For all those tracking and attribution solutions out there that rely heavily on cookies (ahem, most of them), the launch of the new IE browser is was going to put a serious crimp in your style. The new Internet Explorer is was going to be the first browser that enabled "Do Not Track" as the default, much to the dislike of advertisers nation-wide.

But that died a quick death.

At some point however, advertsiers and publishers are going to have to face facts. Cookie tracking doesn't work– the single user / multiple device pretty much crushed the accuracy of this technology years ago, and those who rely on it are just hanging on to an illusion.

There are alternatives. Better ones.

You can try and promote the Login or App, where users log into an account (say Facebook or some tag-along app) and the tracking begins. You could get their online behaviors and probably their credit card. That means you could connect offline purchases with online activities.  

Combined with data from people logging into their internet TV (like AppleTV), online magazines and mobile location information, this type of tracking could be an amazing leap for marketers…if you can get people to go along with it. Of course the problem is that this effort failed 10 years ago - could it work today? We have a different society now, but that society is both more open (social media) and more closed (concerns over personal information security online).

Best case, this type of adoption on a mass scale is still a few years away at least I would guess.

So what will you do in the meantime? My suggestion has always been macro-attribution, using a test-and-scale methodology. That is, isolating certain areas to test media strategy, preferably geared towards a specific customer segment. Then looking at marginal changes in trustworthy KPIs - things like Impression volume, site visits, online actions, inbound calls and store sales in those areas. Learn more about these methods here and here.

Even if you dodged a bullet this time, Do Not Track is coming... what's your plan?