Programmatic Potential: Retail Leading All Industries In Alternative Programmatic Ad Buys

Just before Google’s recent about-face — not Google’s rollback-of-AI-Overviews about-face, but Google’s keeping-of-cookies about-face following years of promising to kill the third-party tracker — 33Across released its Programmatic Cookie Alternative Trends Report for Q1 2024.

Just because Google changed its mind doesn’t mean publishers should simply throw away all the work they did putting priority on privacy and seeking out cookie alternatives. As 33Across’s research showed, publishers saw an 18% increase in cookieless revenue SOV quarter-over-quarter.

As for industries that 33Across found were still reliant on cookies on its platform, the food and drink industry and travel industry were the heaviest users, still relying on cookies for 86% of programmatic ad buys. The retail industry had the lowest percentage with 70% while being the largest programmatic buyers on the 33Across Exchange, according to CEO Eric Wheeler.

(Source: EMARKETER)

“Retail advertisers grew their cookie alternative investments by 117% in Q4 2023,” says Wheeler. “Retail media is expected to generate $100 billion in sales by 2026. Industry estimates say that retail media is now 20% of overall ad spend.”