For about five years, the advice in our industry was "prepare for the end of third-party cookies." Google had promised to phase them out of Chrome, delayed it several times, then in 2024 changed course to a user-choice approach. This year it confirmed it won't be rolling out a separate cookie prompt either, so third-party cookies stay in Chrome for now.
A few clients have taken this to mean they can ignore the whole topic. We don't think that's right.
Why the shift still matters
- Safari and Firefox already block third-party cookies by default. On iPhone, that's a big share of your visitors.
- Ad blockers and privacy tools are common, and they block many tracking scripts entirely.
- Privacy laws are tightening. India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act is coming into force, and Europe's GDPR is already strict. Consent is no longer optional.
- Users expect it. People are more aware of being tracked and more likely to reject it.
So even with cookies alive in Chrome, a lot of your traffic is already "cookieless" from a tracking point of view.
What we recommend now
1. Lean on first-party data. The information people give you directly is the most reliable and the most valuable: enquiry forms, newsletter sign-ups, purchases, account data. Make sure your website captures it cleanly and sends it to your CRM.
2. Set up Google Consent Mode properly. If you use Google Analytics 4 and Google Ads, Consent Mode v2 lets your tags adjust their behaviour based on whether a visitor accepted cookies. Google then uses modelling to fill some of the gaps. For advertisers targeting Europe it's effectively required.
3. Consider server-side tagging. Instead of loading many tracking scripts in the visitor's browser, the browser sends events to your own server, which forwards them to analytics and ad platforms. It's faster for visitors, gives you more control over what data is shared, and is less affected by blockers. It does cost more to set up and run.
4. Use conversion APIs. Meta's Conversions API and Google's enhanced conversions let you send conversion events from your server, which helps ad platforms optimise even when browser tracking fails.
5. Keep a privacy-friendly analytics option in mind. Tools like Plausible, Matomo or Fathom don't use cookies and give you clean, simple traffic numbers. Some clients run one of these alongside GA4 for a second opinion.
Don't over-track
We regularly find sites running five or six tracking tags, many of them left over from old campaigns. Each one slows the site down and adds privacy risk. Once a year, list every tag on your site and ask whether anyone actually uses that data. Remove what nobody uses.
The real takeaway
Third-party cookies staying in Chrome is a reprieve, not a reversal. The direction is still towards less tracking, more consent and more first-party data. Businesses that build those foundations now will be in a much better place, whatever Google decides next.
