Choose a Lane: Measure or Target

Third party cookies enabled companies to measure advertising and also target advertising, based on that measurement or collected data. If a company is saying that they need a third party cookie to enable their measurement service, it’s because they are using that data for activation, targeting, retargeting, identity resolution, look-a-like audience building: Targeting.

Measurement works fine without third party cookies. It’s been years now since third party cookies were a reliable source for indexing or matching consumers. In the best of times, third party cookies worked incrementally: Our experience was 4 to 8% improvement under the best of circumstances. And, it’s only gotten worse.

First party data rules the road. And, PII (personally identifiable information) should be managed very, very carefully, as outlined by GDPR, CCPA and a whole bunch of other rules: Don’t use PII to build identity graphs, or to measure advertising effectiveness. It crosses into the targeting lane, and isn’t just measurement anymore.Measurement and analytic providers must — and can — work between these guard rails. And, they should showcase prospective clients the service contracts, privacy policies, compliance management and information security protocols behind their sales material.C3 Metrics is an independent measurement and analytics provider, building first party data, working within all the privacy guard rails, and delivering results. We’ve invested a decade of time and millions in resources to develop the privacy and security procedures to use and protect first party data, and to avoid the pitfalls of PII and third party data.