Two events will coincide in July of 2023, bringing online tracking to a standstill. First, the most popular internet browser, Chrome, will end all support for 3rd-party tracking cookies. Web browsers Safari and Firefox have already cut off default support for this mode of tracking user activity, but, considering that Chrome accounts for over 60% of all online traffic, this move signals the death of all cookie or pixel-based tracking.

Secondly, Google will sunset the most widely used web analytics platform, Universal Analytics. Universal Analytics is an extraordinarily prevalent, proven tool for web analysis. However, this over 15-year-old platform can no longer handle newer website designs and upcoming privacy regulations. Over 52,600,000 websites currently use Google’s Universal Analytics. You’re not the only one searching for solutions. (BuiltWith, Current UA Usage Statistics) 

What’s the solution? Your website likely uses these well-known 3rd-party cookies, like the Meta Pixel, Google Ads Remarketing Cookie, or a MailChimp integration. These industry tools are vital to discovering what’s happening on your website. So many businesses are left clueless as these standard tracking methods and integrations are being phased out. How can you ever know if your digital marketing works without online analytics? 

Waiting Around for the Guillotine to Fall

What are other businesses doing about this massive problem in online tracking? Well, the landscape can seem pretty bleak. As a marketing agency in Pittsburgh, PA, we’ve spoken with hundreds of businesses about what they plan to do to confront the digital tracking doomsday. We keep hearing one refrain: “We’re going to wait and see what happens.” This statement represents a shocking laissez-faire attitude when so much of any business in the 21st century rides on your organization’s online presence and website.

So many business owners, CEOs, and marketing directors are putting their livelihoods on the line by just waiting around for a solution. It’s as though people believe that Google, Amazon, or another Fortune 500 company will provide them with an easy, free, and all-encompassing solution simply out of the goodness of their hearts. The inconvenient truth is that there is no easy solution. Billion-dollar businesses cannot be relied upon to come to the rescue of mid-size and small corporations. 

Roughly 75% of the top 10,000 websites in the world still use Google’s soon-to-be-dead Universal Analytics. If even top organizations are struggling to keep up with the rapidly changing tracking and privacy landscape, can you really afford to wait and see if a solution falls into your lap?

We cannot stress enough the importance of being proactive in looking for companies offering solutions to the end of online analytics as-we-know-it coming in July of 2023. At Marketing Support Network, we believe this indeed represents a significant challenge, but it’s also a tremendous opportunity to strengthen your operations. Through ingenuity and hard work, you can actually improve your tracking capabilities while dodging the digital tracking doomsday. 

Marketing Support Network has created a new product to save your online analytics from the July 2023 doomsday. It won’t be easy, but we’re ready to dig in and help your organization through the digital tracking doomsday. Book a consultation with us today to learn more about how we can safeguard your organization against these tumultuous times. 

What are your next steps going to be? We encourage executives and owners to ask their marketing professionals and IT specialists if they’re aware of the coming changes and what they’ve been doing to prepare for this shift in the business landscape. If your organization doesn’t have a plan to shelter its digital tracking through the doomsday, then it’s high time to find a solution. We encourage you to reach out and see how Marketing Support Network can help.