Cookies have been around for a long time. You probably remember them from your last Internet browsing session: small text files that get stored on your device and help websites recognize you when you revisit them.
Since the introduction of the first world wide web, cookies have been used to track user activity for various purposes such as personalization and analytics. There are numerous ways in which digital marketers can use cookies to their advantage.
This blog post covers ten benefits of cookies in digital marketing and how you can leverage them to improve your marketing campaign’s performance.
Introduction to cookies
The first thing we need to understand is what a cookie is. If you are reading this and do not already know, a cookie is a tiny text file that websites store to your computer or browser. Cookies are used to track user activity and collect information based on your browsing history, such as preferences and product purchases.
For example, if you are a travel agency, you may have a website where your customers can book tours and excursions. If a customer logs onto your website and starts browsing, you may want to show him or her a list of tours that are most relevant to their needs. This in return will help you prevent customers from getting frustrated browsing through a list of irrelevant items.
Benefits of Cookies in Digital Marketing
There are two different types of cookies: persistent and session. The former (persistent) stays on your gadget for a longer period of time, usually a year or longer. While the latter (session) are deleted when you log out. There are many uses of cookies on the Internet, but the ones we are concerned with in this article are their uses in digital marketing.
1. By tracking cookies, you can measure digital marketing effectiveness
When you track cookies, you can find out how many users saw your ad, clicked on it and where they came from. This information can help you find out which ads are working best and which ones are not. Tracking the performance of your digital marketing efforts, helps you to find out which marketing channels are bringing in the most traffic.
Once you have that information, you can improve the ones that are underperforming and eliminate the ones that are not providing any value. The most important aspect is you need to focus on the channels that are giving you the best return on investment (ROI).
Measuring the effectiveness of your digital marketing efforts leads to you being able to predict future marketing expenditures. For example, if you see that your Facebook ads are getting a lot of traffic, you can predict that they will cost more than your Google AdWords ads.
2. Cookies can help you improve your customer engagement strategy
Tracking cookies is also useful for measuring how well your website is engaging customers. You can use engagement tracking to understand what areas of your site are most popular and what pages need improvement.
You need to track your customer journey like how long your customers spend on different pages, you can find out which parts of your website are most engaging. You can also find out which pages are confusing your customers and need to be rewritten or redesigned.
Engaging your customers with personalized content boosts their confidence in your brand and encourages them to purchase your products.
3. You can use cookies to trigger ad-based events and actions
You can use cookies to trigger ad-based events on your website. For example, you can use them to show a pop-up welcoming a new visitor or to display a sign-up form. Triggering ad-based events in your website is a strategy to engage customers and increase conversions.
For example, you can show a pop-up to new visitors that welcomes them to your website and directs them to the most popular pages. By triggering events and actions, you can increase your customer engagement and boost your website’s performance. This also helps you to increase your website’s ROI and get more sales.
4. Cookies help measure ad impression and click accuracy
Ad impression and click accuracy are two metrics that can help you measure the performance of your ads. Ad impression is the number of times your ad was shown to users.
Click accuracy is the number of times users clicked on the ad. Doing an analysis on measuring cookies shows you the accuracy of your ads. If the number of ad impressions is higher than the number of clicks, your ads are probably being shown too frequently.
If the number of clicks is higher than impressions, your ads are not being shown frequently enough. By measuring your ads’ click accuracy, you can find out which ads are working best and which ones are not.
With this information, you can improve the ads that are underperforming and eliminate the ones that are not providing any value.
5. Cookies are the foundation of ad retargeting strategies
Cookies are the foundation of ad retargeting strategies. Retargeting is a digital marketing strategy in which you show ads to customers who visited your website but did not complete a desired action (e.g., making a purchase).
Using ad retargeting, you can follow up with customers who did not buy anything from your website. You can show them ads, and if they click on them, you can take them to the products they were interested in before.
Retargeting your customers with ads, gives your brand a second chance. You can show them ads and invite them to complete the action they did not finish on your website. The information you get from using cookies for ad retargeting helps you to increase your sales funnel and make more money.
6. Cookies allow you to build brand awareness through digital marketing
Cookies can also help you build brand awareness through digital marketing. You can use them to track the effectiveness of your content marketing and what kind of content your audience likes.
Tracking your content, gives you details on which posts are most popular and which ones need improvement. You can also determine what kind of topics your customers are interested in and which ones they are not interested in.
You can grow your brand awareness and get more followers. If your customers like the posts you create, they will share them with their friends and family members. This allows you to expand your reach and get more followers.
7. With cookie-based digital marketing, you can increase your sales funnel ROI
A sales funnel is a common marketing strategy that tracks a customer’s journey from discovery to purchase. In this journey, customers will visit your website and interact with your products and services.
If they like what they see, they will enter your sales funnel and start the process of making a purchase. By tracking cookies, you can find out what steps customers enter your sales funnel and what events prompt them to exit the sales funnel.
You can also find out which customers are abandoning the purchase process. Tracking your cookies sales funnel, helps to identify issues that are causing customers to exit your funnel. You can also find out which steps are causing customer confusion.
Having a well analyzed sales funnel can fix the issues and make your sales funnel more effective. Improving your sales funnel, leads to an increase in your sales and your revenue. This will also increase your sales funnel’s return on investment (ROI).
8. Cookies help build trustworthy relationships with customers
Cookies can also help build trustworthy relationships with customers. You can use them to track your customer’s journey from visiting your website to making a purchase. This helps you to understand what issues your customers are facing and what you can do to resolve them.
By tracking your customers’ journey, you can identify where they are getting stuck. You can also find out why they are abandoning purchases and what you can do to keep them interested in your products.
Understanding your customers journey aids you to resolve customer issues and make them feel welcomed. Tracking cookies and resolving customer issues can build a trusting relationship with customers.
Once they trust you, they will be more likely to make a purchase from your website. Tracking your customers’ journey makes you understand their needs and improve your products and services. In return, you build a long-lasting relationship with your customers.