GA4 uses first-party cookies stored on your own domain—not the third-party cookies being blocked. When you hear “cookies are dying,” that’s about advertising trackers that follow people across the internet. Your GA4 analytics? It’s been first-party from the start. The _ga cookie on yourstore.com is set by yourstore.com, for yourstore.com. Safari, Firefox, and Chrome all allow this.

Here’s the distinction that matters: first-party cookies track visitors on YOUR site. Third-party cookies track people across THE ENTIRE INTERNET. GA4 does the former. Facebook retargeting did the latter. That’s why one keeps working and the other got hammered by iOS 14.5.

The Cookie Confusion WordPress Store Owners Face#

Every privacy headline screams “cookies are dead” without explaining which cookies. Store owners panic. They assume their GA4 data is broken or about to break. It’s not.

According to MonsterInsights, GA4 primarily relies on first-party cookies—it does not use or accept third-party cookies for basic analytics tracking. The “cookieless” label GA4 sometimes gets? Misleading. It means GA4 doesn’t use third-party cookies. It absolutely uses first-party cookies to function.

You may be interested in: First-Party vs Third-Party Cookies: Why One Survives

The _ga cookie stores your client ID—a random identifier plus timestamp that distinguishes new visitors from returning ones. The _gid cookie identifies unique visitors within a 24-hour window. Both are first-party. Both are set by your domain. Both keep working regardless of what Chrome does to third-party cookies.

Why GA4 Works Differently Than Facebook Retargeting#

Facebook’s pixel historically used third-party cookies to build audiences across websites. When you visited Site A, Facebook could drop a cookie. When you visited Site B, Facebook could read that same cookie and connect your behavior. That’s cross-site tracking. That’s what browsers are killing.

GA4 doesn’t do this. Your GA4 property only sees what happens on your site. The cookie it sets can only be read by your site. There’s no cross-site component to basic GA4 tracking.

“First party cookies are generally considered the ‘good’ cookies, even among data privacy advocates,” notes Root and Branch Group. “They can make the internet a more useable place without the same level of privacy risk coming from third party cookies.”

The distinction is foundational:

• First-party cookie: Created by the website you’re visiting, readable only by that website. GA4 uses these.
• Third-party cookie: Created by a domain different from the one you’re visiting, enabling cross-site tracking. Advertising networks used these.

What About Safari and Firefox?#

Safari’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) and Firefox’s Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP) have blocked third-party cookies for years. According to Analytico Digital, Safari ITP and Firefox ETP continue to block third-party cookies by default regardless of Chrome’s policy.

Your GA4 has been working on Safari and Firefox this whole time. Why? Because first-party cookies aren’t blocked. The browser restrictions target cross-site tracking, not site-specific analytics.

GA4’s default cookie expiration is 2 years of inactivity, per Root and Branch Group. You can customize this, but the point stands: first-party cookies get their full intended lifespan. They’re not subject to the 7-day limits Safari applies to certain tracking scenarios.

When GA4 Does Use Third-Party Cookies#

There’s one exception. According to Cookie-Script, GA4 can set third-party DoubleClick cookies only if you enable display advertising features like remarketing.

If you’ve turned on Google Signals or demographic reporting in GA4, you may have enabled third-party cookies without realizing it. These features use Google’s advertising infrastructure, which does involve cross-site tracking.

You may be interested in: Google Consent Mode V2 Is Killing Your Analytics

For most WordPress store owners running standard GA4 analytics, third-party cookies aren’t in play. Your page views, sessions, and e-commerce events all use first-party cookies exclusively.

The Real Threat to Your Data Isn’t Cookie Type#

If your GA4 data is incomplete, third-party cookie deprecation isn’t the cause. The actual culprits:

• Ad blockers: 31.5% of users globally block tracking scripts entirely (Statista, 2024). First-party or third-party doesn’t matter if the JavaScript never loads.
• Consent rejection: Under GDPR, users can reject analytics cookies. Even first-party cookies require consent for processing personal data.
• Browser privacy settings: Some users enable strict privacy modes that block all non-essential cookies.

The cookie architecture isn’t your problem. Getting data to GA4 at all is the problem.

Server-side tracking addresses this by capturing events on your server before they reach the browser. Transmute Engine™ runs as a first-party Node.js server on your subdomain (like data.yourstore.com), collecting events via the inPIPE WordPress plugin and routing them to GA4’s Measurement Protocol. Ad blockers can’t block requests to your own domain. The first-party foundation that makes GA4 cookies work also makes server-side delivery work.

Key Takeaways#

• GA4 uses first-party cookies—the _ga and _gid cookies are set by your domain, for your domain
• Third-party cookie deprecation doesn’t affect basic GA4—that’s about cross-site advertising trackers
• Safari and Firefox already block third-party cookies—your GA4 has been working on those browsers using first-party cookies
• GA4 only uses third-party cookies if you enable remarketing features—standard analytics is first-party only
• The real data loss comes from ad blockers and consent rejection—not cookie architecture

Your GA4 analytics isn’t the tracking that’s dying. Understand the distinction, stop worrying about headlines, and focus on the actual gaps in your data. See how Transmute Engine recovers what ad blockers hide →