2024 was supposed to be the year we finally said goodbye to the third-party cookie. On January 4, Chrome officially began restricting them for 1% of users, with plans to accelerate those restrictions to 100% from Q3 2024. Instead, the company recently announced its third delay, pushing the deadline for cookie deprecation yet again, this time to 2025.
This latest update buys precious time for consumer-facing businesses of all shapes and sizes who continue to prepare for the cookie’s eventual demise and its impact on previous targeting and personalization strategies. But even with the deadline extended, the pressure is on to revamp digital marketing strategies and put addressability at the forefront.
What is identity resolution—and can it save the day?
Now that third-party cookies are on the way out, companies need new ways to identify and understand their customers. Many have turned to identity solutions like customer data platforms (CDPs) and data clean rooms (DCRs) to help with this task, with spending increasing 13% YoY by the end of 2023 at $10.4B.
Identity resolution solutions help brands attribute online behaviors to an individual identity, expanding their first-party data audiences and enriching what they already know about their customer base. Brands and agencies use this information to tailor campaign audiences so that the right message reaches the right consumer at the right time. These enhanced personalization tactics unlock more efficient targeting, which in turns helps companies do more with the media dollars they have at their disposal.
Partners simplify the equation
New and emerging privacy regulations have made identity resolution an even more difficult undertaking—and noncompliant brands risk heavy fines and intangible reputational damage. This makes outsourcing to a third party service provider and/or platform preferable.
Many have already made significant investments to streamline the process. In 2022, brands, publishers and agencies spent an average of $433,000 on identity solutions. Data Clean Room spend averaged $376,000, while spend on related platforms like CDPs, data management platforms, and consent management platforms averaged $377,000-$437,000.
The missing piece of the puzzle is offline/in-store
One often overlooked part of identity resolution is the offline component, particularly as brands look to expand their brick-and-mortar footprint. While identity resolution generally supports digital marketing efforts, businesses with a brick-and-mortar component do themselves a disservice by ignoring in-store touchpoints.
Oftentimes, retailers lack mechanisms to identify the individual behind the in-store transaction. As a result, a significant portion of their customer base is unknown to them. For those with an ecommerce counterpart, this approach also makes any customer profile incomplete, as it fails to align online and offline behaviors. Loyalty programs offer a partial solution, but they usually depend on self-identification at checkout, and do not encompass 100% of in-store shoppers.
Bring customer insights into focus with offline identity resolution
Offline identity resolution tackles these challenges by identifying the individual behind the in-store transaction in a privacy-safe way. Businesses of all sizes can get a better picture of purchasing behaviors across known, unknown, loyalty and non-loyalty audiences. With more first-party customer data, they’re also in a better position to create relevant audiences for campaigns.
As brands, retailers, restaurants, gas and convenience stores become more dependent on first-party data to support their monetization strategies, offline identity resolution is a crucial component in creating longitudinal customer profiles that support impactful campaigns and increased revenue.
About Bridg
At Bridg, our exclusive identity resolution capability supports data monetization strategies by expanding our clients’ known customer base. We help our customers identify, understand and engage unknown in-store customers with industry-leading accuracy and match rates. In fact, we’ve helped brands across industries expand their known audience beyond loyalty data by as much as 470%.
Through Rippl, our data and media network, we also empower brands and advertisers to transparently measure campaign performance across their partnerships with regional retailers. Contact us today to learn more.
