Chris Cunningham, co-founder and CEO of appssavvy, argues that it’s a good thing that advertisers on mobile can’t rely on the cookie for tracking and targeting as they do on desktop.

The last 20 years have been a period of page-load, impression-based advertising with one key targeting ingredient – the cookie. That recipe has baked up billions upon billions of dollars in advertising and created scale on standard media impressions.

But the rapid adoption of mobile devices is placing a fast-approaching expiration date on the cookie as an effective targeting tool. Smartphones are fast becoming consumers’ preferred screen of choice: 50 per cent of mobile phone users use the device as their primary internet source. This is bad news for advertisers, as cookies are largely restricted on mobile browsers.

Mobile browsers treat cookies differently, which prevents advertisers from tracking with the same effectiveness that desktop allows. For example, the mobile version of Safari accepts first-party cookies, but blocks third-party cookies by default. Mozilla has threatened to enforce third-party cookie blocking on the mobile version of Firefox, but keeps postponing the decision. The mobile version of Chrome accepts all cookies by default, but also allows users to restrict cookies. As is evident, the internet landscape on mobile is highly fractured, and the constant fluctuation over privacy issues discourages a heavy reliance on cookies.

Greater opportunities
The good news for advertisers is that cookies are an incomplete data set for targeting because they can only tell advertisers “who” they will be reaching – not “when”. Without the familiar crutch of cookies to lean on, there are greater opportunities to explore new approaches to targeted advertising on mobile platforms, and incorporate elements such as behaviour, timing and context.

As the most practiced method of targeting, the cookie is tempting and sometimes satisfying, but in no way the basis of a healthy diet moving forward. Advertisers will find that shedding the familiar, 20-year-old targeting skin of cookies will actually be a liberating experience. Just look at search advertising – it never used cookies because it was effective by design without them.

As I see it, advertisers need to balance two needs that tend to oppose one another: 1) maintaining efficiencies of buying and selling media, and 2) considering the value of inventory and experience in ad delivery. The key to achieving these two objectives concurrently and pushing the industry forward is to examine our methods of targeting, specifically challenging what value the cookie really brings to the table.

Audience-building tools
So, what should advertisers do to curb their cookie addiction? Continue building audience profiles and map to consumer behaviour, focusing on understanding their intent and respecting the experience. Rethink timing and see value in mid- and post-roll vs. pre-roll. Work with app developers and publishers to leverage and expose better ad models that will not only lessen the reliance on cookies, but also challenge the industry to create better audience-building tools.

Mobile advertising is constantly in flux, as the FTC has user privacy in its sights and big players like Google, Microsoft and Apple are planning their own alternative tracking technologies. But waiting for the industry to evolve is not a strategy. The opportunity to jump in the kitchen and bake a better solution is sitting in front of advertisers. All they need to is extract their hands from their precarious position in the cookie jar.

Chris Cunningham is co-founder and CEO of appssavvy