As privacy laws reshape the digital marketing landscape, many see the loss of cookies as a setback. In reality, it’s an opportunity to build smarter, more effective strategies that deliver genuine value to consumers who are no longer passive data points but active participants in the conversation.
The Protection of Personal Information Act (Popia), which was implemented in South Africa in 2021, and the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), introduced in 2018, require clear consent for tracking. For marketers, this means that the days of default data harvesting are over. Ignoring this shift not only risks legal action but also erodes consumer trust, something brands cannot afford at a time when almost 70% of South African companies expected that Popia would disrupt their marketing strategies.
Understanding this new environment starts with accepting its constraints. Cookies once enabled powerful tools such as cross-site ad targeting, retargeting and frequency capping, allowing advertisers to track behaviour, measure campaigns and personalise content at scale. Now, however, these tools have been significantly curtailed, and marketers face what feels like an information gap: the challenge of not knowing what they don’t know.
But this is also the pivot point. With blanket tracking off the table, brands are pushed to think creatively about how they engage their audiences. For example, the paper “Adapting digital marketing strategies for a cookie-less future: Challenges and opportunities,” shows that cookies will now only provide about a third of the insights marketers needed to fully understand campaign performance.
One way forward in a world where ubiquitous cookies are no longer a viable option is in-app personalisation, where users explicitly opt in. By agreeing to receive targeted content within a brand’s own ecosystem, consumers gain a tailored experience that matches their preferences and needs. This deepens engagement, drives conversions and builds trust while growing revenue, as advertising is more tailored than ever before.
Another approach is to focus on niche communities via in-app personalisation, allowing consumers to drive the conversation. Instead of pushing generic messages, brands can build connections through shared experiences or interests, or even by means of entertainment-led campaigns that foster a sense of belonging. These relationships echo the principles of friendship: relevance, reciprocity and respect.
Both strategies share one essential element: consent. This is a fundamental departure from the cookie era, when data was often collected silently and indiscriminately. By giving people a clear choice, marketers can turn compliance into an advantage. Those who opt in are already signalling intent, which makes them far more valuable than the broad, unqualified audiences of the past.
Some may argue that, without cookies, campaign costs will rise because marketers will reach fewer people. Research from Cornell University indicates that, following the introduction of GDPR, the number of data-sharing connections between websites fell by around 40%.
But this overlooks a key point: relevance matters more than raw numbers. A smaller, permission-based audience is inherently more qualified. As a result, the cost of reaching a likely buyer, not just a random user, actually decreases.
While an environment without third-party cookies will reduce overall reach, it also narrows the focus to people who have actively engaged. The result: fewer wasted impressions, better conversion rates and, ultimately, more efficient campaigns.
In fact, this change could finally put to rest the long-standing myths about “surveillance marketing” — those jokes about Google “listening” to private conversations or Facebook serving up ads based on a single curious search. While such perceptions have always been exaggerated, they have damaged trust in digital advertising.
Moving away from opaque tracking mechanisms gives a chance to rebuild credibility and create a more transparent value exchange with consumers.
The cookie-less world is not a loss; it is a reset. It allows marketers to focus less on scale and more on substance. By investing in tactics that respect privacy and encourage active participation, brands can create richer, more meaningful campaigns that serve both business objectives and consumer expectations.
Ultimately, the measure of success should not be how many people a campaign reaches, but how many of them actually want to hear from you. In this sense, privacy-driven marketing is not a constraint. It is an invitation — to be more relevant, more respectful, and, paradoxically, more effective.
The brands that recognise this will not only navigate the transition but emerge stronger. By treating privacy as a foundation rather than as an obstacle, they will build the kind of trust that turns customers into advocates: a true competitive advantage in a post-cookie world.
Elaine van Wyk is the group chief marketing and sales officer at the IMM Graduate School.
The big take-out: Privacy-driven marketing is not a constraint but rather an invitation to be more relevant, more respectful and, paradoxically, more effective.
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