While third-party tracking is going away, it may not mean what you think.
If you’ve followed internet privacy as a topic over the past several years, you have heard of Google’s privacy changes. Many people assume this means it’s the end of being tracked online.
This is only half-true. Third-party tracking is going away, which means more privacy between each site you visit. But it does not mean you’re not going to be tracked.
I view this as good news for users. Our entire web experience is so personalized these days. And this personalization comes from websites that are able to adapt content based on our interactions and our data. In the new world, each website will still have their first-party tracking in place, allowing them to customize on-site and then off-site with digital media remarketing.
Each interaction you have online is tracked in a variety of ways. The most basic, which you are likely already fully aware, is basic site analytics which track time on site, channel you originated from, pages you viewed and other metrics like this.
More advanced digital marketing teams deploy more intricate tracking.
One way brands study user interactions on pages is to use screen recordings. This does not mean your webcam turns on, which is a question I get frequently when I bring this up. Rather, it allows brands to see your full interaction while on the website. It helps them see how long, and which part of a page, you are viewing.
It is useful for understanding if a form field is causing a hangup, or if some content that needs to be seen should be pushed up higher on the page, and so forth.
Heat mapping allows brands to see the most hovered and clicked elements on any given page. Think of this as digital marketers understanding which real estate is most powerful and why.
You’ll likely notice sources for tracking you include digital media platforms as well as social platforms. This is developed to allow companies to remarket to you based on actions you did or did not take on the site. This is most common with eCommerce, where you’ll see the same products you viewed but did not add to your cart. I still don’t understand why brands leave these ads live to each audience for 6 months after they’ve viewed the product. Surely users have made their decision on a product by then!
We’ve all heard the recent battles for search engines consumers use on a daily basis. Google’s focuses on the user’s needs. Bing/Yahoo focus on a more direct content and metadata correlation. And DuckDuckGo focuses on metadata while not tracking your queries.
So does this mean we’re hidden from Google? Definitely not. While it technically would not know what you searched, as soon as you visit any website, there’s a very, very strong chance that site has Google Analytics installed. This allows Google to know that you came from organic search, from DuckDuckGo, and it can then bank that data about you.
Here’s a breakdown of how your conversations feel like Google and Facebook are listening in on your conversations.
This is a common technique, yet feels invasive! But be assured, Google’s bots are not actively turning on your phone.
As long as users understand that the privacy will always have limits, and that any collection of data is not meant to be invasive but rather to help customize your site experience, then any kind of tracking should be seen as a positive component.
But rest assured, while an algorithm may be able to suggest products to you, or a chatbot interact with you based on you coming back to the site, there is not an individual on the other side gaining access to your financial accounts, passwords or anything of the sort.