As digital privacy regulations continue to tighten and major browsers phase out third-party cookies, Google Ads clients face a turning point in how they track and optimize campaign performance. By late 2024, Google will stop supporting third-party cookies in Chrome, joining the ranks of Firefox and Safari. This shift means marketers will need to rely more on first-party data and solutions like Google Ads Enhanced Conversions to retain accurate insights and maximize campaign results.
In this article, we’ll explore the differences between first-party and third-party cookies, how Google uses these cookies to track conversions, and why enhanced conversions are essential for campaign performance—especially for campaigns focused on conversion goals like Target CPA, Maximize Conversions, and Performance Max.
Understanding First-Party vs. Third-Party Cookies
Third-Party Cookies:
Third-party cookies are created and placed by external websites, not by the site the user is currently visiting. These cookies allow advertisers to track users across various websites, building profiles to improve ad targeting. However, as privacy concerns have grown, major browsers have moved to block third-party cookies to safeguard user data.
First-Party Cookies:
First-party cookies, on the other hand, are created by the site the user is currently visiting and are stored directly by that site. These cookies help site owners gather information about users’ interactions on their own website, such as tracking items in a shopping cart, capturing preferences, or identifying conversions. First-party cookies are generally more privacy-compliant because they do not track users across the internet.
With the phase-out of third-party cookies, first-party data has become essential for advertisers who want to continue tracking and attributing conversions effectively.
How Google Uses Cookies to Track Conversions
Cookies play a central role in Google’s ability to track conversions, measure ad performance, and optimize campaigns. Google’s AI leverages conversion data to understand customer behaviors, make attribution models more accurate, and refine campaign strategies, especially for campaigns using goals like:
- Target CPA (Cost Per Acquisition): This bidding strategy optimizes bids to help get as many conversions as possible at or below a set CPA. Accurate conversion data is crucial here, as Google’s AI needs this data to decide how much to bid for each impression.
- Maximize Conversions: This strategy uses your budget to drive as many conversions as possible, depending on conversion data to inform when and where ads should be shown.
- Performance Max: This goal-driven campaign type spans multiple Google networks, including Search, Display, YouTube, and Discovery, and heavily relies on conversion data for Google’s AI to decide optimal placements and bidding strategies.
Without accurate conversion data, Google’s AI cannot perform optimally, leading to less effective targeting, misallocated budgets, and missed opportunities.
The Solution: Enhanced Conversions
With the loss of third-party cookies, Enhanced Conversions is Google’s solution to help advertisers capture valuable first-party data directly from user interactions on their website. Enhanced conversions work by securely capturing customer data (such as email addresses) submitted on a website and using this data to match conversions in Google Ads.
Enhanced conversions are essential because they:
- Bridge the Attribution Gap: Enhanced conversions allow Google Ads to track customer actions more accurately, even without third-party cookies.
- Boost Campaign Performance: By capturing first-party data for conversions, enhanced conversions enable Google’s AI to make better-informed decisions for campaigns using conversion-focused goals.
- Enhance Privacy Compliance: Enhanced conversions securely capture and hash (anonymize) user data before sending it to Google, ensuring compliance with privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA.
Why Enhanced Conversions Matter for Google’s AI
Google’s AI relies heavily on accurate data to optimize bidding strategies and targeting for campaigns that focus on conversion goals. Enhanced conversions provide the data Google needs to continue making effective, data-driven decisions.
- Improved Bidding Accuracy: With reliable first-party data, Google’s AI can accurately gauge the value of impressions and bids, especially for campaigns with conversion-based goals like Target CPA and Maximize Conversions.
- Cross-Device Tracking: Enhanced conversions allow Google to attribute conversions more effectively across multiple devices and channels, which is especially important for Performance Max campaigns that operate on all Google channels.
- Optimized Ad Placement: When using enhanced conversions, Google can better identify high-value users and allocate budget accordingly, resulting in higher-quality leads and conversions.
How to Enable Enhanced Conversions
Setting up enhanced conversions requires adding specific tags and configurations to your website, typically using Google Tag Manager. If you’re an iGo Sales and Marketing client on one of our Google Ads management plans, enhanced conversions setup is included as part of our service to help you maximize your campaign’s effectiveness. For clients not on a management plan, we offer this as a standalone service to ensure your campaigns remain optimized for a cookieless future.
Contact us today to add enhanced conversions to your Google Ads strategy and future-proof your campaigns for success.