By Juliet Umeh

As the online advertising industry counts down to the total extinction of third-party cookies, online advertisers and digital marketers have been urged to test new solutions now rather than later. This was a consensus call at a recent webinar organized by Terragon Limited in conjunction with Facebook.

The Webinar titled: Online Advertising in a Post-Cookie World: Delivering Personalised Ads using the Terragon CDP and Facebook Conversions API, had almost 300 sign-ups from industry leaders and practitioners from leading FMCG, Telcos, Banks and E-Commerce brands across Africa.

Speaking during the Webinar, Chris Humphery, a Marketing Strategy and Tech Consultant at PwC, noted that brands must invest in data and technology to prepare adequately for the post-cookie world.

“To test and learn is not to move fast and fail, it is about moving fast and building things. It is understanding what data and technology can expand into the marketing technology space and potentially adding to that MarTech space to drive through the greater ability to execution.”

Buttressing the same point, Dayo Adefila, Head Digital Marketing, Africa at PZ Cussons advised against a fire-brigade approach to online advertising in a post-cookie world.

“Test and begin. Don’t wait till October, November. Start getting to see how you can take advantage of Facebook’s Conversions API and look at the right CDP. Terragon has something that is really customised for Africa because it is mobile-first and it has mobile reach.”

Acknowledging the potential disruptions to online advertising that the extinction of third-party cookies will cause, the speakers called for re-strategising and investment in customer data.

“What advertisers really need to do is to rethink their approach to customer data. Ultimately, by doing that, they will reduce their reliance on the third-party cookies.” Chris Humphrey noted.”

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“The role of a CDP (Customer Data Platform) will become very important in a post-cookie world and particularly API into each of the Walled Gardens. The challenge that we as advertisers will have is getting the level of data back from those Walled Gardens.” He added

On his part, Dayo Adefila highlighted the importance of re-strategising in order for advertisers to meet their KPIs.

“There’s a brave new world that is not waiting. At the end of the day you don’t want to be spending money without achieving key results.”

“Customer Relationship Management is required to help get better first-party data and to understand what is important to your customers.”- He added.

Introducing the Facebook Conversions API, a solution to help brands prepare for the post-cookie world, Emily Wilson, a Marketing product and Partnership Manager at Facebook discussed the importance of personalisation to consumers and how Facebook’s solution can help brands.

“When we surveyed consumers across 8 markets globally, 87% of consumers feel that it  is really important to purchase from brands or retailers that understand them and understand what they actually care about.”

“Personalised experiences are powered by data and that is what helps advertisers provide the most relevant message at the right time across a customer’s journey. It is impossible to serve a targeted Ad to someone and make sure that Ad is super relevant and interesting to them if you don’t know anything about that user.”

Also speaking on the benefits of the solution, she noted that the Facebook Conversions API can be used to share any kind of real-time website interaction with a brand’s website as well as the customer activity that may be stored in the server that the pixel may not be able to access.” –

She stressed the need for Brands to invest in data-driven marketing noting that “The better your data, the better your Return on Investment.”

According to her: “A more reliable data connection ultimately means better insight into your customers’ activities and preferences and more insights provide more opportunities to personalise the Ad experience for customers which ultimately drives higher engagement and better outcomes for your business.”

Terragon is the leading data and analytics company in Africa that uses data and analytics to help brands in Africa connect at scale to their customers.

Terragon is also listed as the only African-founded CDP partner for the Conversions API, in Africa.

Vanguard News Nigeria