Why It’s Important to Define a First-Party Data Strategy Now

Cookies are on their way out. That’s why it’s a good idea to start thinking about a strategy centered on first-party data—one that will allow you to continue acquiring new customers and increase your brand awareness, all in compliance with current legal regulations. In this post, I’ll explain what first-party data is, why you should start paying more attention to this type of data, its advantages, as well as how to collect it, what data to collect, and how to put it to use. Sounds interesting, right? Let’s get started.

Ever since Google announced a couple of years ago that cookies would be phased out, the digital advertising industry has been working to find an effective alternative to what cookies provided for digital marketing. However, until that happens, one of the best alternatives is to leverage first-party data. Let’s take a look at what this data is.

First-party data refers to any data a company collects from its own data sources, such as its website, social media, CRM, and customer service… As a publisher or company, you’ll receive millions or hundreds of visitors to your site, have thousands or dozens of subscribers to your email newsletter, and receive hundreds of comments and survey responses. In addition, every event and page view generates various data points that you can use to target advertising campaigns, understand your users, optimize the site experience, and much more.

In short, if you want to continue growing your business, you must stop using third-party data altogether—or at least stop relying on it so heavily—because:

• There will be changes to web browsers—not just Chrome, but all the others as well.
• Data privacy laws have already had a major impact on third-party data, but this is just the beginning. It is estimated that they will become increasingly restrictive.
• It is possible to customize without using third-party data.

The fact is, not only are the reasons decisive, but focusing your strategy on collecting your own data can also provide you with a number of advantages. I can summarize them in these three points:

1. It allows you to generate revenue through scalable customer acquisition.
2. Reducing the time it takes to gain insights through data.
3. Maintain control over the data, in accordance with the customer’s consent.

But keep in mind that just because we say we should prioritize the use of our own data, that doesn’t mean one type of data should replace the other. The goal is to complement them, thereby providing richer, strategically aligned data that aligns with business objectives.

Having a first-party data strategy requires a strategy for collecting and using that data that is not only robust but also adaptable.

How to Collect Data as Part of a First-Party Data Strategy.

Data collection is the most important part of the strategic process for 1st-party data; if this part is not defined correctly, the rest of the process will be inaccurate.

We can divide this process into two parts:

 

1. Data to be collected.

Before addressing this issue, we must be very clear about the purpose behind data collection—that is, why we collect data—so that we can focus on what data to collect.

Let’s look at an example. Online advertising is perhaps one of the fields where third-party data is most useful; however, to rely on first-party data, we should define our purpose for collecting data: understanding the audience, or the advertising itself.

Once we’re clear on the purpose, the next step is to determine what the data points will be. For the two purposes I mentioned earlier, the data points could be the following:

• Clicks throughout the page.
• Any downloads or newsletter subscriptions on the website.
• Media on the page.
• Search queries.
• Comments, topics, and posts on the company’s forums.
• Page metadata.
• URL.

In addition, you can access other data points such as:

• Years.
• Gender.
• Location.
• Household income.
• Marital status and family size.
• Interests.
• Preferences.
• Browsing history.
• Purchase History.
• Use of social media…

 

If you also conduct surveys, you can add all that information to your CRM and thus build a fairly comprehensive customer profile.

 

2. How to Collect Data.

Perhaps the biggest question you’ll face once you’ve figured out what data you need to collect is how to collect those data points.

There are many tools that can help you do this job very well, but it might be best to start with the simplest ones that are accessible to any company, such as:

#1. Google Analytics.

This Google tool lets you monitor your web traffic to understand it and extract much of the data you need. Plus, you can connect it to Google Ads to gain even more information and insights.

#2. Hotjar / Smartlook.

Both are web-based heatmap tools that can help you understand how users interact with your site’s content. You can track where they click, their cursor movements, how far they scroll, and much more.

#3. Tracking pixels.

I don’t need to tell you much about them, since I’m sure you use them often. It’s likely that all the marketing technologies and advertising platforms you use employ pixels on their pages to place cookies, so that anonymous user data can be collected for the intended purposes.

A simple example is Facebook pixels. When you run Facebook ads, the social media platform will ask you to place its tracking and conversion pixels to track traffic and conversions. Similarly, you can collect user data by using pixels on your web pages.

#4. DMP.

Last but not least, data management platforms (DMPs). DMPs are specifically designed to collect first-party data and put it to use. Their goal is to generate segments to identify the most suitable target audiences for each advertising campaign—in other words, to better target the audience you’re truly interested in with each campaign. They emerged as a result of programmatic buying, as they’re extremely helpful to the agencies, advertisers, and trading desks that use them. It’s perhaps the easiest option available to anyone. If you can afford a DMP, I recommend giving it a try.

#5. CDP.

Perhaps less well-known, but with tremendous potential for leveraging first-party data. A CDP is simply a customer data platform. On these platforms, you can create unique customer profiles using all the first-party data you have available. Similarly, you can enrich these profiles with secure connections to external sources and automate actions on the marketing platforms you use, based on different triggers.

Well, now that we’ve compiled them, it’s time to put them to use.

Putting the data to use.

This is the most important part, where we need to ask ourselves : How can we use the data we’ve collected to improve the user experience and increase revenue?

First-party data defines your customers’ experience with your brand and is one of your company’s most valuable assets. Thanks to this data, you can gain a true understanding of how your users feel, enabling you to make informed decisions and create strategies that lead to improvements.

But there is a problem: as the volume, variety, and velocity of the data a company is able to collect increase, many teams find themselves overwhelmed by it, becoming bogged down by so much information and failing to put it to use. If we add to this the fact that companies face the challenge of collecting, transforming, and putting customer data to use while simultaneously complying with new and changing regulations, we realize that this is no easy task.

Therefore, in order to make proper use of that data, you need technology to help you and a company with the expertise and know-how to make the most of it.

For example, when aiming to provide a good user experience, Google Analytics is often used to understand user behavior, while Google Ad Manager is used for ads. When you link them, you can generate reports that help you assess how ads affect the user experience—and vice versa.

This fact may be much more significant when you have the appropriate team specializing in that type of analytics, which, in turn, is capable of drawing more and better business conclusions.

At MioGroup, we’re experts in working with data—both third-party data and our clients’ own data from their CRM or CDP. Want to talk?