This time, the new year is less about what will happen with cookies and more about what happens right now

By Fabrice Beer-Gabel, SVP Strategy & Partnerships, Intent IQ

For years, marketers have been preparing for a “cookieless future.” As we look toward this coming new year, the problem is that that future has already arrived–even though most of the industry seems to think now it will never come.

The addressable and measurable audience universe has been shrinking and fragmenting for a while now. Safari, Firefox, Edge and Chrome WebView browsers no longer use third-party cookies or they deploy ones that aren’t associated with any meaningful audience data. In addition to these desktop and mobile web environments, iOS’s identity-restrictions have often turned MAIDS, the primary identifier used for InApp targeting, into fragmented and unknown first-party IDs that advertisers are unable to translate into their target audiences. Similarly, connected TV is fraught with fragmented first-party IDs, large pockets of unidentified audiences  and limited cross-device linkages. In other words. advertisers aren’t heading toward an ID-less world. They’re already living in one.

The Rise of ID-Less Environments

Today, more than half of all browsing, app and CTV environments in the open internet are missing actionable identifiers for precision targeting and measurement. Yet users are spending over 50% of their digital time there.

Advertisers that treat these environments as blind spots are leaving reach, performance, and efficiency on the table. At the same time, these environments are becoming more valuable:

• Less competitive bidding. Fewer advertisers are active here, driving lower CPMs and better share of voice.
• Attractive demographics. ID-restricted ecosystems like iOS and Safari over-index toward affluent and high-spending consumers.
• Premium content. Many top-tier publishers now generate between 30% and 60% of their ad opportunities in ID-less inventory — meaning the best audiences and the best content are often found where IDs are not.

The opportunity is clear — but only if advertisers and publishers have a plan.

A New Playbook

Marketers have spent the last decade optimizing for identity-rich environments. The ID-less world demands a new playbook — one grounded in audience amplification, signal diversity, and outcome-based measurement.

A winning strategy should do the following:

1. Treat ID-Less Environments as Core Reach, Not Edge Cases – Plan media with the assumption that ID-less traffic is mainstream, not optional, and it can be reached with precision targeting and attribution at scale. Ensure every media plan includes dedicated activation paths for ID-less environments across display, video, mobile, and CTV.
2. Amplify Target Audiences signals for ID-less Activation– Audiences defined by first-party data, CRM segments, and third-party data can be amplified to reach users in ID-less environments without cookies or MAIDs while being considerate of privacy. Deal-IDs built from these audiences with alternative identifiers offer an easy path to amplification and incremental reach.
3. Take Advantage of Better Economics available in ID-Less Supply – Because fewer advertisers optimize for ID-less environments, auctions often have less competition, resulting in more attractive CPMs and better engagement. Additionally, ID-Less activations powered by scalable, audience-aware and attribution-enabled alternative IDs can drive CPMs much closer to publisher clearing prices.
4. Maintain An Outcome-Based Focus – Using alternative IDs can offer a privacy-safe solution to ID-less addressability but the focus should remain on their scale and accuracy. When experimenting using A/B tests and measuring in traditional ID-less environments, outcomes should provide the ultimate proof of performance.

A game plan for the ID-less world isn’t just about survival — it’s about turning constraints into a competitive advantage. When marketers and publishers treat these environments as performance frontiers, not blind spots, they gain scale, accuracy, and resilience others can’t match.

What Happens Now?

This year, the conversation finally won’t be about preparing for the cookieless future. It will be about thriving in an ID-less present.

The marketers and publishers who succeed won’t be the ones waiting for the next workaround. They’ll be the ones using smarter data — and smarter partners — to turn ID-less environments into performance powerhouses with more reach and precision.

The identity challenge isn’t what’s coming next. It’s what’s happening right in front of us.