Recently, Firefox updated its Tracking Protection to prevent third parties from tracking users, which includes Google Analytics.
While this sounds detrimental to marketers and advertisers, it’s important to hit pause and dig a little deeper to find out what this means for you.
Firefox and Tracking Protection
If you use Firefox, you may or may not already be aware that it has built-in tracking protection. It’s a way for users to feel more in control of their privacy when we live in a world of constant tracking and where advertisers seem to know our every thought. This tracking protection, when enabled by a user, now defaults to include a complete block from content that tracks users online when that user is using a Private Browsing window.
This means Firefox will prevent third parties from tracking users’ online activity. Third-party software includes everything from Google Analytics to other advertising apps. The way the built-in tracking protection works is when a user opens Firefox, the browser already has figured out which sites are using cross-sites or other means to track users, so when their tracking protection is turned on, Firefox will block the content from those sites.
For advertisers, this can affect how your site appears to users, especially if you’re using third-party software for your advertisements or analytics. Most of the time a user won’t be able to see a difference if you’re using a third party to track their analytics, but for other ads, they will still be served, but they may appear differently, especially if you’re using personalized ads based on each customer’s online usage.
What Can You Do About This Update?
As an advertiser, you can’t fight Firefox, but you can restrategize your ads and campaigns to be less personalized and more all-encompassing, so you’re able to target more customers. It’s important to create ads that cater to your ideal customer.
Remember two things: most users aren’t likely to customize their privacy settings and will normally leave the default or standard option selected and roughly 20% of 200 users view sites in Incognito or Private Browsing mainly for shopping purposes, based on a study by Google consumer surveys.
There will be push back from browsers like Firefox in this tech age of tracking, but it’s important that you take that challenge and turn it into a way to think outside the advertising box and innovate.
Keep Privacy-First Browsers in Mind
As an advertiser, you may not always think about users viewing your sites in a private browser, but it’s important to understand and realize that customers are wanting more control over companies who track their every move, and one way they can do that is by using a privacy-first browser like Firefox. Take Firefox’s latest privacy update and use it to refuel your advertisers and figure out the best way to serve ads without relying on personalized tracking for the majority of the ads.
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