Google abandons the removal of third-party cookies: e-commerce marketing strategies for 2025

Last updated: April 28, 2025

On April 25, 2025, Google officially heralded the abandonment of its plan to remove third-party cookies in Chrome, putting an end to five years of uncertainty for the digital marketing industry. This strategic shift regarding Google third-party cookies marks a major turning point in the advertising ecosystem and the future without third-party cookies that many anticipated. This reprieve offers a break for advertisers, but does not change the fundamental trajectory towards a more privacy-friendly web and the inevitable post-cookie era.

What you need to know about the Google announcement April 25, 2025

An unexpected decision after years of delays

Since the initial announcement in 2020, Google had already extended the Chrome cookie removal deadline three times:

• Premier postponing in 2021: deadline extended to the end of 2023
• Second postponing in 2022: deadline extended to the end of 2024
• Third deferral to April 2024: complete suppression postponed to early 2025

The impact of third party cookies seemed inevitable until this surprise announcement. The April 2025 decision is not just a further delay, but a complete reversal of strategy in user consent management. Google will no longer impose the mandatory removal of third-party cookies, opting instead for an approach centered on user choice.

The official reasons for the turnaround

In his statement, Anthony Chavez, vice president in charge of Google Privacy Sandbox, explained this change in direction by several factors:

1. A changing technological and regulatory landscape
2. Diverging points of view within the ecosystem (publishers, developers, regulators, advertisers)
3. The emergence of new technologies like generative AI

The new model based on user consent

Instead of deleting Chrome cookies globally, Google will introduce a “new Chrome experience” that allows users to make an “informed choice” about their use. This optional cookieless marketing approach represents a compromise between advertising needs and privacy protection. The exact terms of this user interface remain to be specified, but could be similar to Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT).

Experts anticipate a potentially high refusal rate for third-party cookies (between 66% and 90%), creating de facto a situation where Chrome would become “functionally” similar to Safari and Firefox, which already block these trackers - thus precipitating a cookie-free marketing strategy for many advertisers.

The impact for e-commerce advertisers

Short-term benefits

Google's decision offers several immediate benefits to e-commerce advertisers:

• Operational continuity current marketing strategies
• Maintaining retargeting to re-engage visitors who did not convert
• Metric stability of performance (ROAS, CPC, CTR)
• No urgent investment in alternative technologies

Ongoing challenges and a new reality

However, this reprieve does not change the fundamental challenges:

1. Increasing fragmentation : Safari and Firefox (40% of the market) already block third-party cookies
2. Declining consent rates : only 39% on average in 2024, -15% in one year
3. Reduced addressable audience after implementing user choice in Chrome
4. Strategic vulnerability Faced with future decisions by platforms

According to a study by Braze, 99% of marketing managers say that their advanced personalization plans have been impacted by concerns about data privacy. The CNIL has also published a report showing that 40% of users already refuse cookies, showing a growing concern for privacy.

The unavoidable rise of first-party data

Even with this reprieve granted to third-party cookies, the transition to first-party data remains unavoidable for several reasons:

Strategic benefits of proprietary data

• Superior quality : 92% customer recognition rate vs 65% for third-party data
• Technological independence : total control over collection and activation
• RGPD compliance : 80% reduction in legal risks
• Marketing performance : +35% repeat purchase rate with first-party personalization

First-party strategies for online retailers

1. Enrichment of product flows

Product data is becoming a central lever in advertising strategy in the face of blackboxes like Google:

• Semantic optimization of titles and descriptions to match search intentions
• Enrichment of product attributes to improve the relevance of ads as with Feed Enrich by Dataïads
• Systematic A/B testing of flow elements to maximize CTR and ROAS

2. Personalized post-click experience

The quality of the experience after the advertising click becomes decisive:

• Context adapted landing pages (device, platform, intent) as proposed Smart Landing Pages by Dataïads
• Intelligent merchandising based on the product clicked and relevant alternatives
• Optimizing web performance to reduce bounce rates

3. Redesigned loyalty programs

The consensual collection of CRM data is becoming a marketing objective in its own right:

• Exclusive rewards for preferential information
• Personalized content based on buying behaviors
• Omnichannel experiences merging online and offline data

Alternatives to third party cookies for digital marketing

Beyond first-party and zero-party data, several complementary approaches are being developed to ensure advertising performance without cookies:

Contextual ads

There is a renewed interest in advertising targeting without cookies based on page content rather than browsing history:

• Increased respect for privacy
• Relevance based on current intent
• Advanced AI technologies for a detailed understanding of the context
• Effective alternative to maintain marketing performance in a cookieless environment

Server-side tagging

Moving data collection from the browser to a controlled server:

• Better data reliability
• Partial circumvention of browser limitations
• Consolidation of data flows
• More reliable cookie-free personalization

The data clean rooms

Secure environments for sharing data between partners:

• Collaboration without direct exposure of personal data
• Cross-analyses between advertisers and publishers
• Audience measurement and improvement ROAS cookieless
• Future solution for targeting in post-cookie era

Conclusion: preparing for the future without third-party cookies for e-commerce

Google's abandoning the removal of third-party cookies offers a temporary respite, but does not change the fundamental trajectory towards a more privacy-friendly web and an inevitable cookie-free marketing strategy.

For e-retailers, this announcement represents an opportunity to:

1. Save time to develop a robust first-party strategy
2. Rethinking customer relationships towards greater transparency and added value
3. Investing in cookie-free product enrichment as a performance driver
4. Develop personalized landing pages without cookies to improve post-click conversion
5. Adopting a cookieless shopping ads strategy effective and long-lasting

In the post-cookie era that is looming despite this temporary reprieve, brands that invest now in post-click optimization without cookies and the intelligent exploitation of product data will be best positioned to thrive, regardless of future technological and regulatory developments.

The “Product Intelligence” approach proposed by platforms like Dataïads, focused on optimizing the product flow and the post-click experience, is perfectly in line with this vision of effective marketing with a significant improvement in ROAS cookieless.

Do you want to optimize your marketing strategy in the face of the end of third-party cookies? Find out how Dataïads can help you transform your product data into a lever for advertising performance with personalized landing pages without cookies and intelligent product enrichment to maximize your ROAS in the post-cookie era.

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