Website tagging is a more critical element of first-party data capture and digital measurement as the industry moves closer to the phase-out of third-party cookies, according to Karen Stocks, VP of Global Measurement at Google. In an interview in CM sister pub AdExchanger, she stressed the need for marketers to prioritize tag management during this transition.

Third-party cookies have functioned as a kind of “backup” for collecting valuable information when a good tagging setup is not in place. However, come 2024, that system will no longer exist. “Tagging has been around for so long that people kind of glaze over when they talk about it. It’s been in the background. But it needs to come to the forefront of the conversation about what durable measurement looks like in the future,” she said.

In addition to helping marketers collect first-party data as they interact with your website, tags also support consumer privacy preferences and help manage reader consent choices. For instance, if a consumer opts in via a cookie banner, that choice is shared with the content publisher via tags, allowing marketers to determine precisely how to use that consumer’s data while remaining privacy-compliant. Read more about the importance of tag management in AdExchanger.