal data they want to share externally. Safari and Firefox have been blocking third-party cookies since 2017; Apple launched iOS 14.5, which asks users if they’d like to send data to third parties; and Chrome, which takes up more than 60% of the market*, is phasing out third-party cookies altogether.

The disruption that these initiatives brought to the market was massive. The response varied from "this is the end of digital advertising" to "we had it coming, data privacy should have been addressed before". Regardless of how we look at it, the deprecation of third-party cookies is irrefutable; we need to embrace the new post-cookies reality. Let’s face it, for quite some time the user data has been collected broadly & to a certain extent mindlessly, little attempts were made to understand the real value it incorporates for both publishers, advertising platforms & marketers. However, more does not always mean better — but fewer might. Let us explain in more detail below.

First-party data is the most valuable kind of data that everyone is after. Coming directly from the users, it is an indicator of the trust between a user and an advertiser. Mostly collected via advertiser-owned channels—websites, CRM, feedback forms, chatbots, etc.—first-party data normally includes information such as the user’s name, address, email, and page views. With that kind of data, advertisers can tailor their content and provide personalized recommendations when the user visits their site again or when they launch a campaign.

Second-party data usually complements first-party data because it provides an opportunity to expand the audience, gain information, and increase the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. This data is usually collected and processed by a DMP and then used by advertisers to target new audiences. Social media networks are one of the best-known examples of a DMP. Unfortunately, this approach doesn’t always allow the advertiser to track the quality of their data, but the introduction of GDPR and upcoming refusal of third-party data has triggered its growth and popularity. After all, businesses want as much data as possible to better understand the needs of their clients and design better engagements.

Third-party data is aggregated from a wide range of data sources by companies that don’t interact with users directly. If you search for a dishwasher online and allow the system to collect your data — links clicked, banners saw—other sites may show you ads for dishwashers as well. That’sexactly how data is being "packaged" and used by advertisers. However, since third-party data contains a lot of anonymized information about users and their behavior, companies better to verify the quality of their sources.

For advertising platforms, agencies, publishers, and browsers, abandoning third-party cookies is not just a technological challenge; it’s a new business model to adapt to. Companies that have been capitalizing on user data now need to rethink their strategy. Advertisers need to find a way to grow and develop their own first-party data and operate more efficiently with data platforms. So how do we keep those changes from having a negative impact on our clients and prospects? To ensure a smooth transition to the new market conditions and effective advertising models, Yandex Ads is implementing a Cookieless Defined Approach comprising of the below.

An advertising strategy with a CPA-based approach prevents advertisers from overspending. Advanced Matching by Yandex Metrica (a web analytics tool ranking among the Top 4 leading web analytics platform in the world**) enables you to collect data about the effectiveness of ad campaigns and learn more about users’ behavior, even if they use browsers that limit third-party cookies, such as Safari and Mozilla Firefox. Absolutely legal & fully compliant.

Let’s say a user filled out a form and entered their contact information (name, phone number, email, address), but for some reason, they closed the site without submitting the form. You can transmit this data to Yandex Metrica in hashed form and set up campaign retargeting for the user segment that you want to bring back to the site. Unlike third-party cookies and other third-party data, data sourced through Advanced Matching boasts better quality: users provide it voluntarily. The more users fill out data capture forms, the more data is collected. As a result, you complete a target audience portrait and ensure more focused retargeting. It doesn’t take long to set up Advanced Matching, just pick the option below that suits you most.

• Automatically via Yandex Metrica tag. Only the email address and phone number that the user entered in the form on your site are transmitted to Yandex Metrica in hashed form.


• Manually via JavaScript API. This method allows you to transmit comprehensive data: contact information, the site user’s address (country, city, street), and unique Yandex user ID (if you use login by Yandex ID).

Abandoning third-party cookies sets a completely new business and technology paradigm for the industry. The market and players won’t readjust overnight, but their efforts will ultimately be worth the results. Open internet, Data Privacy, transparent industry rules, and measurable performance will be the benefits that we embrace.