Facebook and Terragon have jointly released two solutions they hope will ease brands into the post-cookie era. Google says it will end support for cookies in Chrome by early 2022 which has operators in advertising sitting on the edge. Without cookies, brands cannot track users across multiple sites to target their ads and see how they perform.
On Monday, 19th of April 2021 both companies in a joint event announced two solutions Terragon CDP and Facebook Conversions API. The Conversions API allows advertisers to send web events from their servers directly to Facebook. Server events are linked to a pixel and are processed like browser pixel events. This means that server events are used in measurement, reporting, and optimisation in the same way as browser pixel events.
A Customer Data Platform (CDP) is software that unifies a company’s customer data from marketing and other channels to enable customer modelling and optimise the timing and targeting of messages and offers. “The role of a CDP (Customer Data Platform) will become very important in a post-cookie world and particularly API into each of the Walled Gardens. The challenge that we as advertisers will have is getting the level of data back from those Walled Gardens.” Chris Humphery, a Marketing Strategy and Tech Consultant at PwC said during a webinar to launch the services.
Emily Wilson, a Marketing product and Partnership Manager at Facebook discussed the importance of personalisation to consumers and how Facebook’s solution can help brands. “When we surveyed consumers across 8 markets globally, 87% of consumers feel that it is really important to purchase from brands or retailers that understand them and understand what they actually care about,” he said.
He also said that personalised experiences are powered by data and that is what helps advertisers provide the most relevant message at the right time across a customer’s journey. It is impossible to serve a targeted Ad to someone and make sure that Ad is super relevant and interesting to them when the user is not well known.
A more reliable data connection ultimately means better insight into customers’ activities and preferences and more insights provide more opportunities to personalise the Ad experience for customers which ultimately drives higher engagement and better outcomes for the business. In view of the imminent phase-out plan by Google, the stakeholders said it is best for brands to start testing out the new solutions immediately as this reduces the impact on post-cookie and reduces the stress of having to move consumers’ information from one point to another.
“To test and learn is not to move fast and fail, it is about moving fast and building things. It is understanding what data and technology can expand into the marketing technology space and potentially adding to that MarTech space to drive through the greater ability to execute,” Humphery said. Buttressing the same point, Dayo Adefila, Head Digital Marketing, Africa at PZ Cussons advised against a fire-brigade approach to online advertising in a post-cookie world.
“Test and begin. Don’t wait till October, November. Start getting to see how you can take advantage of Facebook’s Conversions API and look at the right CDP. Terragon has something that is really customised for Africa because it is mobile-first and it has mobile reach.”
