Personalisation versus privacy debates can probably be put to rest now, following Google’s announcement about Privacy Sandbox reaching ‘general availability’ on Chrome.

Explaining the same, Anthony Chavez, VP, Privacy Sandbox mentions in his latest blog that the general availability of the Privacy Sandbox APIs (Application Programming Interface) means advertising providers and developers can now scale usage of these new technologies within their products and services, as these are now available for the majority of Chrome users.

Google’s Privacy Sandbox basically aims to replace third-party cookies that have long been talked about being phased out by the search advertising behemoth. With consumers becoming more and more conscious about their privacy and regulators across the globe passing bills to ensure data security, the timing for this announcement feels just about right.

However, as much of a relief it might be for consumers, it is only fair to ask how this would impact advertisers.

The current scenario - Behavioural Targeting

For the longest time now, behavioural targeting using third-party cookies has been the go-to for a number of advertisers to make informed decisions and map user journeys. Preetham Venkky, Chief Digital Officer, DDB Mudra Group explains this with an example.

“If a customer was looking for shoes of three different sizes on different platforms, using third-party cookies the advertiser could swoop in, offer discounts and convince him/her to buy that particular brand’s shoes. This was behaviour-based targeting,” he said. This basically happened when brands tried to gamify at the bottom of the funnel, for quick wins.

Venkky further explained the plateau effect of performance marketing, wherein cost-per-acquisition even though might begin on the lower side, would keep going up in a very quick span of time. “The reason for this is that everybody was optimising for behaviour,” he added.

When one is optimising for behaviour, it mostly then just sticks to the bottom of the funnel leading to conversions. “Optimisation when not done at every stage of the funnel, is very lazy targeting,” Venkyy added, mentioning that brands on digital are built middle out, not bottom-up or top-down of the marketing funnel.

With the replacement that Google is now offering, is the narrative set to change?

The Privacy Sandbox offers ‘Topics API’, that enables interest-based advertising (IBA) without having to resort to tracking the sites a user visits.

Will it be as precise as third-party cookies? Maybe not, since it doesn’t follow every step the user takes online.

However, Abhinay Bhasin, Head of Product Marketing, ProfitWheel explains that the eventual goal is not specifically to target or understand individuals, but to understand cohorts and behaviours and that really is the holy grail of marketing to reach the right audience at the right time with the right message and in the right context.

That is what Topic’s API promotes.

Are advertisers confident to allocate their budgets over this?

For marketers, achieving ROI is like a morning mantra. Venkky pointed out that marketers know that ROIs will dip and it is fair for them to be a little sceptical. With advertisers being sceptical and implications not being as clear as of now, what happens to Google’s performance marketing revenues one might ask.

Experts believe that there are a lot of other tools Google has that impact the performance marketing revenues.

Privacy Sandbox APIs have seen their share of criticism in the past, as highlighted by Victor Wong, Senior Director of Product Management, Privacy Sandbox in his blog. “Some suggest that the Privacy Sandbox APIs are insufficiently private and should restrict data usage further than they already do. Others push back on the Privacy Sandbox for not replicating the tracking capabilities of cross-party identifiers,” he mentioned.

Wong further says that the company disagrees with both of these viewpoints because they don’t recognize the need for balanced solutions that both advance user privacy and support a healthy ecosystem.

Bhasin added to this by saying that if advertisers get strategies right, Google’s engines like Performance Max can yield a lot better outcomes and hence have a stronger force in how spends on the platform are allocated.

The return of contextual advertising

With Privacy Sandbox APIs, contextual targeting is set to make a comeback, in a big way is what experts suggest. “Journey mapping down to an individual and in a deterministic manner across the web and through multi-devices are now a thing of the past, largely with ecosystemic changes,” Bhasin says.

He added that what stays is behavioural and contextual signals in understanding users better and hence the journey is replaced with understanding behaviour and context across the ecosystem.

“In other words, there is a lesser focus on what an individual is specifically doing, but a greater focus on how groups of people with similar or dissimilar behaviours interact,” Bhasin mentioned.

Venkky even shared that an ideal way to leverage Topics API is when one cross-references it with artificial intelligence. “AI is an important factor because then you can bring the context of the brand, product and category viz-a-viz where the customer is browsing,” he said.

Google introducing this replacement for third-party cookies, at a time when AI has the power to build brands middle out, is a very opportune moment, Venkky believes.

Apart from rightly leveraging AI, advertisers also need to understand the core purpose of introducing Privacy Sandbox, which is just a solution for when third-party cookies phase out. Introducing a replacement for third-party cookies doesn’t mean the need to focus on first-party data diminishes.

Bhasin says that over the past 2 years, the ecosystem has moved from a state of denial to a state of acceptance and solution-solving with the demise of the third-party cookie. “Focus on first-party data fortification. Build as much intelligence and invest in platforms that help you understand your consumers better,” he suggests.

Experts believe that deploying various martech tools to make sense of this first-party data and the need for advertisers to partner with various publishers for second-party data will continue to go up.

Speaking about the latest announcement of Privacy Sandbox reaching general availability, a Google spokesperson told e4m, "General availability will allow the industry to ramp up testing efforts, and we look forward to working with advertisers and adtech providers as we approach the deprecation of third-party cookies."