Measurement is at the heart of digital marketing. It is essential that we can show the direct link between an advertisement aired and the desired action, whether it is capturing the lead or even purchasing a product. This is how marketing professionals demonstrate the ROI achieved
Currently, third-party cookies – that allow customers to be tracked across different sites – are the tool that enables the measurement and effectiveness of online advertising and customer segmentation. But this is a scenario that has been very dynamic: recently we saw Google backtrack on the end of third-party cookies in Chrome, an initiative that has been widely debated in recent years and was, since January 2024, in the initial tests with the market.
The proposal, now, and not interrupt the use of third party cookies, and yes to offer the user more autonomy in their choices about them. This is just one of the important changes that are happening and that will make it more challenging for professionals in the field not only to measure campaigns but also to segment them
The use of AI in Retail Media
Recently I read aresearch with advertisers in the consumer goods industrythat pointed out that the vast majority of interviewed professionals are ready to adopt AI for segmentation, placement of relevant ads to customers and other aspects of advertising.
How Retail Media covers the complete customer journey, including the final moment of decision, when buyers are in the retailer's digital channels or in the physical store, we can understand that using AI to connect with customers during this crucial moment of the journey can give advertisers a significant competitive advantage.
The study in question shows that 45% of respondents believe that AI will help in analyzing and leveraging buying behavior. But it is important to remember that human analysis will remain fundamental throughout the entire process.
Other relevant data from the research refers to other challenges faced by advertisers: 54% consider AI crucial for the seamless integration of online and offline data; 29% consider AI useful, but not essential, because other tools can perform data integration; and still, 15% have privacy concerns regarding AI integrations
In this way, it is important to understand the complexity of analyzing and using buyer data – especially when there is a crossover of data from e-commerce and the physical store
The end – and the return – third-party cookie support
In recent years, the market has been strongly discussing Google's decision to end the use of third-party cookies in its browser, Chrome. Although Firefox and Apple made this decision a long time ago, the biggest impact is on Chrome – at the moment this article was written, the browser holds a 65% share of the global market. Meanwhile, in July 2024, the company has decided to change course again: to maintain support for cookies, but offer the user more control over them. There is still not much clarity on how this will work, but it is a decision that has a great impact on online advertising.
Regulations such as the GDPR (in Europe), the CCPA (in California) and the LGPD (here in Brazil), for example, they came to stay and the pressure we are seeing for more privacy will continue to grow in the coming months and years. This, it is clear, it means that advertisers need to invest in the evolution of their processes and adopt innovative approaches to maintain the effectiveness and monitor the impact of their campaigns
Thanks to the new partnership with Google and its Ads Data Hub (ADH), the market can develop solutions to face these challenges,allowing the capture of advertising media indicators and subsequent measurement of sales performance of a campaign without the need to use third-party cookies. It is what RelevanC has been doing, combining Google's DSP platforms with transactional data and producing relevant sales indicators for clients.
When linking the ADH together with proprietary data, now we can reconcile online advertising with first-party sales data from the physical store, allowing the analysis of how many people saw a particular ad, at the same time we cross this impacted audience with buyers of a similar or tangential product. With this level of information, we can provide relevant indicators to analyze the impact of an advertisement on the sales of a product or similar categories
One of the main points of solutions that use only aggregated and anonymized data is that Google ADH ensures that customer privacy and regulations such as GDPR or LGPD are respected, preventing the inspection of personal identification data. If a calculation submitted to the ADH does not comply with privacy checks, for example, the result will not be accessible.
The ADH allows the use of various data sources, how Display Video 360 (DV360) and Google Ads, and this data contains information such as who viewed an ad and when. Thus, it is possible to determine how many people viewed that specific ad on that day, but we could not identify the individuals involved
By providing retailers with the ability to reconcile advertising exposure with sales data, as well as the direct segmentation of customers without the use of third-party cookies, it is worth noting that it is, yes, possible to help advertisers maintain their investments in profitable and continuous Retail Media strategies. Besides, it is clear, measure and show the results of the campaigns in a tangible way. It is important to emphasize: strategies that comply with data usage regulations and keep consumer privacy protected are a priority!
