Coremetrics, a provider of web analytics and marketing solutions, announced a study that found online retailers leveraging third-party cookies for web data capture are not obtaining a complete view of online visitor behavior.
Coremetrics' LIVEmark Index found that 13.8 percent of third-party cookies are blocked, compared to less than one percent of first-party cookies. The company says anonymous traffic indicates that a user has either blocked cookies or opted out of tracking, which disallows the creation of a customer profile. Coremetrics recommends using first-party cookies for data collection because it lessens the challenges associated with visitors blocking third-party cookies.
"The ability to capture and store web behaviors in lifetime profiles is critical for ecommerce organizations looking to understand the value of online investments," says Joe Davis, president and CEO, Coremetrics.
The LIVEmark Index data found that retail sites are websites with the highest rates of third-party cookie blocking at 16.4 percent.
"The consumers are reading in the media that cookies are harmful and invasive and they are not being presented with the full story. They need to understand the beneficial uses of cookies in order to make a truly informed decision as to whether to delete them or disable them," says Cory R Treffiletti, SVP, managing director, Carat Interactive.
"When tracking cookies are rejected by such a large group of users, it significantly impacts the size of the population that can be accurately profiled. By migrating to solutions that issue first-party cookies, ecommerce organizations can expand the amount of data they can capture, and the breadth of consumer behavior they can measure accurately," adds Davis.
Advertisement