Q1 2024 update: Which industries still rely on cookies the most

Key stat: Food and drink and travel are the most reliant on cookies for US programmatic ad buys, according to Q1 2024 data by 33Across. In both industries, 86% of programmatic ad buys still used the legacy identifiers.

Beyond the chart:

• The shift toward cookieless is moving slowly. Since Q3 2023, the share of US cookie-alternative programmatic ad buys in the same industries (food and drink and travel) has dropped by just one percentage point, per 33Across.
• Six in 10 ad buyers said they would focus somewhat or significantly more on placements with publishers with first-party data this year, per November 2023 data by the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
• Although Google’s deadline for cookie depreciation has been pushed back to 2025, advertisers would be wise to continue testing alternative identity solutions to prepare.

Use this chart:

• Create urgency for your organization’s adaptation of cookieless alternatives.
• Compare your cookie-reliance against the wider industry average.

More like this:

• Only 32% of publishers are prepared for the end of cookies
• The death of cookies raises the bar for ad quality
• How retail membership programs harness first-party data for advertisers
• 5 charts on how third-party cookie deprecation will change ad buys

Methodology: Data is from the May 2024 33Across "Programmatic Cookie Alternative Trends Report: Q1 2024." Results are based on advertiser data of 250 brands across 20 industries with over 1 billion monthly paid impressions and supply data of over 200 publishers across 10 categories with over 3 billion monthly paid impressions during Q1 2024.