Well, that was one helluva panel discussion!
What it boiled down to was this: Let's wait until the consumer realizes what they've lost and then we'll have CCPA 2.0 next
November.
Panelists came together at our Search & Performance Insider Summit Friday to talk about the loss of cookies will impact advertisers, agencies and consumers when regulations take effect
Feb. 20.
Amanda Martin, VP of Enterprise Partnerships, Goodway Group (far right), and Erin Everhart, Senior Manager, Media, The Home Depot (second from left), especially, had
fires lit beneath them.
"There are large blind spots in the consumer journey," said Martin. "Some brands are avoiding these blind spots or are unsure how to navigate them. There's
no concrete approach. Mostly, [they] have their heads in the sand. We need solutions, not work-arounds."
Everhart agreed, saying that "regulation that needs to happen. It's been
like the wild, wild West."
"We are incapable as an industry to do this ourselves, said Martin. "I welcome government regulation. GDPR is a far harder law to be compliant
with because it is so specific and yet so vague. CCPA is easier. Most brands will treat CCPA as the law of land."
One of the aspects of a cookie-free world is that unique visitor
counts will be unreliable and company executives won't be able to make decisions based on them. "There needs to be internal education as well," said Everhart.
"It's a huge
opportunity for brand CMOs to get closer to actual business metrics as opposed managing a media budget," said Martin. "Although it's a headache, it's moving us toward a more business-oriented
industry."
She continued: "It's partially our fault. We provided a really crappy experience and we want them to consistently take it. This is an opportunity to grow and change.
Within your own model, based on what you have control over, it should help inform your bidding strategy. Maybe you can't go on auto pilot as much as you used to."
Going back to
the bottom line, Everhart said that if consumers feel the pain of what bad advertising looks like, maybe they'll be okay with giving us more of their data. "It's really on us as marketers and
advertisers to provide value to the consumer to give consent to use data."
Also on this panel were moderator Annie Stickney, VP, Digital Marketing Analytics, JPMorgan Chase (far
left), and Jim Grates, Sr Director, Digital Media, Hilton (the guy).