I've been reading a lot about this topic lately because it seems like it's becoming the wild, wild west in the internet world.

Facebook is getting tagged all of the time in yet another situation where they've violated our privacy rights, stole our information, or sold it.

Some "new thing" for tracking, converting, advertising, optimizing, etc. etc. pops out and sends every business into a whirlwind wondering whether they should implement it or not.

I think we can all agree the internet land has gotten pretty intense. Even people, like me, who love data and also sit in the marketing-sales world can share my sentiments, I am sure. We're in the mode of ensuring that our message is in front of consumer's eyes every second of the day. It's tiring and annoying, right?!

I've worked under the umbrella of sales and marketing and consulting for the majority of my career, and am now an entrepreneur. The science/data side of me says that anything that can help convert or help us understand who we need to get our product or service in front of is always worth looking into.

But, as a person wandering around on the 'net, advertising is in our faces literally every second. There's no doubt about it. Every time we go to a site, that good ole cookie message pops up and you're forced to click to "accept" because if you say no then you're taken to some random site or the pop up doesn't work, and it's just a super annoying process for any user coming onto a site today. Enough already!

But, while the whole cookie tool has been touted as necessary for people in a marketing role for anyone trying to convert and do remarketing, etc. for a long time, all the signs are pointing to the fact that it may be time to figure out a new strategy.

Because, digital times, they are a-changin!

Did you know that over 66% of mobile sites don't even register cookies? Yikes. That's a lot of missed traffic!

So, if you've been:

1. Wondering if you should hurry up and join in on the cookie game and get your site set up properly
2. Are scrambling to keep up on the privacy rules for cookies on your site
3. Or, are scrambling to set up cookies on your site to get in on all that remarketing, ads, etc. etc. etc.

Then read on as this article is for you!

Doing my due diligence to say on top of the digital game, I have a couple of articles I've found that convince me that cookies are dead and it's time to figure out a new plan. Let me share with you.

ARTICLE 1

The first article is a good one by Neil Patel. I like his description of the "cookie" in general considering most (including me) don't really understand the HOW of the dropping of a pixel onto a site happens exactly. I can understand all of that to a point and then my eyes glaze over.

Neil believes that they [cookies] stopped working in 2018. The main reason is the stat I note above. If MORE and MORE people are on mobile devices, and cookies don't really track on mobile, then what's the point?! He believes it's time that we move to PEOPLE-based advertising. And, what's that tool? EMAIL. I use a multitude of tools for our customers and my business, and the terminology within email software is now saying "people" versus a thing like a list or an audience. It's an age of getting more PERSONAL. (Wait, like BEFORE the internet?! Woah.)

You can read Neil's thoughts here: https://neilpatel.com/blog/cookie-based-advertising-wont-work/

ARTICLE 2

The second article I read, by an ad agency, describes it in the sense that this whole cookie thing is OLD NEWS. I didn't know that they go way back to the '90s, well, that was before my time given I was too cool then just fresh out of high school in '96 and was only worried about AOL chat rooms then. Can anyone relate?! ;)

The interesting thing is that this article pretty much states the same thing as Niel, so the name of the new game is PEOPLE. Read more here:

https://www.disruptiveadvertising.com/ppc/cookie-based-retargeting/

My takeaways from the readings if you don't feel like reading more on it is as follows:

• If we're using cookies, it's time to ditch that tactic and do something else. Since they're no longer effective (especially because of the whole mobile device thing), using cookies for remarketing means you don't really have an idea who is viewing what anymore, and you can’t tell if a user revisits you from a different device.
• Get websites more optimized for gathering emails 
• Get emails into an overarching content strategy
• Focus on the fact that "users" are PEOPLE and get more real in that effort overall