Using First-Party Data in a Cookieless World

Third-party cookie data is relied upon to inform marketers' digital advertising strategies. Tracking website visitors allows for a better understanding of customers' interests and in turn marketers can deliver an improved digital experience. However, by now, we all know that third-party cookie data is soon to be a thing of the past due to the demand of consumers wanting to protect their online privacy.

Consumers understand that when they accept "all cookies" on a website, their data is being collected and sold to external parties. However, consumers are now more digitally mature and want more control over their data and its use.

Although many marketers may see the discontinuation of third-party cookies as a pitfall in their digital marketing strategies, they shouldn't. There is an opportunity to stay ahead of the competition by finding better ways to engage and build relationships between organisations and their customers. To do this marketers need to enter a new era of digital marketing.

A New Era of Marketing - The Move to First-Party Data

The move from third-party data to first-party data will allow organisations to deliver hyper-personalised and engaging customer experiences. These experiences will help strengthen the relationship between brands and customers.

So, why is first-party data the key to a competitive advantage? Here are a few reasons:

Enhanced Personalisation - A recent study showed that over 50% of consumers expect offers to always be personalised. It's no longer a nice-to-have, it's now key to building customer relationships and loyalty. Because consumers are wanting a more personalised and seamless online experience they are willing to provide first-party data. Organisations who are able to tap into and effectively use this data will no doubt rank ahead of the competition.

Clearer Persona Development - Developing a customer persona has always been a great way to understand key audiences however persona's are usually based on assumptions. Using first-party data allows for real time customer behaviour to be captured which can be used to inform the details of a customer persona, identify new audiences and deliver engaging experiences.

A Holistic Customer Profile View - By collecting first-party data from a customer across various channels such as websites, apps, mobiles browser and transactions this builds an accurate and detailed view of the customer. These insights can be used for targeted campaigns and lead to a higher conversion rate and less ad spend.

Prevention of Data Fatigue - Asking for first-party data needs to be strategic in order to prevent data fatigue. Consumers don't want to spend hours filling out forms with fields that aren't useful for the organisation. Capturing essential data and being smart with its usage is mutually beneficial.

Learn more about the new era of digital marketing in the "True Insights in a Cookieless World" quick guide.

Build Better Relationships with a CDP

As we can see, using first-party data has its clear advantages and provides real time insights into a customers behaviour. But with first-party data coming in from various channels, how can you unify this data and action it?

This is where a customer data platform (CDP) comes into play, a platform that connects all data sources and touchpoints across various channels and unifies customer profiles without data being siloed.

Sitecore's CDP however goes one step further by activating unified data with decisioning, experimentation and personalisation. Using machine learning, Sitecore's CDP can suggest the next best experience for users on any channel - whether that's a discount, a push notification, a piece of content or any other action that the analysis suggests as the optimal next action to fulfil the set marketing goal.

Automating digital decisions, and then running real-time experiments on these channels is the scientific way to extract the most value from the data collected.

About Switch

Switch is a Sitecore Platinum implementation partner. To find out more about Sitecore's composable Customer Data Platform (CDP), a platform that captures unifies and activates omnichannel customer data in real-time, simply book a consultation with us today.