Snap’s share price is the consequence of cookie removal, says Lumen MD
The imminent departure of third party cookies, and the effect on digital advertising and businesses such as Snap Inc was one of the points of discussion during IAB Australia’s 2021 MeasureUp event yesterday (27 October).
Lumen Research’s managing director Mike Follett suggested that the significant decline in Snap’s share price was down to changes in Apple’s iOS which now gives users the ability to choose which apps can track them.
IAB Australia’s MeasureUp 2021 event
“We might’ve been able to rely on [cookies] but third party cookies are no longer going to be the big part of the advertising ecosystem,” he said. “And if anyone saw the impact that, that was going to have on business, have a look at Snap’s share price, which fell pretty dramatically upon the realisation that cookies are going away on Thursday.”
Follett was referring to Snap’s share prices decreasing 25% last Thursday 21 October, with the company attributing Apple’s privacy changes on iOS for impacting its ability to target and measure advertisements.
He continued: “In the place of a cookie data, suddenly contextual data becomes far more important. Being able to put a price on the context in which you place your ads, and the formats themselves, that was isolated. That was always important. But it’s now become doubly, triply important because of the decline and the deprecation.”
CEO of Playground XYZ, Rob Hall, argued that the removal of cookies are in line with consumer wishes.
Hall said: “The changing landscape around the deprecation of the third party cookie does present a need for advertisers to more seriously consider other options. Everyone asks this question of how they’re going to identify people on the internet post-death of the cookie.
“We think the answer is you shouldn’t be identifying. People don’t want to be identified. They don’t want to be tracked. And really this has given rise to a bunch of alternate solutions that are really fascinating. One of them is, of course, contextual advertising.”
Hall continued: “As an industry, we can build these solutions in this way, and give a nod to consumers and the way they want privacy to be treated. That’s kind of a win for everyone.”
IAB Australia’s MeasureUp event is running from 25 October to 28 October.
