Cookieless tracking: The future of cookies and 5 alternatives marketers should try

For almost three decades marketers have been relying heavily on third-party cookies to track users across the internet and deliver targeted ads. But now, we’re entering a new chapter without them. Even though third-party cookies have been the talk of the town, they’re just the tip of the iceberg.

In this article, I’ll discuss the shift around privacy marketing measurement, five cookieless tracking solutions, and how you can adapt to this new era of marketing.

Navigate this post:

• A brief recap of the current situation with privacy
• 5 cookieless tracking solutions and their pros and cons
• How should marketers prepare for the new era of marketing?

Cookies or no cookies: How did we get here?

For years, marketers have been grappling with uncertainty as major players like Apple and Firefox took steps to block third-party cookies.

Recently, Google did a 180 and backpedaled on its decision to remove third-party cookies in Chrome. Surprising news? Absolutely. But is it totally unexpected? Probably not. Since Google relies heavily on tracking cookies for its ad business, its proposed alternatives haven’t really hit the mark yet.

Additionally, there’s no universal standard for how tracking should work in the future. We all followed the same ways of working in the past—using third-party cookies, UTM tags, etc. It was a unified approach. But now, there are several cookie alternative solutions, which I’ll discuss in a bit. For example, Google came up with Privacy Sandbox. However, because it involves multiple complex technologies, not everyone is on board with it. In fact, I’d say this lack of consensus is likely one of the reasons Google hasn’t fully phased out third-party cookies in Chrome yet—they’re waiting for broader agreement before making that move.

Focusing too much on ‘cookieless tracking’ might actually downplay the scale of the shift. It’s not just cookies that are going away—it’s the entire framework of how we handle user data and tracking that’s transforming. This is just one piece of a much larger privacy revolution. Instead of fixating on cookies, marketers should be gearing up for a future built around privacy-friendly advertising and tracking solutions.

My colleague Evan Kaeding also shares his view on the future of cookies and Google’s decision in the Supermetrics community, which is a great place to be if you want to catch up with the latest industry news and Supermetrics tips.

Read Evan’s full take on the future of cookies.

What’s cookieless tracking?

Cookieless tracking methods are rapidly gaining attention in the industry. They offer alternative ways to gather and analyze user data without relying on third-party cookies. While these methods prioritize privacy, they also try to preserve the valuable user segmentation and signals that marketers need. Here are five prominent alternatives.

5 cookieless tracking alternatives

Google’s Privacy Sandbox is a potential tracking standard

It’s a collection of new technologies designed to replace traditional tracking methods in a privacy-compliant way. Similar to Apple’s App Tracking Transparency, Privacy Sandbox also lets users choose whether they want to share data for advertising purposes. It has different APIs that do similar tasks to what cookies used to do:

• Attribution reporting API: allows conversion attribution without revealing any personal data.
• Topics API: groups users by interests based on browsing activity, allowing targeted ads without creating individual profiles.
• Protected audience API: do ad auctions directly in the user’s browser, removing the need for third-party server that store personal data.

Benefits of Google’s Privacy Sandbox:

• Privacy-first: aims to enhance user privacy by preventing tracking across multiple websites.
• Potential industry standard: if widely adopted, it could shape how digital marketing operates in a post-cookie world.
• Customizable: allows targeted ads based on interest groups, not individual profiles.

Downsides:

• High adoption barrier: so far, it’s been tested with only 1% of Chrome users, with mixed results.
• Decreased interest: marketers are losing motivation to test or implement Privacy Sandbox due to Google’s delays and uncertainty around fully removing third-party cookies.

Fingerprinting is a powerful but risky alternative to cookies

This is a method of identifying users by collecting unique details about their device and browser configuration. This creates a “fingerprint” that can track users without cookies.

Benefits of fingerprinting:

• Effective identification: provides a unique way to identify users based on their hardware and software configurations.
• Tracks without cookies: enables tracking across websites even when cookies are blocked or unavailable.

Some privacy concerns around fingerprinting:

• Invasive: tracks users without consent, making it highly intrusive and likely illegal under GDPR and other privacy laws.
• Hard to regulate: it’s difficult to detect since data collection and processing can happen separately.
• Exploits technical details: uses information like installed fonts and hardware specs, making it both invasive and challenging to control.

Matomo’s Config ID is a privacy-friendly version of fingerprinting

Matomo, an alternative to Google Analytics 4, uses a method that resembles fingerprinting but is designed to be privacy-friendly. The “Config ID” creates a temporary, random identifier to track users without personal identification. It’s time-limited and anonymized, offering a balance between accurate tracking and privacy compliance.

Some benefits of Matomo include:

• GDPR-compliant: designed to be privacy-friendly and avoid the legal issues that surround fingerprinting.
• Accurate tracking without cookies: provides reliable tracking for a short window without requiring cookies or invasive methods.

Some limitations of Matomo are:

• Limited tracking duration: config_id is only valid for 24 hours, making long-term tracking difficult.
• Domain-limited: the ID is specific to a website domain, so cross-site tracking is not possible.
• Performance trade-offs: the rotating ID offers privacy but may lead to less precise data over extended timeframes.

Server-side tracking is effective for tracking activities within a single website

In this method, tracking is handled by the server rather than the browser. It provides high accuracy for first-party data collection, but it cannot track user behavior across multiple domains.

Benefits of server-side tracking

• High accuracy: provides accurate tracking for activities that happen within one specific website because the server knows all the requests.
• Privacy-compliant: it focuses on data from a company’s own website, so it is GDPR-compliant and doesn’t rely on third-party cookies.
• Resilient to client-side blocking: since tracking is done on the server, it is not affected by browser-based blocking mechanisms like cookie blockers or ad blockers.

Downsides

• Single-domain limitation: It only works for tracking activity within one domain or website. Cross-domain tracking is not possible.
• Limited data collection: The server only knows about its own interactions with the user, not the user’s broader behavior across multiple sites.

Conversions API lets you send conversion data to advertising platforms for targeting

Platforms like Meta, TikTok, and LinkedIn use Conversions API (CAPI) to help advertisers send conversion data—such as purchases made after clicking an ad—back to the platform. This helps fill the gap left by the decline of third-party cookies, as platforms can no longer automatically track user activity across different sites. By linking ad engagement to conversions, CAPI improves tracking accuracy without relying on cookies.

Benefits of CAPIs

• Fills tracking gaps: helps complete the picture of user behavior that is lost with third-party cookies.
• Works with existing systems: it’s designed to complement server-side tracking and can be integrated into current advertising systems like Facebook Ads.

Downsides:

• Requires technical implementation: businesses need to invest in integrating these APIs with their systems, which can require significant technical expertise.
• Partial solution: only solve a part of the problem, i.e., tracking conversions, but they don’t address other aspects of user tracking, such as browsing behavior across sites.

How should marketers prepare for this new era of advertising?

Accept that the days of ‘perfectly accurate’ data are over

The trade-off between privacy and data accuracy is permanent. That’s why you should make the most of what you know and focus on maximizing the insights you can gain from the data you still have rather than clinging to the lost granularity of tracking data.

Instead of obsessing over tracking individual users, you should shift toward a broader audience and cohort-level tracking. At the end of the day, marketing is usually about targeting groups, not individuals.

Invest in first-party data

When it comes to making the most of what you know, you should double down on collecting first-party data. Since it’s collected directly from your customers with their consent, first-party data provides more accurate data about the users’ behavior and preferences. The more data and context you have about your customers, the more opportunities you have to create meaningful campaigns.

Experiment with Privacy Sandbox and new technologies

We’re in an interesting transition period where doing things the old way still works well, even though with a lot of compromises and duct-taping. Still, I urge you to start preparing for this change because, eventually, the old methods will no longer be viable. For example, you can start exploring new methods like Google’s Privacy Sandbox. Despite its limitations, Privacy Sandbox could be the potential industry standard. The earlier you adopt it, the more benefits you can reap when the technology matures.

Embrace statistical modeling like marketing mix modeling

You should also explore alternative ways of analyzing data using statistical modeling, such as marketing mix modeling (MMM). MMM measures marketing impacts by analyzing historical data. It works on “vast data, on big cohorts and segments,” which aligns with the new era of privacy-focused marketing.

Get a head in a cookieless world

Regardless of Google’s decision to remove cookies, it won’t change the fact that third-party cookie tracking is dismantling and declining, and the way the whole ad industry works is changing. The best thing you can do is leave the past behind and prepare for the future:

1. Accept the new reality and manage your expectations when it comes to what data you can realistically get
2. Start exploring cookieless alternatives
3. Invest in your first-party data collection strategy
4. Test and iterate as you go