Team Madcraft
“First-party data” is a term that’s been tossed around a lot in the digital marketing space ever since iOS rolled out updates that allowed users to opt-out of in-app tracking. It wasn’t something we needed to think about before that change – so what is it?
First-party data is the future of marketing. It’s data that is collected directly from your customers through your owned digital channels. This data is distinguished by individuals who consensually “opt-in” to provide their data to you. This could include:
Just like third-party data, first-party data can accurately identify target audiences, drive personalisation, and measure performance. First-party data is more trustworthy as it does not get filter by external sources (which happens with third party data). First-party data is the most reliable way to contact and nurture your audience.
Google announced the phasing out of third party cookie’s usage on its servers forcing marketers to base all their marketing activities on first-party data moving forward. The move comes as an attempt by Google to reduce the amount of intrusive targeted advertising technologies.
Chrome initially planned to phase out the use of third-party cookies mid 2022 but has experienced numerous delays due to construction issues on the Privacy Sandbox and to give marketers more time to amend their advertising approaches. As of now, third-part cookies will cease to exist by 2024.
Email marketing went out of fashion around 2019, but since iOS and now Google introduced data-tracking updates, email marketing has risen to the forefront of digital marketing channels once again. Great design, promotions, and VIP lists all help engage audiences, and email marketing is proving to be a really effective eCommerce marketing channel for encouraging brand loyalty and driving low-cost, high-ROI sales.
The channel has an expectation of growth of 4.6 billion email users worldwide by the year 2025. There’s a huge opportunity to integrate this into your marketing strategy and reap the benefits of this growth.
When Google eventually phases out the practice of third-party cookie gathering, first-party will become key for marketers to use in their marketing activities if they wish to continue identifying and segmenting audiences. The time to build a first-party data strategy is now; the easiest way to do that is through email marketing campaigns. Here are a few unique ideas to incorporate into your next email campaign:
Collecting first-party data in email marketing gives you a competitive advantage, as accurate, raw data is extracted from users directly and not filtered by third parties sources. Data can be processed, analyzed, and built into your digital plan in real-time.
In contrast to third-party data, gathering first-party data is much safer as the risk of a data breach is reduced. Sensitive data is not stored on third-party sources with weaker security frameworks. Industry experts claim about 60 percent of all data breaches occur via third-party vendors.
The key takeaway is to understand how first-party data integrates with email marketing. The phasing out of third-party cookies has made it more important for marketers to adopt strategies to extract first-party data efficiently and implement them into their marketing activities.