Potential Implications of Phasing-Out Cookies

In his video interview with Pharmaceutical Executive, Ted Sweetser, VP, Ad Partnerships and Strategy, PurpleLab explored the challenges and opportunities in healthcare advertising, particularly in the context of increasing data privacy regulations and the decline of third-party cookies. The discussion highlighted the importance of leveraging real-world data (RWD) to gain valuable insights into patient behavior and preferences. RWD, when combined with advanced analytics and privacy-compliant targeting techniques, enables more effective and targeted advertising campaigns. The conversation also touched on the potential impact of cookie deprecation on the broader advertising industry and the need for advertisers to adapt to a more privacy-centric approach.

What are the potential implications of the phase-out of cookies for the broader advertising industry, and how can advertisers prepare for this change?

it's a tricky question. I mean that the headline is that media efficiency may experience a decline over the next few years. If you know, the majority of you know, audio of media that's being bought is no longer addressable through some form of segmentation. But I say May because, you know, there are a wide variety of media channels that contribute to the overall spend in our space. And one of the major countervailing forces there has been a space that has never been that accurate, which is TV.

This is a big year for television in that, I believe, for the first time this year, the number of CTV connected households is set to surpass linear which means you no longer have to buy on extremely broad demos against, say, you know, a time of day in a particular show, you can buy more at the addressable household level. That is a massive shift, sea change, I should say, in in how efficient you can be with the deployment of dollars in the television space. So, while you know digital, and by digital, I mostly mean mobile. At this point, may go down in efficiency. You could see an increase at the same time of addressability through connected television. So, I don't want to say it's all negative, but we really have to look to, you know, how ongoing third party cookie deprecation is carried out, and whether or not these new alternative addressability solutions really grow and become the backbone of segmentation in digital advertising.