Google’s recent abandonment of cookie deprecation does not change the need for robust identity resolution. Smart marketers must still master consumer data collection, measurement, and cross-channel identity to deliver personalized experiences and prove marketing effectiveness. This guide dissects identity resolution across digital channels and outlines the strategies winning brands deploy to maximize performance amid changing privacy regulations.

What is identity resolution and why does it matter now?

Identity resolution connects disparate consumer data sources to create unified customer profiles. It lets marketers accurately target messages, personalize campaigns, measure performance across channels, and deliver seamless customer experiences.

Despite Google’s reversal on third-party cookie deprecation, identity resolution remains critical. Consumer privacy concerns and expanding state-level regulations are restricting data access. Plus, the chaotic mix of identifiers across display, retail media, DOOH, and audio channels demands sophisticated identity solutions to deliver coherent cross-channel campaigns.

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What types of consumer data should marketers collect?

Marketers must understand the distinct advantages and limitations of each data type:

  • Zero-party data: Information consumers voluntarily provide through surveys, quizzes, preference centers, and feedback forms. Highest quality but limited scale.
  • First-party data: Data collected directly through your owned channels including website behavior, purchase history, email engagement, and app usage. Essential foundation for identity resolution.
  • Second-party data: Another organization’s first-party data, acquired through direct partnerships. Expands reach while maintaining quality.
  • Third-party data: Aggregated from various sources by providers without direct consumer relationships. Includes browsing behavior, demographic information, and purchase history from external sources. Broader scale but less accurate.

Comprehensive customer profiles combine multiple data types:

  • Demographic: Age, gender, location, income, profession
  • Behavioral: Website visits, app usage, email engagement, social interactions
  • Attitudinal: Survey responses, NPS scores, social listening insights
  • Transactional: Purchase frequency, average order value, spending patterns
  • Digital identifiers: IP addresses, device IDs, authenticated logins

Connecting these data sources through identity resolution creates a single customer view that powers personalized marketing and accurate measurement.

How is privacy legislation changing identity resolution?

Privacy regulations are fundamentally reshaping data collection and use. The industry remains unprepared .

Twenty states have passed comprehensive data privacy laws as of July 2024. Each creates unique compliance requirements and restricts how marketers collect and activate consumer data.

A federal privacy bill, the American Privacy Rights Act (APRA), was introduced in April 2024. If passed, it would eliminate the state-by-state patchwork and create a unified standard comparable to Europe’s GDPR. However, the bill stalled in June 2024 when committee markup was canceled.

Why did Google abandon third-party cookie deprecation?

Google’s April 2025 announcement shocked the industry. Rather than prompting users to opt out of third-party cookies, Chrome will continue supporting them by default. Users can still manually disable cookie tracking, but most won’t.

Three factors forced Google’s reversal:

  1. Regulatory pressure: The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority raised serious concerns in their April 2024 report
  2. Economic damage: Testing showed publishers would lose approximately 60% of Chrome revenue if cookies disappeared, far exceeding Google’s 5% target
  3. Industry opposition: The IAB Tech Lab warned Privacy Sandbox would “restrict the digital media industry’s ability to deliver relevant, effective advertising” and hurt smaller brands

Google claims “evolving” conditions since 2019 drove the decision, including better privacy-enhancing technologies and AI-driven security innovations.

They will enhance Chrome’s Incognito mode (which already blocks third-party cookies) with IP Protection in Q3 2025 and continue developing Privacy Sandbox APIs for undefined future purposes.

How do identity solutions work?

Anis a product or service that helps identify individuals or households across digital channels like web browsers, mobile apps, connected TV (CTV), or other devices. They generally leverage two types of data:

  • Deterministic data: Definitive identifiers like email addresses or phone numbers. Creates high-accuracy matches but limited scale. Much of this data lies within walled gardens (provided by consumers to create logins or user profiles), making it hard to scale outside of those environments.
  • Probabilistic data: Temporary signals like IP addresses, device characteristics, and timestamps used to infer identities through statistical modeling. Enables broader scale with lower precision.

Most effective solutions combine both approaches, using deterministic data where available and probabilistic data to extend reach.

What are Universal IDs?

Universal IDs create privacy-compliant identifiers that persist across websites and devices. Key solutions include:

  • The Trade Desk’s Unified ID 2.0 (UID2): Uses encrypted email addresses to create anonymous identifiers
  • ID5 ID: Combines various signals, including hashed emails, page URLs, and IP addresses
  • LiveRamp’s RampID: Transforms emails, names, and addresses into persistent IDs
  • Lotame’s Panorama ID: Links behavior across web, mobile, and CTV without relying on any single signal
  • Yahoo ConnectID: Leverages Yahoo’s Identity Graph from logged-in users
  • Criteo ID: Combines identity graph, browsing behavior, and transaction history
  • Neustar Fabrick ID: Replaces PII with alias identifiers in real-time
  • Prebid SharedID: Creates first-party identifiers for publishers

What non-ID solutions complement universal IDs?

Identity strategy requires multiple approaches beyond universal IDs:

  • Google Privacy Sandbox: Nine APIs across four categories: fighting spam and fraud, showing relevant content and ads, measuring digital signals, and strengthening cross-site privacy boundaries. Key APIs include Topics, Protected Audience, and Attribution Reporting.
  • Amazon Ad Relevance: Cookieless tracking alternative that uses signals from Amazon properties to predict user behavior without relying on third-party cookies or ID solutions.
  • Cohort-based solutions: Group users by interests rather than individual identities. Includes Google’s Topics API, Protected Audience API, and IAB Tech Lab’s seller-defined audiences (SDA) framework.
  • Data clean rooms: Secure environments where multiple parties share first-party data without exposing raw information. Adds privacy protection while enabling audience insights.

How should marketers approach adoption of identity solutions?

Before, marketers should identify gaps in organizational data and provide more insight into what kind of solution (or solutions) are right, get organizational buy-in from leadership, and continue to test and learn what works and what doesn’t. In addition, marketers should reconsider how they’re approaching measurement and keep privacy at the core of any identity solutions they implement.

Because many of these solutions are still in their early stages, marketers must leave room for trial and error. In addition, identity solutions can be quite costly and require the appropriate expertise and skills to apply them correctly.

How is measurement changing across digital channels?

Digital display measurement

Digital display exists in limbo between cookie-based measurement and future alternatives. Apple’s AppTrackingTransparency impact has stabilized, and Google’s cookie reversal provides temporary relief.

Smart marketers use this reprieve to strengthen first-party data capabilities, test identity solutions, and implement robust data governance. These foundations will provide competitive advantage regardless of future identifier changes.

Retail media measurement

Retail media’s explosive growth faces measurement standardization hurdles. The IAB and Media Rating Council released guidance in September 2023 to address this fragmentation.

Agencies and adtech vendors now offer specialized tools to optimize across retail networks. For example, UM’s Shoptimizer tool helps brands allocate budgets across retail media platforms as part of IPG Mediabrands’ Unified Retail Media Solution.

Digital out-of-home measurement

DOOH measurement has solved basic exposure tracking but struggles with omnichannel integration. Programmatic will drive 29.3% of US DOOH spend in 2025, requiring compatible measurement across channels.

While technical standards exist for programmatic buying, there’s no standardized methodology for comparing DOOH performance alongside other digital channels.

Podcast measurement

Podcast listening continues surging with 41.0% of Americans consuming podcasts in 2025. Yet ad spending remains flat.

The root problem: most podcast content delivers via downloads rather than streams, making it difficult to verify ad exposure. The shift from embedded ads to dynamic insertion further complicates measurement.

This creates a strategic opportunity for podcast to develop streaming-first measurement solutions that could unlock additional advertiser investment.

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