Assia: The media industry has been changing its practices since Google first announced plans to deprecate third-party cookies. How will the decision to pause this move for the third time affect the sector?

Greg: Over the last six to eight months, advertisers and agencies have made the deprecation of third-party cookies a number one priority and aligned internally to prepare for the deadline. The industry tends to think of cookies as a marketing problem but we are now talking to people across the entire client business, from privacy and legal teams to technology departments in discussing solutions such as server-to-server tracking. The delay hasn’t changed the plan as we need to double down on a more private internet.

Sorcha: It’s business as usual. We shouldn't be changing our mindset around testing, learning and getting ahead because with the latest delay, we really don’t know how long it's going to last. I also think it’s a shame given all the work that's gone into things like testing API's and Google’s Privacy Sandbox, to delay what’s been suggested in terms of a roadmap. 

Ashley: It was probably more a sigh of relief for some people in having added time to develop alternatives. I think it's a chance for us to take advantage of that time and test different ways to get ahead. Having a first-party data approach and making sure that our clients and our advertisers can maintain momentum will set us up for when it actually does happen. I think areas around performance and measurement are going to change. I'm looking at ways to link up our technology within the platforms, but also within our own systems on websites, to make sure that it is accurate data that's coming through. But all of this is not going to be like a final solution. There'll be a lot of iterations of it before we get to the end.

Assia: It’s timely you mention regulation with the Australian government committing to introduce privacy reform this year. How do we navigate that?

Konrad: This is a journey we've all been on worldwide for several years now, back to the introduction of GDPR in 2018. There's the introduction of the laws themselves and then there's the interpretation. So even in Europe, six years later, we’re still working through the case law to really understand how it is to be interpreted. In the US, we've been waiting a long time for federal privacy law and while there’s been some proposed, right now the industry is having difficulty navigating different state laws. I think it's good there's a focus on the choice that consumers should have in terms of how their how their data is collected and how it's used. And I think it's good that there's a focus on the fact that certain types of data are more sensitive than others. But regulations can often have unintended consequences and they can create cost too. These are the things we need to work through and I do think it’s going to take many more years to process its way through.

Greg: We don't have GDPR style laws and implementations here in Australia yet and it’s about time because as a market, we are way behind the US and Europe. But when it comes to protecting consumers, there is a risk of butchering things with a saw instead of a scalpel by fast-tracking laws to August. Marketing makes up 5% of productivity so we shouldn’t undermine the impact on the marketing economy and it’s interesting the government is currently assessing the economic impact. GDPR is the downfall of those small and medium businesses, where you need to invest to comply to this extremely complicated regulation and the fine that comes with it can bankrupt your business.

Kevin: In Australia, getting information has been the biggest challenge with the delays. And like it or not, the likes of Google don't want to give everything away as well. So yes, I completely agree with Greg in the fact that it's needed. But we need to take our time to assess it and we don’t just want to rush it because other countries are doing it and backpedal.

Ashley: I would say about 30% of our clients are keen to do testing and we always allocate about a 10% test budget each month.

Greg: I would say 40% of our clients are willing to test especially where they’re in a category with specific targeting. Once you remove all of those sectors that don't have incentive to test, then you have the portion that you're left with, like maybe 40 to 50%.

Konrad: There are certain sectors where you have a lot of short-term online activity that are getting volumes from certain investments. But there's others, take luxury goods advertisers, that skew more towards devices that are cookieless. Or if you're a telco and you're in the business of selling mobile phone plans, you need to be reaching out to people who are on devices that don't support third-party cookies. So there’s some of those areas where it’s a competitive opportunity or competitive disadvantage if you don’t do it.

Kevin: The ambition is always to keep 10% of your media spend towards opportunities to innovate. But there’s still the need to go back to the client with the numbers and have that conversation and it’s getting harder. But it's our job to prioritise, to simplify it and to ensure their bottom line is not hit as well.

Ashley: I agree. Budgets across most clients are relatively flat this year so we have to be really clever. But you do need to evolve and push marketing strategies. As an industry, we need to make sure that we are trying new things and not just sticking with what worked in the past.