To help our advertiser partners prepare for Chrome’s phase-out of third-party cookies, planned for early 2025 (subject to addressing any remaining competition concerns from the UK’s Competition & Markets Authority), here's how we'll support certain key ads use cases in our buyside ads platforms. As part of our multi-pronged approach, we’ll employ a combination of privacy preserving signals and solutions, including those from the Privacy Sandbox.
In this article
- What does Chrome’s third-party cookie timeline update mean for Google’s Ads strategy and the steps customers should take to prepare?
- Will advertisers still be able to do audience exclusions in Google Ads and Display & Video 360?
- Will advertisers still be able to leverage brand safety controls in Google Ads and Display & Video 360?
- Will advertisers still have access to frequency management capabilities in Google Ads and Display & Video 360?
- How will Google Ads and Display & Video 360 handle identifying invalid traffic?
- Do advertisers need any additional contracting in order to use Google Ads or Display & Video 360 ads solutions that use Privacy Sandbox signals?
- How will Google Ads support billable metrics (CPC and CPA)?
What does Chrome’s third-party cookie timeline update mean for Google’s Ads strategy and the steps customers should take to prepare?
Chrome’s update to the timing for removing third-party cookies does not change our Ads platforms’ strategy for developing durable solutions. Our Ads product teams will continue to invest in a multi-pronged approach for supporting durable solutions, including first-party data, AI-powered solutions, and privacy-preserving technologies, including those from the Privacy Sandbox. We will use a combination of signals derived from these pillars to power our measurement and audience engagement solutions.
We continue to encourage customers to adopt the recommended best practices for preparing for third-party cookie deprecation (advertisers, publishers). These solutions provide benefits to campaign performance today, and they will become even more essential as access to third-party cookies continue to degrade.
Will advertisers still be able to do audience exclusions in Google Ads and Display & Video 360?
Chrome confirmed delivery of support in the Privacy Sandbox for negative interest group targeting in Q3 2023. As such, Google Ads and Display and Video 360 can support negative targeting or exclusion of audience lists. Advertisers will be able to exclude specific audience lists from remarketing campaigns, and will also be able to exclude them from other display ads campaigns (for example, campaigns using affinity or in-market audiences).
Will advertisers still be able to leverage brand safety controls in Google Ads and Display & Video 360?
Advertisers will continue to have access to a range of brand safety levers on our platforms.
Specifically, Google Ads advertisers will be able to continue leveraging content type, digital content labels, sensitive content and 3-tier exclusions as brand safety measures.
A variety of brand safety solutions can be supported post-3PCD on Display & Video 360 as well. These range from pre-bid solutions using signals from bid requests, to post-bid brand safety creative wrappers using ad tech vendor solutions.
For post-bid brand safety solutions, Chrome has recently confirmed delivery of a Protected Audience API (part of the Privacy Sandbox) feature that allows signals to be passed to these creative wrappers. This will allow Display & Video 360 to support these solutions post-3PCD.
Will advertisers still have access to frequency management capabilities in Google Ads and Display & Video 360?
Yes. Google Ads and Display & Video 360 will check whether there are available Publisher-provided IDs, Exchange-provided IDs or Identifiers for Advertising, and use these to apply frequency caps in environments where cookies are not available. Display & Video 360 also uses AI powered modelling to support cross-channel frequency management when identifiers are not present.
How will Google Ads and Display & Video 360 handle identifying invalid traffic?
Our Ad Traffic Quality Team uses a comprehensive approach to implementing scalable and robust invalid traffic defenses. We continue to adapt and innovate on our approaches and techniques to ensure that they are effective, regardless of changes in the digital ecosystem like the planned, upcoming phase-out of third-party cookies by Chrome.
We are using Privacy Sandbox APIs, such as the CHIPS and Shared Storage APIs, alongside other signals not impacted by 3PCD, in invalid traffic defence strategies that previously used third-party-cookie-based signals. With this set of strategies, our invalid traffic defences will continue to offer protection against potential threats or exploits.
Do advertisers need any additional contracting in order to use Google Ads or Display & Video 360 ads solutions that use Privacy Sandbox signals?
No. Google Ads and Display & Video 360 do not require any additional contracting in order for advertisers to use ads solutions that leverage Privacy Sandbox signals.
How will Google Ads support billable metrics (CPC and CPA)?
In Google Ads, billable metrics based on ad interactions (clicks, engaged views and views) will not be impacted by Chrome’s planned phase-out of third-party cookies, and will continue to be supported in the same way after 3PCD. Billable metrics based on conversion actions tracked by third-party cookies today will be supported by using the Privacy Sandbox Attribution Reporting API after 3PCD.