July 23, 2025

Catching Big Fish with Online Marketing Post Privacy.

Written by

Katia Martin

Online marketing post privacy / marketing en ligne post l'ere des lois sur la vie privée

Chances are, you’ve heard something about online privacy regardless of the field that you work in. For most marketers and digital marketing agencies, it has been challenging to say the least. The rollout of new laws is the first step towards the decommissioning of 3rd party cookie collection altogether. It will ultimately force digital agencies and marketing departments to rethink strategies that have worked well for them. Some might feel like they don’t know what to do about it. This post will help break down what is required, guide you through transitioning your marketing tactics and align its digital strategies to the “third-party data collection” online marketing era.

What Are Third-Party Cookies?

No, it is not a party to which you would invite the cookie monster to. It would probably be the most boring party ever. They are pieces of information that websites collect from users. This data is based on user profiles, online activities, and behaviours. It is then shared with third parties like Google or Bing. The goal is to target users right when they are ready to make a purchase. For years, this tactic has been Google’s most effective marketing strategy. It helped businesses revolutionize the data collection industry. By doing so, they were able to serve highly targeted ads to users actively searching for their products.

Why is Online Privacy Such a Hot Topic?

Third-party cookies have been a powerful tool for online marketers. They allow advertisers to reach a specific audience at the exact moment they’re ready to buy. But there’s a darker side. Imagine a woman who buys a pregnancy test online from her home computer. Later, her mother-in-law checks her email on the same device and sees a flood of ads for diapers and cribs. That’s one awkward way to spill the news. That’s just one example of how online advertising can cross serious personal boundaries. There’s clearly a major conflict here. Something has to change in how online marketing works. But the big question is — where does that leave marketers?

What Are the Data Privacy Laws For and How Does It Affect Online Marketing?

The truth of the matter is that invasive online marketing tactics have broken the public’s confidence in self-regulation. This has led to many people opting for alternative browsers such as DuckDuckGo or Safari, which are not in the third-party data collection industry, so that they don’t feel like they have to be stalked in order to be able to browse online. So, to salvage the public’s trust on the online landscape, these online privacy laws have arrived in a timely manner. Privacy is a fundamental right according to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada¹ . This means that you should be able to browse whatever you like without having to divulge it all to your entire household or constantly be stalked online by hungry brands.

Laws governing data privacy are not only there to give power back to the user on whether or not organizations can target them, but they also ensure that data is getting handled in a responsible way. It holds companies accountable for data misuse by legislating how companies collect confidential information, where they can share and store this data, and how they keep promises advertised in their Privacy Policies (to which consumers must agree before conducting online transactions).

How do these online privacy laws apply in Canada?

We have both federal and provincial laws in Canada. Both federal and provincial applications require full disclosure on the use of personal information and data collection on websites. It applies in the following ways:

The assignment of a data officer: The law says that someone must be responsible for data and the assurance that users’ data is safe.
Explicit consent: Businesses must obtain clear and explicit consent from individuals before collecting their personal data.
Data Subject Rights: Individuals have the right to access, correct, delete, and restrict the processing of their data.
Data Breach Notifications: Assigned data officers must notify authorities of data breaches within 72 hours.

Think of comparing macintosh, empire and green apples. They’re essentially the same fruit, yet taste slightly different. However, they all leave a slightly sour taste in your digital marketing mouth. Under Law 25 for Quebec & GDPR for Europe, businesses must turn off tracking cookies by default unless the user accepts the terms of data collection. Under PIPEDA, tracking is allowed as long as a consumer is reasonably informed beforehand and has the option to opt out if they so desire. However, the consequences for violations are slightly different. In Quebec, under Law 25, fines can range from $5,000 – $25M or up to 4% of global revenue. For PIPEDA, violators could face fines of up to $100,000.

So PIPEDA, Law 25 and GDPR – What’s the Difference?

Implementing Good Data Hygiene Practices for your Business

Always wanted to be a superhero? Well, sadly, implementing good online data hygiene, for most of us, is the only way we’ll ever be able to fight crime. It might sound pretty lame but it is a great way to get your audience to trust you and your business. Doing the bare minimum is not enough anymore and it is expected that businesses go above and beyond what the law says to keep them safe.

Audit Your Data Practices: Regularly review your data collection, storage, and usage practices to ensure compliance with relevant laws.
Transparency and Communication: Be transparent with your audience about how their data is being used and provide clear options for managing their preferences.
Implement Strong Security Measures: Invest in robust data security protocols to protect user information.
Stay Informed: Data privacy laws are constantly evolving. Stay updated with the latest regulations and adjust your strategies accordingly.

Where does this leave online advertisers and digital marketing agencies?

Whether or not we want to admit it, third-party data collection and behavioural targeting on Google will soon be phased out. Given that it has been the Philips head in every digital marketer’s toolbox, this rollout has been a bit of a thorn. It means that Google’s behavioural and interest-based audience pond is getting smaller and will have to eventually dry up. These audiences are commonly used in Google’s ad channels like Performance Max, YouTube, and Display campaign types.

So is the third-party data collection era dead?

The idea that third-party cookie collection could possibly be a thing of the past is a prospect that a lot of marketers really don’t care to address until it is gone, mainly because there is no clear-cut solution. We’ve already seen Safari and Firefox ahead of the curve on this matter, and Google is also on its way out. But fret not, Google is not planning to leave the digital marketing sphere anytime soon.

Where does this leave online advertisers and digital marketing agencies?

Whether or not we want to admit it, third-party data collection and behavioral targeting on Google will soon be phased out. Given that it has been the Philips head in every digital marketer’s toolbox, this roll out has been a bit of a thorn. It means that Google’s behavioral and interest based audience pond is getting smaller and will have to eventually dry up. These audiences are commonly used in Google’s ad channels like Performance Max, Youtube, and Display campaign types.

Google’s Evolution Post Cookie Collection

The Google Privacy Sandbox is its transition from the 3rd party cookie collection market to instead opt for a grouped user data collection process based on interests and behaviours, removing personal identifiers from the mix. This could be a viable alternative to using a cookie-based system, but we’ll have to wait for the launch to see if this is indeed the next evolution of digital marketing or just a short-sighted alternative.

What does online privacy mean for catching those big fish in a digital marketing pond?

1. The future is contextual-based advertising rather than behavioural.
Targeting based on a website’s topic is going to become more common practice. Google Ad’s Performance Max campaign already offers that option. Performance Max displays ads in a variety of ways, including display ads on blogs and interest-focused websites. This makes sure that if your brand sells high-end cars, your ad will appear on websites that talk about luxury cars. Clearly, if an audience is actively engaged in a topic that they will be way more receptive to advertising on that topic.

2.Consider Google Ads search campaigns as an alternative.
Considering that in-market audiences is a bottom funnel strategy, it makes sense to replace it with another bottom funnel strategy. Google search campaigns, if done correctly, reach people who are actively shopping for your products, making it a bottom-funnel strategy and viable replacement. Consider a search campaign as a much more effective alternative to behavioural targeting without the need for collecting cookies.

3.Organic contentcreation & blogging are king.
It is the difference between push and pull marketing tactics. It is simply increasing visibility in front of an audience that is actively searching for a topic and presenting them with interesting and engaging content. Reaching out to an audience in a more organic fashion will become a much more valued and appreciated approach to advertising, rather than aggressive ads following you everywhere you go, at times you are disengaged.

4. If organic content is king, then email personalization is queen.
An email strategy goes hand-in-hand with a blogging and organic content creation strategy. If you are going to be implementing these tactics, then you should really consider building an email strategy in order to support your blogging strategy and ensure the effectiveness of the incoming potential leads coming from it.

5. Consider sources that use first-party data as opposed to third-party data
Since Facebook is only using data that is collected from a user’s activity on its online marketing platform, it is considered a first user data collection method. This means that governing laws do not reach their audiences, and make it so that you can continue to reach your audience based on their behaviour online.

In conclusion, I’d like to emphasize that digital marketing is in the process of evolving, and it is important to stay ahead of the curve in order to prevent getting stuck somewhere along the way. Contextual-based marketing and search engine marketing tactics are so much less invasive than the behavioural marketing tactics. Organic content and SEM encourage engagement and promote trust towards a user rather than a brand that uses pushy marketing tactics. I have been actively involved in my account’s performance and have personally seen the drop in effectiveness of these marketing tactics. For this reason, I have stopped recommending them to my clients and have actively been promoting the above tactics instead. For more information on how to implement some of these tactics.