Retargeting and remarketing: new strategies in a world without third-party cookies

2025 marked a turning point for digital marketing. Browsers, including Google Chrome, officially stopped supporting third-party cookies, which for decades were the basis of remarketing and retargeting. These technologies allowed advertisers to “track” users on the Internet, generate personalized ads and display banners after visiting a site.
But the world has changed. Privacy demands, tightening legislation (GDPR, CCPA), the development of browser technologies and increasing attention to data ethics have forced businesses to look for new solutions. The so-called cookieless reality has emerged, in which the return of the user is no longer based on external tracking. And despite the fears, remarketing has not disappeared – it has evolved.

What's left of the past: classic retargeting with third-party cookies

In the traditional approach, a third-party pixel collected information about user behavior on the site. This data allowed us to form a segment of the audience that, for example, added a product to the cart but did not place an order. The system then showed these users personalized advertising on other resources.
This mechanism was based solely on third-party cookies, which allowed us to “transfer” the user ID between sites. Already in 2024, Safari and Firefox completely blocked such scenarios, and Chrome did the same from the beginning of 2025. As a result, classic retargeting no longer works in most ecosystems.

What works in 2025: remarketing based on first-party data

The new generation of remarketing is based on first-party data – that is, data that the company collects independently through a website, mobile application, CRM, newsletters or surveys. This is information that the user deliberately left: email, phone number, named events, account data.
Such data is integrated into advertising platforms through the Customer Match mechanism – loading an audience with a list of contacts. Platforms compare these contacts with their users and show advertising only to this audience. Thus, remarketing works, but without cookie tracking.
The key is not technology, but the relationship with the user. If a business has managed to collect data through a subscription form, bonus program or authorization – it has the opportunity to maintain a dialogue, show relevant advertising and stimulate customer return.

Paradigm shift: remarketing as part of a loyalty strategy

Without cookies, retargeting moves from anonymous pursuit to building long-term relationships. The customer base becomes the main asset. It is not technical data collection that becomes more important, but the incentive to register, authorize or subscribe.
The business should motivate the user to leave contact - not intrusively, but through value: a bonus, discount, access to premium content or useful materials.
It is important to combine channels: advertising + email + push + SMS. Together they form a comprehensive communication that does not depend on cookies, but returns the customer and does it even more effectively, because it is based on permission, not on hidden tracking.

New technologies in remarketing 2025

The cookieless era has stimulated the emergence of innovative solutions:

• Server-side analytics – server-side event tracking provides more accurate data and better privacy.
• Private identifiers (ID solutions) – for example, Unified ID 2.0 or advertising platforms' own identifiers that work on the basis of first-party data.
• Next-generation contextual targeting – ads are shown based on the content of the page, not the user's behavior history.

Remarketing transformation is not the end, but a restart with a focus on quality. Companies should reconsider their approaches: invest in collecting and storing first-party data, develop transparent privacy policies that comply with GDPR and CCPA, and implement multi-channel communication strategies.
Those brands that already work with high-quality first-party data today gain a significant advantage. They can launch remarketing without fear of browser updates, regulations, and technological limitations.