Among the busy – and, unfortunately, already characteristic – weeks of uncertainty that we live in Peru, a decision that will change the rules of the game in the interaction of Peruvian and regional companies with their consumers went unnoticed. The measure did not come from the Executive Branch, the Congress of the Republic or any Peruvian regulatory entity. It was of Google. In the next 18 months, the US company will stop allowing the use of cookies from third parties in your browser (Chrome) and even your products will stop using this technology.
Although for some this may sound like a purely technological and anecdotal change, Google’s decision supposes a whole transformation of the paradigm in how companies create value for their clients, through the knowledge of their needs. For many years, cookies –Small text files stored in the browser that track customer activity on a website– have been part of the fundamental pillars in the collection of consumer insights and in the personalization of both advertisements and products for the end consumer. The enriched data provided by the cookies allowed companies to build profiles of their customers, learn about their activity on the web and their interests, and then provide an ad hoc offer.
That great ally for companies, however, it also hid a fertile field for sensitive privacy problems, which became evident over time and outlining a consumer increasingly concerned about how their information was handled. For this reason, Google’s decision seeks to put an end to these concerns by introducing a keyword that should mark the new digital strategies of organizations in a country not used to it: consent.
In the next year and a half, digital analytics, digital advertising and social listening that use third-party cookies will be obsolete. Thus, Peruvian companies from various sectors, such as banking, retailToday, mass consumption, insurance, telecommunications, among others, face the challenge of designing strategies that encourage consumers to begin to proactively share information that will allow them to generate value with personalized offers in a more restricted future.
The clear guidelines for the collection, integration, processing and activation of information provided directly by clients will be the articulators of any digital marketing initiative in the new environment proposed by Google. Surveys, giveaways and interactive social media stories, for example, will play a leading role as the gateway to this new era of customer insight. And is that, although consumers want to have more control over the information they provide, 90% of them are still more willing to buy brands that offer a personalized marketing experience.
In addition to a consumer need, said personalized and pampered experience today represents an opportunity for companies to generate efficiencies and improve performance. This is not only due to the immediate savings in the cost of third-party data providers for digital media – which currently ranges between 10% and 30% – but because the greater receptivity of marketing campaigns based on consented data can be capitalized on higher revenues from your digital assets. According Google Latam, a greater receptivity of consumers could translate, at the same time, into a 290% increase in the income generated from digital campaigns.
Only organizations that have managed to develop analytical capabilities for collection, integration and prediction will be able to generate competitive advantages that allow them to capitalize on the great potential that the new environment opens up. cookies-less of Google. On the contrary, companies that fail to impregnate maturity in the digital analytics of their teams will be relegated to their competitors.
The advantages that different companies could have developed at the segmentation and tracking level will no longer be transcendent in the new scenario marked by the restriction of third-party data. A) Yes, The change introduced by Google will finally eradicate the globally widespread concept that success in digital is intrinsically tied to the level of investment of companies. The development of capacities of Machine learning, Cloud, Data science and GMP will now be the true keys to success.
In the next 18 months, the new rules of the game will give way to the emergence of new top players within an already arduous Peruvian digital competition. But, above all, it will open a new era of interaction between organizations and their clients, marked at last by consent.
Daniel Falcón is CEO and founder of Neo Consulting, a digital transformation and innovation consultancy with 20 years in the market and operations in Peru, Chile, Colombia and Mexico.
LinkedIn: Daniel Falcón
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