As third-party cookies crumble, identity-free targeting is stepping up with smart context and better engagement for users. Discover how the ad tech industry is shifting to a new face of advertising that is built on trust and users’ privacy.
As 2025 unfolds, privacy regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, and CPRA are tightening, and we are entering into a post-cookie-less era where understanding where the user is and what they want to see is the top priority for demand partners. It is a paradigm shift to move beyond identity-centric approaches in a cookieless world. Google Privacy Sandbox and FLoC are bending towards cohort-based targeting to protect individual privacy by allowing identity-free targeting.
Undoubtedly, this will lead to the rise of first-party data as the direct relationships with customers will be built on trust. It’s time we all embrace the new wave of contextual targeting in the world of ad tech and open gates for privacy-compliant reach and impactful advertising using new solutions.
In this blog, we’ll explore how identity-free targeting is the perfect approach for a post-cookieless world of advertising. So, without further ado, let’s get started.
What is Identity Free Targeting
Publishers rely on user identification to monetize their content and earn ad revenue. Advertisers and ad networks use the same identification markers to deliver targeted and relevant campaigns. And other demand partners use the same data to make tools, updates and valuable solutions for tools like header bidding platforms, audience segmentation engines, and campaign optimization technology, etc.
With Cookies coming to an end, Identity Free Targeting is catching up and becoming the next most important thing in the world of programmatic Advertising. Identity-free advertising is an ad strategy that delivers relevant ads to the users without using individual user identification, like third-party cookies, mobile ad IDs (IDFAs, GAIDs)
Identity-Free Targeting focuses on understanding the context and behaviour” approach, while third-party cookies are used to focus on the type of user to target ads and campaigns.
How can publishers benefit from identity-free advertising?
The move towards identity-free targeting represents a new approach for all demand partners in the ad tech industry. To monetize platforms sustainably and ethically and embrace these changes, publishers need to look at this change from a bird’s-eye view and understand what benefits it brings:
Small Publishers
With limited resources and smaller first-party data sets, Identity-free targeting offers a targeting strategy that provides survival and growth for small publishers without needing extensive user data. Let’s explore more benefits of identity-free targeting for small publishers:
- Niche Expertise
- Attracting Privacy-Focused Advertisers.
- Less Intrusive
Large/Big Publishers
Large publishers’ biggest change is dealing with a vast amount of content and navigating complex data to deliver relevant ads to the user. Identity-free targeting offers them a way to scale ad revenue beyond pre-defined users and enhance their privacy posture. Let’s explore what other benefits identity-free targeting has to offer for big-shot publishers:
- Addressing Inaccessible Users
- Streamlined Privacy
- Granular Contextual Understanding
- Attention-Based Metrics
How to measure identity-free targeting?
The ad tech industry has been obsessed with quantifiable metrics like Click-Through Rate (CTR) and eCPMs for basic viewability. These metrics have served as a go-to indicator of campaign performance and user engagement. However, as we enter a cookieless era without third-party cookies, we will no longer be able to target audiences without cookies.
Now, the real measure of success lies in the attention, i.e., the genuine engagement between a user and an advertisement. Asking questions like, “Did the user truly absorb the message?”,
“Did the ad resonate with user interest?” and “Did the ad foster a positive impression or increase their desire to learn more for the user?”
If written in simple words, Attention Metrics > CTR/ Viewability.
Post-Cookie Advertising Strategies
Walled Gardens
“Walled Gardens” refer to the large, integrated digital platforms like Google, Meta (Facebook/Instagram), Amazon, and Apple. These entities possess vast amounts of first-party user data collected directly through user logins, app usage, and various services. Their key advantage in a post-cookie world stems from their ability to create and maintain deterministic IDs.
PII-based identifiers
PII (Personally Identifiable Information)-based identifiers are pieces of data that directly or indirectly link back to a specific individual. In ad tech, this primarily includes information like hashed email addresses, phone numbers, or physical addresses that users have consented to share. While sensitive, these identifiers are becoming crucial in the post-cookie era, particularly for first-party data strategies.
Deterministic IDs
Deterministic IDs are the gold standard for user identification in advertising, representing a precise, one-to-one match to a specific individual. Unlike probabilistic methods that infer identity based on likelihood, deterministic IDs are built on confirmed connections, most commonly through user logins or directly provided PII (e.g., an email address used across multiple platforms). Walled Gardens are prime examples of entities that leverage deterministic IDs extensively, as they have vast logged-in user bases.
Future Outlook on Post-Cookieless Identity-Free Targeting
While identity-free targeting is gaining traction in the ad tech industry, identity is still the core of the programmatic future. With the rise of Identity-Free Targeting in a post-cookieless world, new technologies like RampID and Unified ID 2.0 are evolving to align with industry needs and regulations.
Even in all this chaos, one thing is clear: first-party data is becoming increasingly valuable for advertisers, publishers, and even users. Building your ad strategy around first-party data is non-negotiable; it is fundamental for the future ad success of your campaigns.
Key Takeaways (Quick Summary)
- As privacy regulations tighten and third-party cookies disappear, the post-cookie era is all about priortizing context and user intent over user identity
- Identity-free targeting relies on contextual and attention-based metrics. This approach delivers relevant ads without using cookies or ad IDs.
- Small publishers can use an identity-free targeting approach as a growth strategy and leverage niche expertise to attract privacy-focused advertisers to monetize their traffic.
- Large Publishers can scale their ad revenue beyond defined users by streamlining privacy compliance, leveraging granular contextual understanding, and benefiting from attention-based metrics
- It’s time to leverage Walled Gardens‘ directly collected PII-based identifiers (e.g., email, login data) to build deterministic IDs to enable precise targeting measurement of ad campaigns.
Frequently Asked Questions
As Google is planning to eliminate third-party cookies in 2025, it is believed that the phasing out of third-party cookies will mark the transition into a new cookieless era where first-party data will be the first priority for the demand partners in the ad tech industry.
The cookieless future marks a shift in digital marketing where third-party cookies are phased out, limiting how advertisers track users across sites. This impacts audience targeting, retargeting, lead generation, and behaviour analysis, pushing brands to adopt privacy-first solutions like first-party data, contextual targeting, and consent-based strategies to stay relevant.
A “post-cookie world” is where third-party cookies are phased out or significantly restricted by web browsers. This shift, driven by increasing privacy regulations and consumer demand for data control, necessitates new methods for targeting, measurement, and attribution in online advertising, moving beyond traditional individual tracking.
