Few companies are as central to the gambling affiliate marketing ecosystem as Google. Few are as controversial or profitable as the search giant, as has been confirmed in recent days.
For marketers, the big news is that the “Cookiepocalypse” has been canceled (or at least mitigated), and the company’s quarterly results also hinted at the significant impact AI is having on search.
A New Cookie Solution
Under pressure from privacy advocates and regulators, Google has spent the last four years working on a plan to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome. Now, the company has partially reversed that plan.
Launched in 2019, the Privacy Sandbox program aimed to find innovative solutions that would significantly improve online privacy while preserving the ad-supported publisher ecosystem that connects businesses with customers and provides everyone with free access to a variety of content.
Put simply, Google was trying to get rid of tracking cookies without disrupting online businesses.
After years of trying to find a way to remove cookies that wouldn’t disrupt the way the web worked, Google has partially backed down and announced a “new approach.”
Anthony Chavez, VP of Privacy Sandbox, explained that while Google remains optimistic that the program can deliver improved privacy for users, he also acknowledges that the previously planned transition “requires significant work from many stakeholders and will impact publishers, advertisers, and everyone involved in online advertising.”
“In light of this, we are proposing an updated approach that elevates user choice,” he continued. “Instead of deprecating third-party cookies, we would 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. We’re discussing this new path with regulators, and will engage with the industry as we roll this out.”
For marketers and ad tech professionals who had already invested significant effort and resources into preparing for the disappearance of cookies, the news may have come as a major disappointment. However, their work was not in vain, as the Privacy Sandbox APIs remain available, and Chavez noted that “it is still important for developers to have privacy-preserving alternatives.”
Others may have greeted the announcement with relief, feeling that they can continue to operate as usual. However, this relief is likely to be short-lived, lasting until Google unveils its solution to allow users to opt out of third-party cookies, although the exact timing of this move has not yet been announced.
Giving Chrome users the final say on whether to accept cookies could significantly change the data available for analysis and modeling. It would almost certainly cause major disruptions to advertising strategies.
Clearly, the trend continues toward improved privacy. A world without cookies — or at least with minimal use of them — is still on the horizon.
The march of the chatbots
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet, also commented on the cookie switch during its Q2 earnings call. He noted: “On third-party cookies, given the implications across the ecosystems and considerations and feedback across so many stakeholders, we now believe user choice is the best path forward there,” he said. ”And we’ll both improve privacy, by giving users choice, and we will continue our investments in privacy-enhancing technologies. But it’s obviously an area we will be taking feedback from the players in the ecosystem. And we are committed to being privacy-first as well.”
Pichai spoke after Alphabet reported Q2 revenue of $84.7 billion, up 14% year over year. While that would be impressive for most companies, it underwhelmed the markets, sending Alphabet’s stock down 5% on the day.
Despite the company’s strong push into cloud, AI, and devices, advertising remained the company’s biggest growth engine. Google’s search ads contributed $48.5 billion of its $64.6 billion in revenue for the quarter.
Much attention has been focused on the potential of AI chatbots to disrupt Google’s search model, with the idea that they could directly answer user queries or offer more structured and accurate results, rather than the traditional SERP listing.
Alphabet’s results suggest that a major disruption has yet to occur, and that the shift from Google search to chatbots may be a while off. In this situation, the decision to delay the removal of third-party cookies and continue to provide the usual service to search advertisers and users seems to make financial sense.
Google’s troubled launch of AI reviews in the US, which in the early days produced inaccurate results due to user-generated content and satirical sites, did not help the expected shift to AI-generated search. Users who tried Google’s Gemini AI assistant for betting information may have felt some confusion and doubt about its real value.
Google isn’t about to change course on AI, with Pichai emphasizing on the conference call that AI reviews will soon be available in more countries. He also noted that the company is seeing “positive trends” in user usage and satisfaction.
“People who are looking for help with complex topics are engaging more and keep coming back for AI Overviews,” Pichai added. “And we see even higher engagement from younger users, aged 18-24, when they use Search with AI Overviews.
“We’re continuing to prioritise approaches that send traffic to sites across the web. And we’re seeing that ads appearing either above or below AI Overviews continue to provide valuable options for people to take action and connect with businesses.”
With Google fully focused on AI and competing with services like Perplexity and OpenAI’s SearchGPT, there’s no doubt that search will see significant changes in the near future. It remains to be seen when and how marketers will adapt to these changes.
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