Digiday+ Research: Publishers were ready to depend more on first-party data. So, now what?
By Julia Tabisz • April 25, 2025 •
Ivy Liu
This research is based on unique data collected from our proprietary audience of publisher, agency, brand and tech insiders. It’s available to Digiday+ members. More from the series →
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The subject can’t be avoided — following years of delays and panicked preparations, Google is keeping third-party cookies in its Chrome browser after all. For publishers, it’s a real case of mixed emotions: frustration about time and money spent on something that was never realized, but also gratitude that they were driven to shore up their first-party data and, by consequence, their businesses as a whole.
At the heart of those mixed emotions is the fact that publishers were ready for the move away from third-party data and toward first-party data. According to a first-quarter Digiday+ Research survey of publisher professionals, the role of first-party data in generating ad revenue was set to grow significantly, and the percentage of ad impressions served by first-party data was set to increase.
Digiday’s survey found that nearly three-quarters of publisher pros (71%) said first-party data plays the most significant role in generating positive ad revenue outcomes in 2025. That’s an increase from Q1 2024, when 64% of publishers said first-party data was most significant.
And publishers were anticipating that first-party data’s importance would continue to grow: 85% of publisher pros said in Q1 2025 that first-party data would be most significant for positive ad revenue outcomes in 2026.
Meanwhile, third-party data’s significance has been falling. In 2024, 26% of publisher pros told Digiday that third-party data played the most significant role in generating positive ad revenue outcomes. In Q1 of this year, 21% said the same for 2025, and just 7% of publishers anticipated third-party data would be most significant to their ad revenue in 2026.
At the same time, prior to Google’s latest announcement, publishers were ready to grow the number of ad impressions served by first-party data between this year and next. And they had plans to grow that number by a significant amount. Twenty-nine percent of publisher pros told Digiday in Q1 that more than 40% of their ad impressions would only be served by first-party data in 2025. Looking forward to 2026, a much higher 44% said the same about next year.
Conversely, 70% of publishers said 40% or less of their ad impressions are being served by first-party data this year. Next year, 57% said they expect less than 41% of impressions to be served by first-party data.
Breaking down the data a bit more, the biggest changes were set to happen among publishers who serve between 1% and 20% of their impressions through first-party data, and those who serve 41% to 60% of impressions through first-party data. One-third of publisher pros (33%) told Digiday in Q1 of this year that 1% to 20% of their ad impressions would only be served by first-party data in 2025, compared with 22% who said the same of 2026. And just 8% of publishers said between 41% and 60% of their ad impressions are served only by first-party data in 2025, but 22% said the same of 2026.
But all this isn’t to say that publishers were completely ready for a cookie-less world. Digiday’s survey found that publishers still have addressability issues when it comes to reaching audiences on cookie-blocked browsers, and that emotion of gratitude mentioned earlier might be partially due to the fact that now they can sort that out on their own time.
As of Q1 2025, just over half of publisher pros (51%) said they can address audiences across all browsers (including cookie-blocked instances) only somewhat effectively. This group of respondents accounts for the largest percentage of publishers, but it’s followed by those who said they’re not very effective when it comes to addressing audiences across all browsers (29% said this).
And, notably, just 15% of publisher pros told Digiday in Q1 that they can address audiences across all browsers very effectively — leaving quite a bit of room for improvement.
https://digiday.com/?p=576591
