Updated August 2026
Google reversed course on deprecating third-party cookies, and a lot of travel marketers heard "cookies aren't going away" and stopped there.
So my tracking setup is fine, right? Not quite.
The reversal only covers Chrome, and Chrome is one browser among several your travelers are actually using. Safari and Firefox never allowed third-party cookies to run the way Chrome does, news cycle or not, and that hasn't changed either.
So the real question isn't whether cookies survived. It's which of your travelers were already outside their reach, and what's actually catching that traffic instead. Sorting that out starts with pixels vs. cookies, a distinction most marketers blur even though the two tools don't fail the same way.
A pixel is a small piece of code placed on your website that records when a visitor takes an action. It fires the moment someone lands on a specific page, clicks a button, or completes a booking, and it sends that data back to whichever platform placed it. A pixel doesn't store anything on its own. It's a messenger, not a filing cabinet.
When a traveler visits your site but leaves without converting, the pixel fires and reports that behavior. That's what allows a platform like Sojern to serve that traveler a relevant ad later, on a different site, based on the specific page they viewed on yours.
A pixel can track more than a single conversion. It can log a page view, a search for specific dates, an email signup, or a completed booking, each as a separate event tied back to the same visitor. That granularity is what lets a platform tell the difference between someone who browsed once and left, and someone who searched three times before finally converting.
A cookie is where that information actually lives. It's a small file a visitor's browser stores, holding data about their visit, such as preferences, session details, or a unique identifier tied to their behavior. If a pixel is the messenger, the cookie is where the message gets filed for later use.
Cookies come in two main types. A first-party cookie is set by the site a visitor is actively on, such as your own site remembering someone's search dates. A third-party cookie is set by a domain other than the one a visitor is browsing, typically an ad platform tracking that visitor across multiple sites to build a fuller behavioral profile.
There's a third category worth knowing. Second-party data is first-party data one company shares directly with another under an agreement, without going through an open ad exchange. A DMO sharing its own visitor list with a partner hotel for a co-op campaign is a common example in travel. It's less common than first-party or third-party data, but it doesn't rely on cookies at all, which makes it another way to reach travelers as cookie behavior keeps varying by browser.
A traveler checks your site for availability on a trip they're planning, then leaves to read reviews on a travel forum. Here's what happens next.
Your pixel fires when they view the availability page, and it drops a cookie in their browser, recording that behavior. Later, as they browse the travel forum, an ad platform reads that cookie and serves them a retargeting ad, timed to bring them back and finish the booking.
That's the mechanism you've relied on for over a decade. What changed in 2026 isn't the mechanism. It's which browsers still let it run the way it always has.
Chrome and Safari don't treat third-party cookies the same way.
Chrome still allows them by default, which is why Google's decision not to deprecate them made headlines. Safari and Firefox have blocked third-party cookies by default for years regardless of what Chrome does, and Brave blocks them outright. Edge sits in between. It blocks known trackers and cross-site tracking from sites a visitor hasn't directly visited, but it doesn't block third-party cookies broadly the way Safari and Firefox do, putting its default behavior closer to Chrome's than to the privacy-focused browsers. So a traveler comparing your options on an iPhone was never reachable through the same third-party pixel-and-cookie loop as a traveler on a Chrome desktop, and that was true well before this year's news.
This is where it's easy to get tripped up if you heard "Chrome kept cookies" and stopped there. Your pixel still fires the same way on every browser. What happens to the cookie it drops depends entirely on which browser the traveler is using, and roughly three in ten global sessions run on a browser where that cookie either gets blocked or partitioned away from cross-site use.
None of this changes what privacy regulations require, either. A cookie surviving in Chrome doesn't retire your consent management process, and a pixel that fires without proper consent is a compliance problem regardless of what happens to the cookie behind it.
The practical shift isn't in how pixels work. It's in how much you can afford to depend on third-party cookies to make sense of what your pixel reports. On Chrome, that loop still closes the way it always has. On Safari, Firefox, and Brave, it doesn't, and no setting change on your end fixes that.
Hashed emails close that gap. When a traveler logs in or completes a booking, that action can be tied to a hashed, non-identifying version of their email rather than a browser-dependent cookie ID. That identifier works the same whether the traveler is on Chrome or Safari, because it isn't stored in a cookie jar that one browser blocks and another allows.
This is the actual argument for first-party data, and it held true before Google's reversal and after it. We build targeting in The Sojern Traveler Ecosystem™ around hashed emails and direct booking signals for exactly this reason. That identifier works the same regardless of which browser a traveler happens to be running.
A quick audit covers three things. Confirm your pixel fires correctly on every major conversion event. Confirm hashed emails are captured at login and at booking, not just one of the two. Confirm your consent banner covers every tracking technology in use, not just cookies. Most gaps show up in the second check, where a booking completes but the hashed email never makes it into the platform doing the targeting.
If your reporting hasn't been segmented by browser yet, that's the first place to look. A campaign that looks flat in aggregate can be performing quite differently on Chrome versus Safari, and averaging the two hides exactly the gap you need to see. A third of your travelers may already be invisible to a setup that only reads cookie-based behavior.
Talk to our team about auditing your pixel and hashed email setup across every browser your travelers use.
A pixel is code on your website that fires when a visitor takes an action and sends that data to a server. A cookie is a small file stored in the visitor's browser that holds the data the pixel reports, such as a unique identifier or session details. The pixel reports the behavior; the cookie stores it for later use.
Yes, for travelers on Safari, Firefox, or Brave, which block or restrict third-party cookies by default regardless of Chrome's decision. Chrome's reversal only applies to Chrome. Safari and Firefox already blocked them on their own timeline, and Brave blocks them outright, so a Chrome-only tracking setup still misses a meaningful share of your travelers.
A hashed email ties a traveler's identity to a non-identifying, encrypted version of their email address instead of a browser-stored cookie, so it works the same on Chrome, Safari, and Firefox alike. Travel brands using Sojern's Traveler Ecosystem™ rely on hashed emails and direct booking signals specifically because that identifier doesn't depend on which browser a traveler happens to be using.
.webp)
Nine channels, one framework, and the data layer that connects them.
Why behavioral data and real-time intent are replacing demographics in today’s AI-driven travel marketing landscape.
AI is transforming hospitality by enabling personalized, proactive guest experiences and smarter hotel operations.
We’re ready to help you take the guesswork out of your digital marketing. Contact us to tap into the travel industry’s most intelligent marketing platform.
