Tracking: cookies or data?

by Katrin Nebermann

Why should you choose between cookies and data for online marketing? have to decide? Fortunately, it’s not about the question: money or Life. At most, however, it is about money. Because without sufficient data, neither store content and marketing campaigns can be effectively controlled and personalized. And that can cost a lot of money.

The cookie death: first slowly, then suddenly

Ad and browser blocking restricts the use of cookies and similar technologies and is slowly thinning out the database. Still The situation is proving more dramatic for many stores which, in the wake of the ruling of the European Court of Justice at the end of 2019 to adapt its cookie consent practice must be given: The ruling confirmed by the highest court that only active consent and neither implicit nor enforced, because cookie banners cannot be or a rejection is made unnecessarily difficult. The result: only a few users agree and for the marketers the database collapses overnight. Tracking systems go empty and meaningful conclusions about the success of campaigns and the user behavior are hardly possible anymore.

It also works without cookies

Ultimately, there is no way around it: marketers must and switch to cookie-less methods. In principle, no cookies to track the origin of users, their interactions on the website and reliably record conversions. All data contained in individual sessions are possible even without access to the memory of the user device can be measured. Only when it comes to customer journeys beyond a time window of 24 hours or targeting on third-party sites, cookies are required. and similar technologies to recognize users.

In principle, most analysis solutions can also be without cookies. However, two criteria should definitely be taken into tool selection must be taken into account.

1) If the data is also processed by the processor for its own purposes or linked to its data, as is the case, for example, with Google Analytics is the case, there is a fundamental obligation to give consent for data processing – regardless of whether cookies are used or not.

2) Secondly, care should be taken to ensure that cookie-less consent-free tracking is the default setting, so to speak. In this way eliminates tedious configuration and additional technical effort.

Three options for cookie-less tracking

If you want to completely avoid cookie banners and consent dialogs and does not require customer journey tracking, you can opt for pure Cookie-less tracking. However, if you want to buy more cookies that require consent can take a two-pronged approach: Users who are subject to consent to the use of cookies are recorded using cookie-based tracking. All other user interactions, provided they are not explicitly assigned to tracking via the data protection information are measured without cookies. Store operators can use this dual tracking with and without cookies with a realize a single tool. However, it is also possible to use separate solutions. For example, you don’t have to be completely separated from Google Analytics, but can continue to work with it with consent and the data that is missing in Google Analytics with the help of a cookie-less Capture web analytics.

Further consequences for remarketing

Legal remarketing or retargeting of store visitors is not to be had without consent. The German Data protection supervisory authorities already made it clear at the beginning of 2019, quite independently from the cookie issue. According to the motto “Owned Media First”, the own channels are therefore becoming more important than ad remarketing. Because it The question arises as to what is needed for a better advertising effect and higher approval ratings. whether data may be passed on to third parties in order to display personalized ads. or whether users are notified via e-mail, web push messages or social media. media channels to be kept up to date?

While subscriptions to newsletters and push services require a offer real added value for users and online retailers, the Do not make web analysis and conversion measurement dependent on consent. The changeover to cookie-less tracking must be tackled promptly and set up a post-cookie era properly. Then you don’t have to be a data protection nor fear new browser versions. Cookie crisis resilience is in the Online marketing is the order of the day.

Integration in just a few minutes

The biggest hurdle to high data quality, apart from GDPR and cookie consent obligation mostly the effort for installation and maintenance of the tracking tag. To prevent it from being passed on to etracker fails, the developers have developed many auto-tracking and trigger operators installed. This means that the standard tag is usually sufficient. How migration works or the supplementary use parallel to Google Analytics is child’s play. Thereby The automatic transfer of conversion data to Google Ads also helps.