We love cookies, right? Well the baked edible goods. Perhaps not the digital ones so much. Those annoying cookie banner popups and overwhelmingly suspicious lists of cookies quietly collecting info on your every scroll or click? But what if we reframed the conversation? What if, instead of seeing cookies as a necessary evil, we recognised the mutual value they offer both users and organisations.
Why cookies aren't all bad
Despite the 'pop-up' fatigue, browser cookies serve a practical purpose. Skipping over the technical jargon, let's focus on the big picture:
cookies help website owners understand how people navigate their site and what content matters most.
The metrics they can tell paint a story on:
- where users came from
- how users found the site or app
- how long they stayed on screen
whilst keeping identities anonymised by aggregating the data and placing threshold limits (e.g. 100 users must have visited before the site owner can see any performance data).
Using data to improve your Experience
Ok, so you may have vaguely read that on a cookie banner 'they're using cookies to help improve your experience'. But how does this really translate into a better experience for you?
It comes down to action. A good marketer uses these data insights to identify content that needs work. For example, a once-popular FAQ page with declining visits and session time could indicate outdated info in the copy. With that insight, the site owner can make an informed decision whether to:
- retire irrelevant content
- update outdated info
- merge it with more useful content elsewhere
- improve pagespeed, mobile responsiveness or layout
The result? A smoother Experience overall, enabling user to spend less time hunting for what they need and more time benefiting from great content.
Compare that to a slow clunky site or app with outdated info. I'd go as far as to argue that digital waste: costly for site owners and frustrating for users.
Quality content needs quality data insights
No brand wants to throw their money into the void Site owners and advertisers have limited budgets to use effectively. Cookie-powered data insights, web analytics and ad performance data enable organisations to make better decisions about where to focus time and resources.
Data-backed decision making requires a feedback loop between consumers and online businesses.
users engage -> data is collected -> content is improved -> users engage more
With that feedback loop, naturally, they should be incentivised to make improvements and increase the quality of their offerings to appeal to user behaviour that correlates with increased engagement.
It's not just about chasing clicks. It's about building relevance, trust and long-term performance.
Furthermore, let's not forget that the major search engines, ad and social media platforms are raising the bar for content quality. They have guidelines and regulations that continue to become more stringent in protecting user safety and fighting spam, fraud and bots.
What about a "Cookieless" future?
Growing privacy regulations like GDPR, browser changes to phase out third-party cookies and smartphones' built-in features giving users control over each app's tracking mean cookies have evolved. "Cookieless" tracking methods include use of server-side tracking, first-party data (user-provided data) and contextual targeting.
The cookieless world has not ended user insights. It shifted the data world to more ethical and privacy-conscious ways of understanding user behaviour. Transparency in data usage helps build trust and is more important than ever, considering how fast technology moves widening the knowledge gap.
The majority of fear stems from the lack of knowledge.
Reframing the Cookie Conversation
So, while cookie banner pop-ups may feel like a pesky digital inconvenience, what's happening behind the scenes tends to work in your favour. Used responsibly, these insights help organisations deliver more useful and relevant Experiences.
It's about turning passive data into active incremental improvements.
Maybe cookies aren't the quiet ominous surveillance and rather the quiet handshake between you and the sites/apps you visit. A trade that, done right, benefits both sides.