3rd party cookies stopping in 2023

12th April 2022

Cookies, nom nom nom.

In technical terms, we have a serious culling of cookies coming our way. End of 2023 (not very long!) Google Chrome (the current dominant web browser) will stop supporting 3rd party cookies by default.

1st party cookies: dropped by your own website: used for logins, user auth, sometimes baskets, etc. Can also be used for tracking activity on the site. The key thing here: only your website can access these cookies, no other websites can.

3rd party cookies: used on your site and others for things like retargeting and advertising. Dropped by the advertising networks, tracking pixels and much more.

A lot of digital marketing currently relies on these 3rd party cookies to operate and perform its functions. If it was all stopped today there would be a HUGE set of digital marketing folks in a pickle when traffic drops off nad they scramble to understand what's going on. Sadly, this will happen at the end of 2023 too as some will get caught out.

If you have a competent digital marketing team or agency working with you then you don't need to worry. I'd worry a little bit if they haven't mentioned it yet. I'd worry a lot if you ask about it and they don't seem to have a clear answer or approach to changing your marketing around these changes.

When the cookie consent laws came into force recently(ish) marketeers saw huge drops of data. Some try to be creative with the law or implement less than sound approaches to consent. Many were caught out or felt blindsided. This was for a law change that had incredible noise beforehand. This time, this is not a law change, it will just happen one day.

Plenty of notice has been given. Don't get caught out.

Back to article list