In this guide
- Cookieless targeting uses context (what the page is about), your own customer data and platform audiences built from logged-in users.
- The practical steps are customer lists, server-side events and good creative. Broad targeting plus good signals often works.
- Identifier schemes such as UID2 exist, but mostly matter to large advertisers buying across the open web.
For years, targeting online meant following people across sites with cookies. As browsers and laws removed that ability, advertisers feared the end of targeting. What happened is more modest: the ways of targeting changed, and the big platforms (Google, Meta, TikTok) barely lost their reach because they know who their logged-in users are. This page explains the main methods without cookies and what a store or lead-generation business should do. See cookieless tracking and third-party cookies.
The main methods
| Method | How it works | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|
| Contextual targeting | Show ads on pages about a topic, with no personal data | Anyone buying display, video or native ads |
| Platform audiences | Target interests and behaviour within Meta, Google, TikTok, using their own logged-in data | Almost every advertiser |
| Customer lists | Upload your hashed customers to target or exclude them | Anyone with an e-mail list |
| Lookalike and similar audiences | The platform finds people like your best customers | Advertisers with enough customer data |
| Hashed-identifier schemes | Shared identifiers based on hashed e-mail, such as UID2 | Larger advertisers on the open web |
| Broad targeting with good signals | Let the platform's system find buyers using your conversion data | Advertisers with clean server-side events |
Runs on your domain, anywhere
Your tracking runs on your own domain, so a visit from any country is handled the same way.
Why your data matters more now
When the targeting controls shrink, the platforms rely more on the conversions you send them. If your events are complete and well matched, the system finds buyers by itself. If your events are poor, it guesses. That is why server-side events, hashed e-mail and phone and good cookies are the real targeting tools today. See Conversions APIs explained and Meta event match quality.
What to do first
Send server-side purchases and leads
With a shared event ID and customer data.
Upload customer lists
And exclude buyers from acquisition campaigns. See customer lists in Google Ads.
Build audiences from your own data
Website visitors and customers by value.
Test broad targeting
Let the platform optimise on conversions, and compare with narrow audiences.
Keep creative fresh
In a broad-targeting world, the ad itself does much of the selecting.
Check your tracking in one pass
This is an example. Run the check on your own site to see where yours stands.
Where Open Tracked helps
Open Tracked sends your events from your own server, keeps cookies alive with Cookie Keeper, remembers hashed identifiers with the Data Store and adds them to later events with the Enricher. That is the data foundation that cookieless targeting depends on. All of it is on the free plan.
A realistic example
A skincare brand with a $15,000 monthly budget used to rely on interest targeting and retargeting. After tightening privacy settings, its retargeting audiences shrank and its cost per purchase rose. The team uploaded its customer list to Meta and Google, excluded buyers from acquisition campaigns, sent every purchase from the server with hashed e-mail and phone, and ran one broad-targeting campaign next to its narrow ones. Within two months the broad campaign matched the narrow ones on cost per purchase and delivered more volume. The platform found buyers on its own because it finally had clean, complete conversion data to learn from.
The lesson is not that broad targeting always wins. It is that the quality of your conversion signal now decides how well any targeting works, so start there before you spend time on audience tricks.
Watch events arrive, live
A sample feed. In Open Tracked you see the same stream for your own store.
Frequently asked questions
What is cookieless targeting?
Reaching the right audience without third-party cookies, using context, first-party data and platform audiences.
Does the end of third-party cookies end targeting?
No. The platforms still target using their own logged-in data and the conversions you send.
What is UID2?
An identifier scheme based on hashed e-mail addresses, offered for use across the open web. It matters mostly to large advertisers.
What should a small store do?
Send server-side events, upload customer lists and test broad targeting.
Is contextual targeting effective?
It can be, for the right products and placements. Test it against your other audiences.
Do I need spreadsheets to read my results?
No. Once tracking is live, the Open Tracked analytics shows spend, revenue, ROAS and profit, and you can ask Ari, the built-in AI assistant, questions about your own numbers in plain words. Ari's allowance depends on your analytics plan.
Is Open Tracked different from Open Track or Open Space Track?
No. Open Tracked is the official name of our server-side tracking platform, and the website is opentracked.io. Many people search for it as Open Track, OpenTrack or Open Space Track. All of them lead to the same product: server-side Google Tag Manager hosting, first-party analytics and a CRM pipeline.
Fix your tracking at the source
Open Tracked hosts your server-side Tag Manager, keeps first-party cookies alive and shows what each ad is really worth.
The Open Tracked team
We build Open Tracked: server-side tracking hosting, analytics and the tools around them, for stores that spend on ads. Questions about this guide, or an idea for the next one?
Comments
Loading comments...
Guides · 7 min read
