Data is vital to advertising success, it lets you know what has worked and what hasn't, who to target and who to avoid. It is the effective use of data in advertising that, over the last decade, has led to the transformational performance of digital channels.
Unfortunately, much of the advertising world of old has been built off third-party data because it was easy and accessible. Third-party data can be compared to snacks in a diet, having some is great but if all you have is third-party data it's not great for the health of your advertising.
There are a number of reasons third-party data isn't great:
- Third-party data isn't privacy-first
- It is controlled by the platforms that collect it
- You can't actually access it to use it in other ways
- Inaccuracy in tracking over time
However, in the privacy conscious world we live in these draw backs have come together and gradually more and more sources of third-party data are disappearing. While good for the privacy-first consumer, if you want to continue to run high performance targeted advertising campaigns you are going to need to replace it with something. First-party data is the answer to this.
At a high level first-party data is the data that you have collected / have access to and doesn't rely on any third-party cookie technology. To continue our analogue from earlier if third-party data is the snack food, first party data is the main course.
First party data is:
- Privacy-first
- Controlled by you
- Accessible for multiple use cases
- Allow for accurate lifetime value calculations
The challenge with first-party data is not its potential, but how to unlock it without "Big Tech" doing it for you (which was the case with third-party data). Fortunately, you are in the right place, because unlocking first-party data is what we specialise in. We offer data consultancy for getting to grips with specific challenges and our platform, Audience Builder, is designed to make activating your customer data easy and impactful. Discover more about our services using the links below or continue onto our next article around first-party data strategy.
