How To Prepare For a Cookieless Future With Visitor Identification

Most ecommerce sites still rely on third-party cookies to connect campaigns to conversion rates, retarget visitors, and offer personalized user experiences. But that system is breaking. 

Safari and Firefox already block cookies, regulators classify cross-site tracking as surveillance, and Google’s back-and-forth on deprecation only underscores its uncertainty.

The result is a gap of active cookies, creating a fragmented ecosystem where user data looks reliable in some places and disappears in others. This cookie gap creates wasted spend, misattributed sales, and weaker personalization as the same shopper appears as multiple anonymous sessions across your stack.

That’s why leading B2C brands are shifting away from cookie-based tracking and investing in user consent-first identity. Tie helps you close this gap by turning anonymous visitors into verified profiles the moment they land, so attribution, retargeting, and personalization keep working in a privacy-compliant way.

What happens when cookies go away?

When third-party cookies disappear, the impact goes beyond ad targeting. 

Cookies aren’t just tracking tags. They are the bridge between data collection, attribution models, and digital marketing performance. Without them, you lose the ability to track user behavior across devices and connect early touches to final sales.

The result is a fragmented ecosystem. Safari and Firefox block cookies by default, Chrome runs a “user choice” model, and regulators keep raising the bar on data privacy.

This inconsistency creates a gap. Metrics fluctuate by browser, retargeting pools shrink, and the same shopper often appears as multiple anonymous sessions.

The structural risks are clear:

• Attribution breaks, and cross-domain tracking becomes unreliable.
• Targeted ads lose reach, with smaller match pools and weaker frequency control.
• Personalized degrades, as engines can’t connect identifiers across visits.

With privacy regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the U.S., relying on cookies becomes a liability. Without explicit user consent, cross-site tracking now risks fines and reputational damage.

For retention and growth teams, the takeaway is simple. When cookies go away, your old advertising strategies collapse. To keep delivering relevant ads, you need to rebuild your foundation with first-party cookies, consented identifiers, and stronger control over customer data.

Where existing strategies fall short

What most brands are trying today doesn’t close that gap:

• Contextual targeting: Google matches ads to web page content, not users. This helps reach a broader target audience, but it can’t replicate intent-based retargeting, reducing efficiency.
• Dependence on walled ecosystems: Meta, Google, and Amazon still track within their ecosystems, but lock you into higher CPMs and closed attribution. You get performance, but no portability.
• Late first-party cookie collection: If you only capture emails or phone numbers at checkout or sign-up, you lose the 70-80% of traffic that never makes it that far. By the time you collect identity, the influence window is closed.

The only way to bridge the gap left by cookies is to move identity capture upstream, resolving anonymous visitors into verified, consented customer profiles as they land. That’s how you restore attribution, retargeting, and personalization without leaning on third-party cookies.

Can I retarget without cookies?

You can retarget without cookies, but only if you stop retargeting browsers and start retargeting people. 

Cookies once made it easy to track users, but that model no longer works in a cookieless world shaped by user privacy concerns and browser restrictions.

Limitations of cookie-based retargeting

Traditional retargeting relied on dropping a pixel and tracking users across sites. That model is now unreliable:

• Browsers like Safari and Firefox already block third-party cookies, and Chrome’s policies remain under regulatory pressure.
• Privacy regulations (General Data Protection Regulation, and California Consumer Privacy Act) make cookie-based tracking legally risky without explicit opt-in.
• Cookies don’t persist across devices or sessions, so the same customer often looks like multiple anonymous users. This results in smaller retargeting pools, broken attribution, and wasted spend.

An alternative approach: Building durable segments with consent and first-party data

The future lies in identity-first data strategies built on trust. With explicit user consent, you can connect zero-party data (preferences, declared intent) and user behavior (page views, cart events, purchase history) to build accurate, durable segments.

Shifting to consented, first-party data offers 2 benefits:

• Without relying on invasive cross-site tracking, these personalized experiences keep campaigns relevant.
• It also builds trust. Shoppers know what they shared, and they see it reflected transparently in the experience.

Read about the different types of data and how to leverage them to personalize experiences, improve targeting, and grow your business.

Practical retargeting approaches post-cookies

Here’s how leading B2C brands are retargeting effectively without third-party cookies:

• Identity resolution: Capture stable identifiers like email or phone on the first user visit and unify them across devices.
• Server-side data collection: Push events directly into ad platforms like Meta and Google Ads via APIs, bypassing browser limits.
• Contextual advertising: Use AI to align ads with page context and intent signals instead of cookie tags.
• Consent management: Build clear opt-in flows that make your data both lawful and trusted.
• Predictive cohorts: Apply machine learning to group high-intent users without needing third-party identifiers.

Done right, retargeting without cookies lets you build around durable identifiers, consented data, and smarter signals so you can keep delivering relevant, personalized ads and strong conversion rates while staying compliant with modern privacy standards.

Retargeting without third-party cookies

Cookie retargeting always exaggerated reality. One shopper browsing on mobile, comparing on desktop, and purchasing in-app is logged as three different users. With the end of third-party cookies, those distortions become blind spots. Retargeting pools get smaller, and customer experiences lose context.

How personalization changes

Personalization shifts from pixel-level recognition to identity-led segmentation. In a cookieless world, pageview alone no longer indicates intent. Instead, retention teams weigh signals differently, like a cart add on mobile, a product view after an email click, or a repeat session within 48 hours.

When these actions are tied to a verified identity, they create cohorts that are smaller but more predictive. Instead of renting anonymous audiences, you’re building durable segments that can be activated across channels.

Using visitor ID solutions to enable remarketing

The only way to rebuild retargeting pools is through visitor identification, without cookies. Resolving an anonymous visitor into a verified profile at the session level gives you the identity backbone needed for accurate attribution and personalization.

Platforms like Tie enrich these identities with consented data (email, phone, and behavioral attributes) and push them directly into CRMs and CDPs. 

Tie, an identity resolution platform, enabled CARIUMA to identify previously anonymous visitors and funnel them into targeted email flows, leading to 7,272 new orders from those buyers.

Once you have access to comprehensive customer data, you can leverage retargeting strategies like:

• Cart recovery flows: Push identified cart abandoners into Klaviyo for triggered emails or SMS campaigns.
• Cross-channel ads: Sync enriched audiences into Google Customer Match or Meta Custom Audiences for precision targeting.
• Unified personalization: Feed verified profiles into your CDP so lifecycle campaigns run on durable data, not fragmented browser activity.

The impact of identity-driven retargeting is clear. For instance, Twillory identified checkout abandoners in real time and routed them to Klaviyo, recovering 39% more revenue from cart flows than pixel-based tracking allowed.

Tie visitor identification vs traditional cookies

Cookies once powered digital marketing functions like retargeting and attribution. But they were fragile, with short lifespans, no cross-device continuity, and constant privacy concerns. 

Tie’s advanced website visitor identity resolution solves this by replacing cookies with a durable, consented identity:

• Accuracy: A cookie recognizes a browser session, not a person. If a shopper checks a product on mobile, abandons a cart on desktop, and later buys in-app, cookies record them as three separate users. Advanced website visitor identity resolution tools like Tie unify those signals into one verified profile, so attribution and targeting reflect reality.
• Longevity: Cookies expire in days or vanish when cleared. A verified profile built with first-party data and identity resolution persists as long as the relationship does, gaining value with every new interaction you capture.
• Compliance: Cookies rely on implicit tracking, which fails GDPR, CCPA, and other privacy standards. Tie’s identity graph only uses opted-in, consent-verified data, letting you scale targeting without regulatory risk.

Why first-party and enrichment outperform cookies

Cookies gave you reach, but reach without accuracy is expensive. Inflated attribution and bloated retargeting pools meant you paid for impressions that never converted. When you anchor on first-party data and enrichment, you replace volume with precision:

• Every visitor resolved into a profile becomes owned data you can activate across CRM, ESP, and ad platforms.
• Enrichment layers (behavior, demographics, purchase intent) make those profiles more predictive over time.
• Since data is consented, you avoid the regulatory risk that comes with third-party data tracking.

The tangible upside of Tie’s approach

Phasing out third-party cookies means that marketing strategies must be rebuilt on stronger foundations. In a cookieless world, relying on browser tags or third-party networks leaves you blind to most of your traffic, exposed to privacy regulations, and dependent on walled ecosystems.

The only sustainable path forward is identity. When you capture first-party data, enrich it with real user behavior, and manage it with proper consent, you create customer profiles that are more accurate, portable, and compliant.

That’s where Tie comes in. By resolving anonymous user visits into verified profiles the moment they land, Tie closes the cookie gap so you can:

• Increase ROI by retargeting only verified, enriched profiles.
• Target reliably since cross-device and session stitching eliminates duplicates.
• Stay compliant by design since all records are consent-verified and traceable.
• Unlock compounding value as every new signal (cart behavior, demographics, purchase history) enriches the profile.

The cookie gap isn’t going away. In fact, it’s widening as platforms and regulators raise the bar. Tie fills that gap by resolving anonymous traffic into persistent profiles you own, letting your ecommerce brand retarget, measure, and grow over time.

Want to see how Tie’s visitor identification solution improves your customer data and drives higher ROI for your retargeting? Book a demo now!