The Demise of Cookies, The Rise of the Bots & Solutions For Small Businesses
February 11, 2022

The year is 2022. Cookies are being phased out. Bots and machine learning are taking over. Science fiction or reality?

If you haven't caught on, it’s our current reality. This transition has been occurring over the last 24 months, with COVID likely fast-tracking the transformation. For better or worse? We think it’s for the better.


Leading organisations like Google and Facebook are adapting to the forces at play and taking steps to prioritise privacy, measurement and automation in their platforms to future-proof advertising and marketing for businesses.


How can small businesses survive and thrive? We’ll delve into this in more detail throughout this article.


Setting the Scene

Cookies are being phased out

Privacy is front of mind for advertisers as it starts to become front of mind for more and more consumers. Today’s consumer is more aware of privacy breaches, the data that is out there and the ramifications a data breach can have on their lives. Because of this, consumers want more protection. Advertisers can’t ignore this need.


The Facebook iOS 14 update from 2021 is one example of a shift that has forced change. Advertisers couldn’t ignore it. They had to adapt. The world is changing and if advertisers don’t adapt, they will miss out on the opportunities.

Google also announced that they are phasing out third party cookies in 2022 in order to build a more trustworthy and sustainable web. It's a reality we are all confronted with and we need to deal with it. For specifics on how to adapt to Google’s phase out, read this blog.


The Rise of the Bots

Automated bidding and smart learning allow advertisers to move away from micromanaging campaigns and focus on higher strategic pursuits. This means bots and machine learning are taking the place of traditional campaign managers who manage bids manually and attempt to control ad delivery as much as they can.


This is extremely beneficial because it simply works. Bots and machines that analyse and adapt hundreds, if not thousands of variables at a time to optimise the delivery of ads. They base their delivery on past trends but also real time auction results. 


For example, Google’s Bid to value has reaped many rewards for the businesses who've adopted it however the process of transition is long. Some businesses have taken 10 months to transition to a full bid-to-value strategy.


The algorithm and robots feed off the data - so the more you have the more optimised they will be. This means continuous, sustained campaigns are needed for best results. As you can see, businesses looking for quick wins have bigger problems than their ads not working out for them.


A post COVID world

Meanwhile, a global pandemic hit and e-commerce businesses boomed - the digital landscape has transformed greatly in the last 24 months. How will it evolve after COVID?

  • Big businesses are investing millions into ad spend/Creating spin off brands giving them even greater exposure and more market share
  • Micro-businesses are popping up everywhere giving insight and amplifying opportunities into micro-niches
  • Social media driven businesses are creating a new business landscape of influencers, reels and tiktoks


How will small businesses thrive and compete in this harsh, oversaturated market that seems to be acting to push them out altogether?


The challenges are real. But the opportunities are great. There is still a need and a space for small businesses to survive and thrive in this new world… So how will this unfold? How can you make sure your business survives?


Our Recommended Small Business Solutions

To Navigate This Change

Leveraging the Bots With A Low Budget

Usually to get the results needed for optimisation you need to have a higher number of conversion events for the bots to be able to scale up and optimise - this can be out of reach for businesses without the budget.


For example, Facebook requires about 50 optimisation events in a week to begin optimisation. Google suggests 30 in a month as a minimum, but for ROAS optimised campaigns they suggest 50 conversions in a month.


What does that mean? It means sometimes budget constraints mean we won’t get the desired number of optimisation events to be able to leverage smart learning.


Advertisers need to segment their buyer actions so that these can be measured. Rather than measuring leads or enquiries only, measure people who view specific pages on the site or other actions that are lower down the funnel.


Some old goals are coming back - like pages per session or average session duration. These are useful if you’re just not getting the numbers you need for the bottom-line conversions. This is because they will have more goal completions that you can start to optimise for.


Quit Your Cookie Addiction

We will need to rely more and more on our own data, known as first-party data. This is data we collect and data we control. This means you need to 100% focus on developing your data and nurturing it over time. Creating the data and then interpreting it and using it effectively is both equally important.


Use the right systems to track as much as you can directly - like in store visits, any touchpoints and contact points you have with a contact. You need to develop a first-party data strategy.


A Step by Step to Developing your First-Party Data Strategy

  1. Take an inventory of any existing customer data you have
  2. Determine your data needs. What gaps are there?
  3. Gather and collect data - An example for ecommerce business would be to offer discounts and incentives for people to enter their email and post code. Think of ways to collect additional data points later on in the relationship as you can’t ask for every thing at the first touchpoint.
  4. Leverage a CRM to contain this information
  5. Test, measure and refine your strategy based on the results you see


Don’t underestimate the power of partnerships

We know it’s overwhelming to navigate the world of digital at the best of times. With such turbulent changes on the horizon, partnering with a trusted Digital Marketing Agency can help give you the support, reassurance and guidance you need to move forward.


A digital agency will be able to advise you of new changes, things you must do to be compliant and highlight opportunities to grow and thrive. They’ll have the expertise and experience to understand the best move forward for your unique position based on what’s happening in the market.


We recommend finding a partner that aligns with your values. Have a chat with them to find out more about how they work and how they might work in collaboration with you to move your business forward.


It's important that you trust the partners you engage to help with your business. At PupDigital we prioritise gaining your trust because we know we are contributing in a very important way. We build trust by:

  • Being available to answer questions at any stage of our relationship. You'll always have a direct contact method with one of our directors.
  • Being 100% honest even if that means turning away business because we know it's not the right move for the client.
  • Going above and beyond the scope of what we're engaged in. We take a holistic view and will always guide you on other things that need to be addressed in your business.
  • Doing great work, being excellent communicators and being understanding and caring to our clients


Conclusion

The digital world is changing for advertisers. It may feel a bit “War of the Worlds-esque” with bots taking some of our control and big business gaining even greater growth and having bigger budgets to compound this growth. However, there is a place for small businesses and some of these changes actually make it easier for small businesses to succeed. We believe small businesses can thrive and succeed in this new era.


Having a trusted partner who specialises in digital marketing can help you navigate the path forward in a cookie-less, bot-filled world. If you would like to have a completely obligation-free chat with one of our directors, please get in touch.


About PupDigital

PupDigital have your digital marketing needs covered. From online advertising to website design, we can help. Based in Canberra, servicing the world with quality, down to earth digital marketing services.

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August 21, 2026
The Client AGA Air Conditioning is a Canberra-based heating and cooling specialist delivering residential and commercial installation, servicing and maintenance across the ACT. AGA had built a strong reputation through quality workmanship, referrals and customer service. What it needed was a digital and acquisition sy stem that matched the standard of the business and its growth ambitions, one built to support serious, sustained investment rather than one-off campaign spend. PupDigital was engaged in a multi-year partnership to bring the website, conversion tracking and paid media strategy together into a single, connected acquisition system. The Challenge AGA was already a trusted local provider, but its website and advertising weren't working together as one system. The site needed to better communicate the quality of the business and give prospective customers a clearer path to enquire. At the same time, the advertising account needed to become far more commercially disciplined. Heating and cooling demand shifts significantly through the year, and customer intent moves quickly between installation, servicing, evaporative cooling and gas heating, each with different commercial value. Residential and commercial enquiries needed to be treated differently, and the business's own capacity to take on work had to be factored into how aggressively the account was scaled. It's the kind of complexity we see all the time working with trades, services, and building and construction businesses. It's genuinely where we do our best work. A broad, static campaign was never going to cut it here. The goal wasn't more traffic, it was a system that turned demand into real, valuable enquiries, built to scale as the business did. Our Strategic Approach 1. Rebuild the Conversion Experience The first priority was improving what happened after someone clicked an ad. PupDigital designed and developed a new website that better reflected AGA's positioning and made its services easier to understand, with: Clearer service pathways for residential and commercial customers Improved mobile usability and more direct calls to action Tighter alignment between ad campaigns and the landing pages they led to Simplified enquiry journeys The website was built as part of the acquisition strategy, not a separate branding exercise. Every campaign needed to send customers to a page that matched their intent and made the next step obvious. 2. Improve the Quality of the Data Better optimisation depends on measuring the right things. PupDigital strengthened conversion tracking across the site and ad account, including enquiry forms and tracked phone calls, and critically, stopped treating every conversion as equal. AGA's feedback made clear that phone calls often represented stronger opportunities than lower-intent web actions. Tracking and optimisation were refined accordingly, shifting the strategy away from simply increasing reported conversions and towards improving the quality of the enquiries being generated, the metric that actually matters to a business owner's bottom line. 3. Structure Campaigns Around Demand and Commercial Value Rather than one broad, always-on campaign, PupDigital structured the account around AGA's core service categories and how demand moved seasonally, giving granular control over which services were promoted, how budget was allocated, and the messaging and landing pages each audience saw. This meant investment could be increased where strong opportunities existed, pulled back where intent was weaker, and kept continuously aligned with the work AGA actually wanted to win, not just the work that was easiest to generate leads for. Scaling Investment With Confidence As performance and enquiry consistency improved, PupDigital progressively scaled AGA's monthly ad investment, growing it 300% over the course of the partnership. This wasn't a case of increasing spend and hoping volume followed. Every scaling decision was informed by conversion performance, search demand, lead quality feedback, seasonal opportunity, and AGA's real capacity to service new work. Growth in ad spend only compounds when the wider system, website, tracking and campaign structure, can convert that investment efficiently. Building that system first is what allowed AGA to keep increasing investment with confidence, rather than second-guessing where the budget was going. The Results Following the website launch in May 2025, AGA's Google Ads performance improved substantially against the preceding period: Conversions up 14% 18.71% conversion rate, a 77% improvement Impressions up 22% Monthly ad investment scaled 300% across the partnership The standout result was conversion rate, not raw traffic volume. The campaigns didn't need to chase the largest possible audience. They became more focused on reaching people actively searching for AGA's services and directing them into a stronger website experience. The result was a materially higher percentage of visitors taking meaningful action, a more efficient acquisition system, not just a busier one. Broader Business Growth: A Harvey Norman Commercial Contract Throughout the partnership, AGA continued expanding its residential and commercial workload, including securing a significant commercial contract with Harvey Norman Commercial, alongside a growing volume of rough-in and fit-off work. Landing a contract like that comes down to the quality of AGA's work and reputation, not an ad campaign in isolation. What it does show is the broader trajectory of the business during our partnership, and the part PupDigital played in making sure AGA's digital presence could keep up with, and represent, that scale of growth. Winning commercial-level work like this means having a website and digital presence that looks and performs the part, and that's what we focused on throughout. The Business Impact The most valuable outcome wasn't any single campaign result or website metric. AGA moved from a fragmented digital setup to one connected system for attracting and converting customers, and gained: A website that reflects the quality and scale of the business Clear visibility over what's actually driving enquiries, not just what's easy to report Granular control over service-specific and seasonal demand Confidence to keep increasing investment because the system converts it efficiently A digital foundation that supported the business's move into larger commercial work This is the throughline in how PupDigital works with trades, services, and building and construction businesses: advertising is never managed in isolation. It's shaped by the type of work a business wants, the enquiries it actually values, and the capacity it has to deliver, because that alignment, not spend for its own sake, is what drives real business growth. 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August 21, 2026
The Client AGA Air Conditioning is a Canberra-based heating and cooling specialist delivering residential and commercial installation, servicing and maintenance across the ACT. AGA had built a strong reputation through quality workmanship, referrals and customer service. What it needed was a digital and acquisition sy stem that matched the standard of the business and its growth ambitions, one built to support serious, sustained investment rather than one-off campaign spend. PupDigital was engaged in a multi-year partnership to bring the website, conversion tracking and paid media strategy together into a single, connected acquisition system. The Challenge AGA was already a trusted local provider, but its website and advertising weren't working together as one system. The site needed to better communicate the quality of the business and give prospective customers a clearer path to enquire. At the same time, the advertising account needed to become far more commercially disciplined. Heating and cooling demand shifts significantly through the year, and customer intent moves quickly between installation, servicing, evaporative cooling and gas heating, each with different commercial value. Residential and commercial enquiries needed to be treated differently, and the business's own capacity to take on work had to be factored into how aggressively the account was scaled. It's the kind of complexity we see all the time working with trades, services, and building and construction businesses. It's genuinely where we do our best work. A broad, static campaign was never going to cut it here. The goal wasn't more traffic, it was a system that turned demand into real, valuable enquiries, built to scale as the business did. Our Strategic Approach 1. Rebuild the Conversion Experience The first priority was improving what happened after someone clicked an ad. PupDigital designed and developed a new website that better reflected AGA's positioning and made its services easier to understand, with: Clearer service pathways for residential and commercial customers Improved mobile usability and more direct calls to action Tighter alignment between ad campaigns and the landing pages they led to Simplified enquiry journeys The website was built as part of the acquisition strategy, not a separate branding exercise. Every campaign needed to send customers to a page that matched their intent and made the next step obvious. 2. Improve the Quality of the Data Better optimisation depends on measuring the right things. PupDigital strengthened conversion tracking across the site and ad account, including enquiry forms and tracked phone calls, and critically, stopped treating every conversion as equal. AGA's feedback made clear that phone calls often represented stronger opportunities than lower-intent web actions. Tracking and optimisation were refined accordingly, shifting the strategy away from simply increasing reported conversions and towards improving the quality of the enquiries being generated, the metric that actually matters to a business owner's bottom line. 3. Structure Campaigns Around Demand and Commercial Value Rather than one broad, always-on campaign, PupDigital structured the account around AGA's core service categories and how demand moved seasonally, giving granular control over which services were promoted, how budget was allocated, and the messaging and landing pages each audience saw. This meant investment could be increased where strong opportunities existed, pulled back where intent was weaker, and kept continuously aligned with the work AGA actually wanted to win, not just the work that was easiest to generate leads for. Scaling Investment With Confidence As performance and enquiry consistency improved, PupDigital progressively scaled AGA's monthly ad investment, growing it 300% over the course of the partnership. This wasn't a case of increasing spend and hoping volume followed. Every scaling decision was informed by conversion performance, search demand, lead quality feedback, seasonal opportunity, and AGA's real capacity to service new work. Growth in ad spend only compounds when the wider system, website, tracking and campaign structure, can convert that investment efficiently. Building that system first is what allowed AGA to keep increasing investment with confidence, rather than second-guessing where the budget was going. The Results Following the website launch in May 2025, AGA's Google Ads performance improved substantially against the preceding period: Conversions up 14% 18.71% conversion rate, a 77% improvement Impressions up 22% Monthly ad investment scaled 300% across the partnership The standout result was conversion rate, not raw traffic volume. The campaigns didn't need to chase the largest possible audience. They became more focused on reaching people actively searching for AGA's services and directing them into a stronger website experience. The result was a materially higher percentage of visitors taking meaningful action, a more efficient acquisition system, not just a busier one. Broader Business Growth: A Harvey Norman Commercial Contract Throughout the partnership, AGA continued expanding its residential and commercial workload, including securing a significant commercial contract with Harvey Norman Commercial, alongside a growing volume of rough-in and fit-off work. Landing a contract like that comes down to the quality of AGA's work and reputation, not an ad campaign in isolation. What it does show is the broader trajectory of the business during our partnership, and the part PupDigital played in making sure AGA's digital presence could keep up with, and represent, that scale of growth. Winning commercial-level work like this means having a website and digital presence that looks and performs the part, and that's what we focused on throughout. The Business Impact The most valuable outcome wasn't any single campaign result or website metric. AGA moved from a fragmented digital setup to one connected system for attracting and converting customers, and gained: A website that reflects the quality and scale of the business Clear visibility over what's actually driving enquiries, not just what's easy to report Granular control over service-specific and seasonal demand Confidence to keep increasing investment because the system converts it efficiently A digital foundation that supported the business's move into larger commercial work This is the throughline in how PupDigital works with trades, services, and building and construction businesses: advertising is never managed in isolation. It's shaped by the type of work a business wants, the enquiries it actually values, and the capacity it has to deliver, because that alignment, not spend for its own sake, is what drives real business growth. Conclusion AGA Air Conditioning shows what's possible when a website, tracking and paid media strategy are treated as one connected system, working together, rather than three separate pieces bolted on side by side. PupDigital's role was never simply to drive more clicks. We rebuilt the customer journey, strengthened measurement around what actually matters, aligned campaigns with seasonal and commercial priorities, and built a structure capable of supporting significantly increased investment, investment AGA could scale with confidence because the underlying system was built to convert it. The result: a 77% improvement in Google Ads conversion rate, a 300% increase in monthly ad investment, and a stronger digital foundation that helped support AGA's move into larger-scale commercial work.
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Futuristic city and garden scene with people outdoors at sunset, blending technology and nature
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