In the first half of 2021, marketers continued experimenting with new methods of tracking, targeting and acquiring data from consumers, as long-promised policy changes by Google and Apple were set to soon begin, tightening rules around data privacy that had already been affected by national and international regulations.
But just weeks after Apple announced that making its Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) an opt-in feature would be followed by even more privacy-focused features, Google surprised the ad world by delaying its phaseout of third-party cookies until 2023 — instead of by the start of 2022, as originally planned.
