5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Delete Your Cookies

When surfing the internet, websites save small parcels of data on your computer called ‘cookies’. These cookies can be used to improve your experience with a website, and generally make your experience surfing the net better by helping to personalize your experience and also make things more convenient.

Some users delete or block cookies from being placed on their browser, citing privacy as their main concern. However, the positives outweigh any perceived negatives, as this article aims to explain the 5 main reasons you should not delete your cookies.

1. Cookies help to personalise your browsing experience

Everything from the content you read, to the advertisements you see can be tailored to your profile that is stored in your cookies. Rather than see advertisements that you have no interest in, it makes sense to be reached by companies and products that are suited to your interest. Through the information stored in your cookies, marketers can make your experience feel less like being spammed and more like relevant content that you have a genuine interest in.

2. Cookies can help to keep prices more competitive

Consider a company with an online marketing budget. If they are advertising to every Tom, Dick and Harry without knowing if they are the right person to show their ads to, they will have a much lower ROI on their advertising spend. However, if programmatic advertising can help to pinpoint the right person at the right time and lead to higher sales, then companies can afford to pass on savings to consumers, or at least not have to jack up their prices in order to maintain a profit.

3. Cookies don’t take up much hard disk space.

Some may think that cookies are causing their machine to run out of space, and that is simply not true. Cookies are normally under 100bytes. So even if you had ten thousand cookies on your system, it still would only be equal to around 1 Megabyte, or a quarter of an MP3 file.

4. Websites going wacky

Some websites will store personal information in your cookies such as your name, DOB, and account name. If you bypass the cookies you might come across errors or be asked to create a new account. This can be a nuisance if you want to have a quick and streamlined experience.

5. More information means a better understanding of consumers

With more data available, companies can achieve a greater understanding about their users. With a better understanding, it can affect all levels of a business in a positive way, by defining who their ideal customers are, and helping them to focus on those segments. This effect is lessened when people block cookies. By keeping cookies enabled, you help to make companies more effective at reaching their desired audience.

As outlined above there are several good reasons to not delete your cookies, and on the whole they will greatly enhance your online experience.

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