The ad tech world has spent years reacting to shifting deadlines, half-launched APIs, and evolving strategies from one of the industry’s most powerful players. And now, days after Google’s historic monopoly ruling, it’s unclear if this is a deliberate retreat or simply a delay while the dust settles.
Either way, the message is clear, cookies are not a stable foundation for the future of advertising.
They’re fragmented and fundamentally limited. Keeping them around doesn’t solve anything—it just prolongs the pain.
Let’s look at the reality advertisers face today:
Cookies only cover part of your audience. Over half of digital inventory today doesn’t contain a usable cookie or ID. That means you’re fishing in a pond half the size—with exponentially more competitors.
Cookies aren’t on the platforms you want to be on. The vast majority of cookies live on Chrome and Android. If you’re relying on them, you’re disproportionately targeting those users—while missing premium, high-value iPhone audiences entirely.
You’re paying more for less. Cookies are overfished. Everyone’s bidding on the same shrinking pool of IDs, driving up CPMs while delivering lower match rates, weaker performance, and diminishing returns.
You can’t scale across channels. Cookies don’t follow users into CTV, DOOH, or audio—meaning true omnichannel campaigns are impossible without a better solution.
And that’s the point, better solutions already exist.
Advertisers don’t need to wait on Google. Privacy-safe, ID-free, omnichannel platforms already outperform cookie-based targeting, consistently and at scale.
If you’re still relying on cookies today, you’re not just delaying the inevitable, you’re holding your campaigns back.
You don’t build your strategy on shifting sands. You build it on performance, reach, and trust.
The post-cookie world isn’t something to fear. It’s something to embrace.