How to maintain marketing momentum in the wake of Google's third-party cookie decision

In what industry insiders are calling "The Cookie Reversal," Google confirmed in April 2025 that it will maintain its current approach to third-party cookies in Chrome, abandoning years of planned deprecation. The reversal came after intense industry feedback, regulatory pressure, and mounting antitrust scrutiny, particularly surrounding Google's dominance in the ad tech stack.

While third-party cookies have received a reprieve, the digital marketing ecosystem isn't reverting to "business as usual." Consumer privacy expectations are higher than ever. Regulations like GDPR and CCPA continue to tighten. Safari, Firefox and other browsers still block third-party cookies. Major brands that already made early investments in cookieless infrastructure are not reversing course—and neither should you.

The goal hasn’t changed: brands need to build strong, sustainable relationships with their customers—ones based on trust and consent, not just one way of tracking them.

Here’s what you can do now to maintain momentum and how our growth marketing team can help you do the same.

5 Actionable strategies for a resilient, privacy-first marketing strategy

While third-party cookies are still technically available, smart brands are balancing immediate gains with long-term strategy. Here’s how:

1. Double down on first-party data collection

Loyalty programs represent one of the most effective ways to incentivize customers to identify themselves and share data willingly. By offering real value such as rewards, early access or exclusive content, you can encourage customers to share meaningful insights like purchase preferences, birthdays and product interests.

Additionally, adopting progressive profiling tactics allows you to collect data over time instead of front-loading forms with friction which create a smoother user experience. Most importantly, you should clearly communicate the value exchange: explain why you’re collecting data and how it directly benefits the customer, whether it’s through more relevant product recommendations, faster service or personalized offers.

2. Strengthen owned channels for deeper engagement

Email and SMS remain the most direct and controllable communication channels. With smart segmentation, lifecycle automation and dynamic content, they become engines of personalization and retention.

Beyond messaging, you can also leverage on-site personalization by using real-time behavioral data such as browsing history, cart activity and product views to tailor the customer experience without ever relying on cookies. 

3. Adopt identity and targeting alternatives

While third-party cookies remain available in Chrome for now, building complementary targeting capabilities provides necessary resilience.

• Contextual advertising is making a major comeback. Reach audiences based on the content they're consuming, not who they are.
  
  
• Cohort-based modeling groups users by similar behaviors or intents, allowing for scalable personalization without violating privacy norms.
  
  
• Data clean rooms (such as those offered by Google Ads Data Hub or Amazon Marketing Cloud) are enabling brands to collaborate and target more effectively, even in restricted environments.
  
  

4. Reassess your media mix during the transition

As long as Chrome continues to support third-party cookies, you have a unique opportunity to run parallel strategies maximizing current capabilities while contributing to future ones.

Start by conducting a comprehensive audit of your marketing technology stack to identify which systems and processes rely on third-party cookies. Measure the contribution of cookie-based targeting to business outcomes to create a baseline for resource prioritization and allocation.

Diversifying your media mix reduces overdependence on cookie-heavy environments. Channels like retail media networks, programmatic CTV, influencer partnerships and affiliate marketing can offer rich performance data, often with greater privacy compliance baked in.

Cart.com's Growth Marketing Team will help rebalance your media mix to ensure you get smarter measurement and less guesswork.

5. Invest in the right Tools and partners

Privacy regulations are tightening and tech giants are changing course, so it's important to align with platforms and agencies that are built to adapt.

Allocate a meaningful portion of your marketing budget to cookie-independent approaches. Run A/B tests to compare targeting methods side by side, and set up controlled experiments to see how different data signals really affect performance.

Additionally, look for a team that supports interoperability with customer data platforms (CDPs) and universal ID frameworks, so your strategy stays flexible no matter what changes next. They should understand both short-term performance optimization and long-term transformation. 

Still betting on cookies? Let’s talk about a smarter play

Remember that Google's plans have changed multiple times already, and could easily change again. The only constant is the increasing value of direct customer relationships and the data they generate.

Are you building a growth engine that can outlast Big Tech’s whims? Cart.com’s Growth Marketing Team can help you build high-performing, privacy-compliant strategies that thrive—with or without third-party cookies. Contact us today to know how to drive results where it counts.