Beyond cookies: Tips for campaign success in advertising’s new era

Without access to third-party cookies, common strategies like retargeting and last-click attribution will become more challenging. But cookies aren’t the only recipe for focused, effective campaigns. Platforms like Pinterest offer other ways to reach an optimal audience, while respecting consumer privacy and complying with changing laws. 

The trick? It’s time to get more familiar with first-party platform data. It provides useful insight into your audience’s behaviors, and isn’t impacted by upcoming privacy changes. 

We’re sharing our best tips to help you start reducing your reliance on third-party cookies, so you can prepare your brand to thrive in the new advertising landscape. 

Beat the curve

Despite the rapidly changing privacy landscape, many brands are reluctant to change their approach. A recent Accenture survey revealed that 45% of advertisers have already seen a negative impact as privacy needs shift—but 50% of those surveyed stuck to the same strategy for the last five years.² Plus, of those brands, the majority say they still don’t actually plan to make any changes in the coming year.²

Why the lack of change? Well, for starters, many don’t actually understand the implications of what’s happening with cookies. In another Accenture study, only 8% of those surveyed said they actually understand the impacts of privacy changes.³ And 73% said they would implement new strategies if they understood them more, or had proof that they work.² 

If you want to get ahead of the curve, there are proven strategies you can already use today. Here’s how to get started.

Get familiar with Pinterest’s first-party platform data  

Pinterest has unique first-party data because of the ways people use the platform. On Pinterest, people come with the intent to make plans and take action. They engage with Pins that interest them, save ideas to boards and click when they want to learn more. These actions are like a form of human curation, providing stronger signals of consumer intent than you’ll find elsewhere.

All those actions add up to robust audience insights that go beyond standard interest targeting from other platforms. They feed into tools like our recommendation mechanisms and on the advertiser side, tools like targeting. Because of these strong first-party platform signals, advertisers on Pinterest don’t need to depend on third-party cookies to succeed.  

Tips for success

Preparing for the new privacy landscape requires two steps: Altering your targeting strategy and updating your measurement plans to match. You want to make sure that both parts of the equation are set up to fill in new data gaps today, and help protect you from future challenges. If your new strategies aren’t speaking to each other, you’ll be optimizing in the dark. 

1. Combine first-party platform data with your own data

Combining targeting that uses Pinterest’s first-party platform data along with your own audience lists can be a winning combination. Recent research from Accenture showed that running both interest and keyword targeting alongside your CRM and Actalike audiences on Pinterest can achieve the same or even better results compared to advertisers running retargeting alone.¹

What’s more, when looking at a longer attribution window, supplementing CRM and Acatalike audiences with the most granular Pinterest targeting methods produced a 45% higher return on ad spend, compared to advertisers that only used retargeting for their campaigns.¹

Interest and keyword targeting are effective on Pinterest because they tap directly into consumer intent. You can reach people based on what they’re actively searching for or interested in, helping you find people who are likely to appreciate your content or ad.

2. Maximize conversion visibility  

Increase visibility into conversions with solutions that don’t rely on third-party cookies.  Enhanced Match is an optional Pinterest tag feature that works by matching conversion data with the person responsible for the conversion, all using hashed information. This helps you understand your customer’s journey across different devices and events. The Conversions API enables you to send conversions directly to Pinterest in real time, whether they are web, in-app, or offline. This uses a server-to-server API endpoint rather than third-party cookies.

3. Widen your attribution windows 

People come to Pinterest earlier in their purchase journey, so it's essential to account for conversions that may take longer to materialize. Expand your attribution windows, and you’ll get more accurate measurement. For example, consider using a 7/7/7 attribution window to capture these conversions that happen down the road after people move from discovery, to decisions and purchases. 

4. Invest in incrementality measurement solutions 

Start vetting tools that measure incremental customers without relying on third-party cookies. While historical cookie-based solutions are overly reliant on clicks, incrementality solutions give you more insight into all your media actions, including impressions, and truly help you isolate the impact of your media. Incorporating impression data is especially useful for a platform like Pinterest, where a majority of conversions come from views on the platform. Common solutions you can use today include things like first-party conversion lift, third-party sales lift, and matched-market solutions. 

Next, look into approaches like marketing mix models (MMM), which are based on aggregated data, rather than user level data. Try adopting new model enhancements that both update more frequently than traditional MMM models and take a more unified approach with multi-touch attribution (MTA). These agile models will help you optimize for privacy changes, while continuing to get granular insight into campaign performance. As you try new strategies, keep experimenting across your entire suite of solutions to make sure you’re getting proper insight into all of your channels and media types.