Users are demanding greater privacy, transparency, choice and control over how their data is used or misused. It’s apparent that the web ecosystem needs to evolve and evolve very quickly to meet these demands. 
Recently, Google announced that the third-party cookies would be blocked in Chrome within two years. Safari had already blindsided us by blocking some time back and reducing the web traffic by around 30%. With this announcement, it pretty much adds up to 100%! We are now staring at a possibility which significantly reduces our ability to target and measure. 
First of all, let’s understand what are first-party and third-party cookies? If you go back to that same set of sites you were browsing before, you will notice that there are cookies present for a variety of domains, not just the one you currently visited. Cookies that match the domain of the current site, i.e., what’s displayed in the browser’s address bar, are referred as first-party cookies. Similarly, cookies from domains other than the current site are referred as third-party cookies. The same cookie can be either first-party or third-party, depending on which site the user is on at the time. For some time now, there has been a raging debate in the context of violation of privacy. GDPR, CAA and the likely approval of the Personal Data Protection Bill in India has brought this issue centre stage.
Google states that the objective of the Privacy Sandbox is to collaborate with publishers, marketers, and technology companies to develop open standards and capabilities to deliver ads to large groups of similar people without letting individually identifying data leave the consumer’s browser. The statement goes on to say that they will continue their work to make current web technologies more secure and private. As announced, Chrome will limit insecure cross-site tracking starting in February 2020, by treating cookies that don’t include a SameSite label as first party only, and require cookies labelled for third-party use to be accessed over HTTPS. This will make third-party cookies more secure and give users more precise browser cookie controls. Concurrently, they are developing techniques to detect and mitigate covert tracking and workarounds by launching new anti-fingerprinting measures to discourage use of deceptive and intrusive techniques. 

Google’s plan is based on various concepts outlined in its Chrome Sandbox. They intend to use a browser sandbox, not accessible to the advertiser, to store signals such as clicks or conversions and strictly measure out those signals in ways that anonymize the user. The direct signal from the user’s browser to the ad tech/marketing cloud is severed, and instead the browser does some measure of limitation, obfuscation and anonymization before any data is returned. 
All these changes are likely to have a significant impact on – view-through attribution, third-party data and multi-touch attribution. The demise of view-through attribution is likely to cause a major change in media-buying habits as it is currently the mainstay of most digital display measurement. Measurement of reach and frequency and frequency capping will continue by using either publisher first-party data or IP addresses. Targeting and optimization of digital campaigns will get simpler, as inventory attributes become the obvious signals that will be correlated to the limited conversion and click data. With the impending absence of view-through measures, planners will move to click-based direct response ads. 
At this point of time, we don’t know what the future holds for Apple’s IDFA or Android IDs. It would be safe to assume that they are heading in a similar direction. The fact also is that publisher first-party data is growing in relevance and efforts to use this data in collaboration with advertisers is a promising possibility. Whether this will take the form of hashed email addresses, shared logins or other technologies is still to be discovered. 
Media Agencies aren’t exactly pleased about Google’s decision to phase out third-party cookies. Google is fully aware of this and that’s why there is a two-year window that has been provided unlike what Safari and Firefox did. Most buyers will use this time to rebuild their targeting and measurement strategies. We are staring at uncertain times ahead and are currently unable to decipher what it means for the future of audience targeting, programmatic buying and advanced attribution. 
Some of the things that I have been propagating for a couple of years now take centre stage: 

1. BYOD – Build Your Own Database: Most brands haven’t built their first-party data strategies, it’s time. With the absence of readily available granular data, brands will have to create ways in which consumers provide their information for some value that they derive out of this exchange. Brands will have to focus on content strategies that draw consumers back to their site or app. This will ensure that Marketing heads consider having a more direct and meaningful relationship with their customers. 
2. More focus and emphasis on quality contextual data across publishers: For quite some time now context and content according to me are the pillars of any data driven marketing strategy. With the likely demise of third-party cookies, there will be increased focus on good quality data. This will force marketers to focus harder on context and devising the right interventions. 

By announcing that this transition is a two-year process, the way ahead is still very hazy. On the face of it, it looks like the beneficiaries, besides Google of course, will be walled gardens like Facebook. Publishers will also benefit and see a rise in the use and value of their first-party data. Most publishers already have a head start with the Safari browser already blocking cookies, media companies have invested in first-party data solutions to lift the CPMs of their cookie less traffic. Media companies with their own audiences and D2C relationships are also likely to thrive. It’s time to act and not wait and watch. It’s time to prepare a sound data strategy that will deliver sustainable growth. 

1. Getting them to buy your brand
2. Getting them to buy your brand more often
3. Getting them to pay a premium for your brand

How does one use the science of behaviour change to nudge these choices to the brand’s advantage?
We live in a world where we have to make hundreds of decisions every day. Think about the choices one must make throughout the day – how many are really made through rational choices and how many are made through instinct?
Economists assume that people make rational decisions. Marketers know that people make irrational decisions, data be damned. (That’s why most creative people have detested the abuse of research because they intuitively connect with the irrational side of the consumers brain and come up with much more compelling brand stories.)
Herbert Simon, a Nobel prize winning economist coined the term ‘Bounded rationality’, he suggests that there are three factors that limit rational decisions:

1. The complexity of the problem
2. Limitations of the mind making the decision
3. The time available

If you reflect on this and layer it with your own experiences, you cannot but agree with the above assessment. It is indeed impossible to try every permutation – price, design, value, features and arrive at a decision. There is scarcity of time and of course, limited attention spans. So, what do most people do? They make decisions based on rules of thumb, anchored in their previous experiences, known as heuristics, and innate prejudices common to all people, known as cognitive biases.

Behavioural Economics uses research from psychology and other areas to make sense of these cognitive biases. Once we understand them, it’s possible to use these cognitive biases to help people make better choices. This has huge implications for marketers. If one can harness the ways in which people make decisions, then one can give your brand a distinct advantage. Brain scanning experiments in the past have shown that people when given a choice between a brand they prefer and another brand, chose their preferred brand almost instantly, and with virtually no effort. The work of Daniel Kahneman, in his book Thinking Fast and Slow, shows that there are two distinct systems for thinking:
System 1: Fast, immediate, unconscious.
System 2: Slow, effortful, conscious.
While choosing a preferred brand over a competitor, there’s simply no contest. The choice is a System 1 choice and is made easily. In a Hypercity mall, this would mean the person puts the item in their shopping basket immediately and moves on. However to succeed, marketers need to tap into both the fast and unconscious mode of thinking in addition to the slower conscious mode of thinking, and this is where data driven techniques and cognitive biases can be used effectively to influence people in a more compelling way. So, my recommendation to marketers is – for the next promotion don’t always rely on a hefty discount. Numbers leave customers cold – attractive stories compel us to act.
An integral part of Behavioural Economics is ‘Framing’. What it means is presenting information in a manner that gives a specific impression. An oft quoted example in this context is for paracetamol brand. The research found that regardless of the way ibuprofen tablets were consumed, and whether they were branded, or unbranded, different tablets were all absorbed into the body at exactly the same rate. This prompted the famous strapline “nothing works faster”, as nothing does actually work faster – all the tablets work at the same rate. But the manner in which it was communicated left the consumer with the impression that this paracetamol brand works the fastest!

Such behavioural insights and thought processes are now also intrinsic to data-driven marketing. One of the early examples of this is – A/B testing popularly known as Randomised Control Trials in Behavioural Economics. The randomised control trial is a basic experiment where one group of people experiences the usual (control) condition and a second matched group of people experiences the new (intervention) condition.
Randomised control trials are in fact the basis for A/B tests, which are used in both offline and online media. They can be carried out on a small scale and cheaply before deciding whether to roll out those changes more widely. The clear advantage is that the experiment already takes place in the right environment, so findings will be both relevant and applicable. Its use in digital campaigns is widespread as its effectiveness is measurable and actionable.
New Martech and Adtech developments hold out a huge promise in more contextual and real time targeting. Combine this with the expert eye of a Behavioural Economist and Marketers are looking at a much more successful Brand strategy leading to high business growth. I will be watching this space keenly and will carry out a few such experiments with willing partners to see how this unfolds.