At the beginning of 2020, Google announced that its products will no longer be supporting third-party cookies to maintain the data protection requirements of the users.
By 2021, they confirmed their plans of blocking third-party cookies completely and making the use of first-party data more prominent.
This clearly states that the future of digital marketing might look different with new ways of targeting users. Marketers will now have to leverage genuine user data, contextual advertising solutions, and technology to accomplish audience-based buying across screens.
However, given the fact that data cookies have contributed to lead generation, there’s been a growing concern among marketers as to how efficiently they can gather user data.
Top brands such as Chrome, Apple, Facebook have already started embracing this change. Apple for instance has introduced a new feature called the ‘App Tracking Transparency’. It displays an app tracking transparency prompt for data collected in the app and used for tracking.
Likewise, to limit data sharing with third parties, Google has brought a privacy solution called the ‘Privacy Sandbox’ for Android smartphones.
But what does this mean for digital marketing leaders?
Let’s learn more about this ‘Privacy War’ and how using first-party data will reshape digital advertising.
Digital Privacy and Digital Marketing
Marketers were previously buying third-party data cookies and using them more than first-party data to collect crucial information about their users.
Since the use of these cookies doesn’t promise privacy to the users, it actually made users skeptical about how their sensitive data is being used.
Moreover, there were some huge challenges associated with the use of third-party cookies. These were:
a. No transparency on means of data collection
b. Rise in data breaches due to its frequent use
c. Extraterritorial privacy regulations
d. Mistrust among website visitors
Hence, the shift to first-party data offers a solution for privacy and performance. It’s a new and improved way to promote digital privacy and stay compliant with the data privacy laws.
Benefits of Using First-Party Data
Since first-party data is collected from a company’s own sources such as email marketing campaigns, CRM, surveys, and social media, it’s easier to manage this data on a centralized data management platform.
Thus, enabling you to run personalized campaigns.
Let’s look at how beneficial first-party data is to drive your digital marketing campaign:
1. Accuracy and Authenticity
First-party data provides accurate and useful information about the audience of a company. The data comes directly from your audience, and thus it is highly accurate and relevant.
92% of marketers believe that this kind of data is critical to business growth and can be used to build an understanding of what people want.
Thus, leading B2B marketers believe that by using first-party data we can add accuracy and authenticity to business operations.
This eventually enables marketers to curate tailor-made campaigns by using the following data:
a. Specific preferences
b. Location
c. Purchase history
d. Shopping patterns
2. Detailed Buyer Personas
Delivering a relevant and personalized experience goes a long way for different businesses and industries.
Knowing who your customers are, simplifies the process of pitching them with personalized and relevant messages. It encourages them to interact with your business and eventually become a customer.
Developing detailed buyer personas is the first crucial step to creating relevant and personalized messages.
When creating buyer personas:
a. Start with where your first-party data lives. Your database is your source of fetching demographic and behavioral customer insights.
b. Conduct focus groups, surveys, 1-1 sessions with customers to identify their pain points and challenges very closely.
c. Map these findings back to your brand messaging pillars and the value proposition offered for each of them.
d. Incorporate your messaging across your marketing materials.
3. Improves Ad Personalization
The fact that about 44% of customers believe that they’re likely to take their business elsewhere if brands fail to offer a personalized experience directly implies personalization strengthens customer-brand relationships.
Using first-party data inspires new ways to tailor messaging and shape the customer experience.
It also enables you to:
a. Prepare a reliable account of your customers
b. Drive customer loyalty
c. Enhance personalization across the buyer journey
d. Establish a two-way value exchange between the customer and the brand
A detailed understanding of the customer behavior patterns helps you personalize your website and mobile app content. Alongside this, tracking the user behavior will help you send them personalized offers.
Did you know?
About 87% of leaders agree that delivering an exceptional customer experience is a must for their organization.
Brand presence plays an integral role in determining how customers make their choices. It helps customers recall, understand, and become comfortable with your products and services.
Moreover, customers want to feel valued and understood by a business they’re interacting with.
Developing a brand presence strategy using accurate user insights can help you deliver the right message, improve customer experience, build customer loyalty, and increase credibility.
5. Facilitates a Reliable Marketing Strategy
Data dynamics play a crucial role in formulating stellar marketing plans. When data is accurately collected, it helps you:
a. Improve Customer Database: With diverse data being collated, you can analyze how customer dynamics are changing. Also, the data divided into demographical, behavioral, and personal categories improves the quality of your database and fetches you deeper insights.
b. Improve Targeting Precision: 63% of customers believe personalization makes them feel recognized as an individual. A detailed customer database helps you personalize better and cater to the interests of the users. This eventually improves targeting precision, scales your marketing efforts, and reduces the sales cycle.
c. Data-driven Marketing Campaigns: Data-driven marketing campaigns fuel your marketing strategies. The authenticity of the first-party data adds more value to your marketing campaigns and makes you one step closer to realizing your business goals.
Moreover, a reliable marketing approach can further help you nurture lead opportunities, measure the lead pipeline, and send customized messages to the users.
Key Takeaway
It’s evident that first-party data has more potential than any other type of data. It plays a crucial role in tracking relevant user interactions, increasing user engagement, establishing first-party stewardship, etc.
Thus, it’s time for digital marketers to reexamine their marketing efforts and strategies so that they can better target their users with the most relevant message.
Need Help in Using First-Party Data for Your Digital Marketing Strategy? Contact Us!
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