TRAVEL MARKETERS SAY THEY’RE READY FOR 3PID DEPRECATION—BUT ARE THEY REALLY?
TRAVEL MARKETERS SAY THEY’RE READY FOR 3PID DEPRECATION—BUT ARE THEY REALLY?
TRAVEL MARKETERS SAY THEY’RE READY FOR 3PID DEPRECATION—BUT ARE THEY REALLY?
Nearly 80% of travel marketers are reliant on 3PCs for digital advertising
Yet right when marketers need them the most, third-party identifiers (3PIDs) are disappearing. In January, Google announced it would phase out third-party cookies (3PCs) in Chrome, and in June, Apple made a similar announcement about their device identifier for advertisers (IDFA).
It’s never been more crucial for travel brands to create a real, personalized connection with their guests—and to maximize budget. Travelers aren’t logging into their loyalty programs. Few people are booking trips. Travel and DMO marketers need a digital strategy that can overcome these disruptions.
How do travel marketers feel about these changes? What are they doing to prepare? We decided to ask a few of them. Here are our survey results.
What does 3PID deprecation mean for travel brands?
What does 3PID deprecation mean for travel brands?
Digital advertisers in the travel industry have been relying heavily on third-party cookies and IDFA to target, personalize and measure digital campaigns.
of travel marketers are “very reliant” or “moderately reliant” on 3PCs for digital advertising
of travel marketers anticipate “moderate” to “significant” impact on their digital advertising efforts—more significant than GDPR and CCPA
of travel marketers think digital advertising will take a step backward in terms of personalizing and proving effectiveness
What’s at stake?
Travel brands who continue to rely on third-party identifiers will lose the ability to:
Identify current and potential guests online
Personalize digital ads for a unique individual
Measure marketing impact on an individual level
And most of these marketers are aware of what’s at stake.
of travel marketers are concerned about targeting and personalization
How are travel brands preparing?
About two-thirds of travel marketers feel very prepared for 3PC deprecation because they have access to decent first-party data.
are "very prepared" for these changes
However, perception is different than actual preparation. According to Forrester, few brands are capable of building a single traveler profile, identifying travelers across devices and leveraging profiles to activate audiences across touchpoints—which are all necessary for recognizing travelers and personalizing their experience over time.
a single traveler profile
How are they working to improve their capabilities?
Building a CDP
Advantage:
Drives more effective marketing through a single view of guests.
Challenge:
Aligning data for CDPs is a big undertaking, and many traditional CDP solutions aren’t built for enterprise-level businesses.
Shifting to first-party data strategies
Advantage:
Aggregating and aligning first-party data allows brands to better activate and prove marketing outcomes across channels.
Challenge:
Direct bookings and online agencies (Kayak, Priceline, etc.) offer a variety of first-party data-points. Travel brands should work with experienced partners to make sure they’re building the right data and organizing it appropriately at the outset.
Building out a private ID graph
Advantage:
Creates new monetization opportunities.
Challenge:
Highly complex and requires massive scale to do it alone.
Here’s what travel brands should be doing
Maximize your collection and activation of first-party data.
Smaller travel brands—as well as some hotel and car rental brands—rely on 3PIDs to connect with guests and personalize messages. Because data from 3PIDs will soon be harder to acquire and use effectively, you need to continue to increase your first-party customer interactions and the amount of data you collect from them.
You’ll also need to tie your marketing investments back to this data—it’s the only reliable point of reference once 3PIDs are gone.
Bigger travel brands are no strangers to first-party data—but with guest information coming from various sources, the challenge is combining it and activating against it in an effective way.
If you want to continue to deliver people-based ads to travelers across the open web without 3PIDs, the best option is to integrate with first-party data from website publishers.
Many publishers collect data from their users in exchange for content. When scaled and linked to a strong identity graph, this offers you a holistic view of your guest across channels. This data can be used to identify new and returning guests—and personalize digital media ads after 3PIDs are gone for a true 1:1 digital experience.
Consider this analogy: When it comes to print, mailers are sent to a known name and address. In digital, that “name/address” is a cookie or identifier that changes rapidly. Imagine you identify a list of people to send a series of mailers to. On the second mailer send, you find that a whopping quarter of the addresses are no longer valid because people moved. That is essentially what has always happened with identity solutions overly reliant on 3PIDs.
On the other hand, when you have a stable customer ID that’s not reliant on 3PIDs, you know when a person moves (to a different device or account) and where they go. You also know why they moved, because digital signals from their web behavior tells you their lifestyle.
Make sure you’re prepared for 3PID deprecation
Get the full research: Preparing for a world without third-party identifiers
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