Once again, the release of a new browser heralds the arrival of anonymous, cookie-free web surfing. What can marketers do to keep their online ad campaigns from going haywire?
Late last month, various tech publications confirmed rumors that Internet Explorer 8 would contain an operational mode called "InPrivate" that would let users cover their tracks online. A ZDNet blogger called this functionality "porn mode," setting off a chain reaction on the social news sites that left online advertising professionals wondering whether or not Microsoft could kill its business in short order.
When I first heard the rumors, I couldn't help but think that we've been down this path before. A decade ago, rumors abounded that the newest release of IE would have cookie acceptance shut off by default, leaving the end user to turn it back on again. Online marketers wigged out, until it became obvious that surfing with cookies shut off would make it awfully tough for a user to complete basic web tasks like customizing content, logging into a website, or shopping online. As it turned out, it was just a rumor anyway.
We've had a series of warning shots over the years. In my opinion, the most serious of which is spyware removal software that incorrectly identifies ad server cookies as malware and removes them. Since that controversy, statistics on cookie deletion have regularly figured into conference panels, online marketing white papers, and articles like this one.
When the latest cookie scare emerged, my first thought was "here we go again," immediately followed by thoughts of how silly we are for having all this time to develop ad targeting, frequency management, ad serving, and customization technologies that aren't cookie-dependent and having next to nothing to show for it. If cookies did disappear overnight, we'd be in a lot of trouble. Thankfully, despite this announcement from Microsoft, I doubt cookies are going anywhere anytime soon.
Why do I think this is a tempest in a teapot?
It's the value proposition. Certain end users might believe that cookies are malicious little tracking programs. In reality, they enable a great deal of technological wizardry that we've all come to know and love. Web users will find it tough to make websites deliver detailed information on their interests and content preferences without delivering targeted advertising. The reason? Anything a website wishes to store about a user (within the limits of its privacy policy, of course) is stored in external databases and not within a cookie.
The cookie is merely an identifier that corresponds to a data profile. A user might elect to delete certain cookies, but that action doesn't delete what is known about the user. It only deletes the link to that information. Upon logging in again, the link can be reestablished. An ad server can thus stitch together various bits of non-anonymous surfing behavior, even if they're interrupted by bouts of anonymous browsing.
Only the most privacy-conscious will take steps to entirely avoid profile-based targeting, and those people are probably already using things like privacy proxies or ad strippers to defeat online ads.
Another reason is the current positioning coming from Microsoft. It serves up InPrivate as a way to avoid spoiling your spouse's birthday surprise by revealing the purchase of a surprise gift, or to avoid having the next guy to use an internet kiosk know where you've been.
Yes, there's little doubt that many IE users will see InPrivate as a way to keep people from knowing about their visits to certain sites of ill repute, but I doubt InPrivate will be seen as a way to surf anonymously all of the time.
I also think that given the opportunity to block pieces of content that could reveal aspects of browsing history, most users would rather not. Why not? There are two possibilities. Users can elect to block the content, in which case they may start encountering pages with blank areas and wonder what they're missing, or they can selectively block content by having several pop-up dialogue boxes spawn asking them if they would like to block content from Ad.Doubleclick.net.
Both possibilities are incredibly annoying for the end user.
There are a bunch of other reasons why I don't think InPrivate will kill targeted advertising. One of them is the notion that Microsoft wouldn't want to kill off existing revenue streams. But the biggest one is that we've been down this path before and we're still standing. I'd probably feel a lot more comfortable if our technologies weren't cookie-dependent, but I don’t think the sky is falling either.
Tom Hespos is the president of Underscore Marketing and blogs at Hespos.com.