Google’s reversal on deprecating third-party cookies

As the digital landscape of affiliate and performance marketing evolves, Google’s recent decision to reconsider the deprecation of third-party cookies has sparked new industry-wide conversations about the future of user privacy and data tracking.

Google’s reversal on deprecating third-party cookies at first glance marks a major shift in its strategy. In announcing its decision, Google indicated that it intends to empower users with greater control, stating, “Instead of deprecating third-party cookies, we [plan to] introduce a new experience in Chrome that lets people make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing, and they’d be able to adjust that choice at any time.” However, some analysts believe that this change does little to alter the industry’s march toward greater user-centric privacy.

While Google’s shift may raise concerns about affiliate marketing, it has no impact on Rakuten Advertising’s affiliate tracking technology or the tracking capabilities of our network and partners. Our tracking solutions are built to be robust, effective, and reliable, adapting seamlessly to the affiliate marketing and greater digital environmental changes. As a best practice, we continue to encourage our partners to ensure they are using the newest and best capabilities in our suite of tracking tools to maximize its benefits, including:

Server-to-Server Tracking

Server-to-server tracking supports multiple data formats (JSON, XML, NVP) and allows partners to commission over extended time horizons to account for conversion journeys that fall outside of a typical retail journey (e.g., for financial services). Rakuten Advertising provides access to reporting over 100 tracking attributes, allowing advertisers to bring campaign strategy to life through dynamic commissioning, AI-powered insights and analytics, and more.

Linkless Tracking

Linkless tracking helps brands reach more audiences by facilitating tracking across all channels, including social media, streaming video, and podcasting—all without relying on clicks and links. Advertisers assign unique codes to publishers and commission when the code is used at checkout.

Off-line Tracking and Card-Linked Offers

Rakuten Card Linked Offers is a pay-for-performance platform that drives traffic and sales through customer reward programs. It promotes merchant offers to over 200M customers across its publishers’ digital properties, rewarding customers for shopping in-store and online, helping to drive growth, acquisition, and retention across its entire omnichannel business.

Beta – Bounceless Tracking

Many of our partners express concern about tracking loss due to ad blockers. To counter this, we are developing new technology that supports “bounceless redirects” for our affiliate links. This technology removes the “bounce” or re-direct between the publisher’s and advertiser’s sites. It provides a more direct route for the end user between the publisher’s and advertisers’ sites and mitigates interruptions to tracking by ad blockers.

Audience Engine

Audience Engine is an industry-first enhancement that lets advertisers personalize offers and messaging to target audience segments on a pay-for-performance basis through select partners. Advertisers can incentivize publishers to acquire new customers, reactivate lapsed customers, drive sales of specific products, and more. Additionally, this technology empowers publishers to invest in their first-party data strategy and helps future-proof revenue as the digital advertising ecosystem evolves.

By staying ahead of industry changes, focusing on innovation, especially in AI, and leveraging first-party data, Rakuten Advertising ensures our partners will continue to thrive in a rapidly transforming digital landscape.

If you’d like to learn more about our tracking capabilities or how Rakuten Advertising’s approach to industry-wide changes, please contact us here.