Google Begins Testing Browser-Based Ad Targeting In U.S. (mediapost.com)

For the generations that grew up on Blue’s Clues, mail time is pretty few and far between these days. As a Gen Z/millennial “cusper,” Emily Loof, development and marketing manager at education nonprofit Colorado Youth for a Change (CYC), said she’s pushed for an increased use of direct mail in her current and past roles. Since last year, she said CYC has “about doubled” its direct-mail marketing budget. In addition to seeing increased donations, Loof said she’s also received feedback that indicates younger people may be itching for more things in their mailbox. One person “tagged our organization on Facebook and said, ‘This is so cool. Like, I never get letters from people that I donate to,’” she told us. Given growing data-privacy concerns, clutter in online advertising, and demand for brand authenticity, some marketers we spoke to said the best way to reach younger consumers could be through some good ol’ fashioned snail mail.

Google has once again delayed the death of the third-party tracking cookie in its Chrome browser. This is the third reprieve Google has given cookies since it first promised to phase them out in 2020. The next year, it pushed the date back to 2023 and then delayed it again to 2024. In its latest postponement, Google said in a blog, “we envision proceeding with third-party cookie deprecation starting early next year.” The search giant seemed on its way to phasing out cookies earlier this year after it cut off access to 1 percent of cookies in January. However, how and when Google would phase out a greater percentage of cookies was never clear, multiple ad industry insiders said. Total Retail's Take: This is interesting news for retailers, and particularly their marketing teams, which rely on third-party cookies to identify and track customer behavior on their websites.

A new study from Interpublic’s Magna and the IPG Media Lab reinforces the idea—embraced by the industry for a number of years now—that ad personalization is one of the best techniques to help brands deliver more relevant and effective ad experiences. The study focused on three key ad categories—auto, retail and finance—and includes responses from more than 6,000 participants. Testing was conducted on two audience types: brand target demographics and high-value audiences based on people-based IDs created by precision targeting platform Kinesso. Six types of data sources for personalization were tested: demos, past purchases, location, life events, search terms and precision messages for high-value audiences. The study found that most forms of ad personalization had some value and that higher levels of personalization were more effective at shifting difficult-to-move metrics.