Why You Should Use First-Party Data to Enhance Your Digital Strategy

To succeed, marketers need to be forward thinking. As we approach a cookieless world, brands that have been heavily relying on third-party data to guide their ad strategies are in for some major hurdles. To be successful after this shift in advertising, it’s crucial to have the highest-quality first-party data possible. 

Utilizing your CRM to collect data on your customers will help you craft a digital strategy that leads customers to convert. Luckily, collecting data yourself is often the most inexpensive and reliable way of gaining customer insights. If you want to deliver truly personalized customer experiences, first-party data is key. 

How Should You Collect Customer Data?

When it comes to collecting customer data, marketers have to walk a fine line between securing enough data to provide quality, personalized experiences without scaring away customers by asking for too much. 45% of American consumers view the data collected about them as harmful. You want to maintain your customers’ trust by never overstepping boundaries.

Data collection should start with the basics. A simple sign up form on your website can give you information such as names, email addresses, phone numbers, and mailing addresses. Use this form to find out your customers’ preferred mode of contact and how they heard about your brand for further insights. Purchases also give you necessary information about your customers, such as product interests and their time and method of purchase to further understand buying habits. 

Once your customer builds out their basic profile, you can start to dig deeper. Your CRM should track different customer behaviors as they interact with your brand, from browsing data to their reviews and overall interests. You should also collect customer location, age, and even income levels, purchase behavior, and cart abandonment while building out the customer profile.

CRMs can also collect information on how much time customers spend on your website and how often they come back. It’s also a good idea to use incentives, such as discounts, to entice customers to voluntarily provide more data. In a brand-customer relationship, you want to make sure things are balanced and both parties feel like they are winning. 

Make The Most Of First-Party Data 

Collecting the data is only half the battle; you also need to use it strategically. Not properly mining customer data to glean insights could mean the high quality data you worked hard to collect is being wasted. Segmentation is critical in this process. When segmenting customer data, think in layers: start with simple demographics, such as location, and then layer in other buying patterns, interests, and channels to zero in on target groups. 

When creating and distributing advertisements, you should also be targeting customers with first-party data for digital precision. Getting ultra-granular when targeting can help you better reach the audience segments that are most likely to convert. You don’t want to spend money and time distributing all of your content to your entire database – use precise targeting parameters to deliver customized messages and creative to appeal to individual interests. 

This strategy also applies to retargeting. As a customer shops around your website, you can then retarget them with products they have previously shown interest in or suggest products that are complementary to past purchases. As consumers interact more with your brand and you learn more about them, you can build messaging that nurtures an emotional connection with every sequential ad. For example, users who see your ad just once are 5.7% more likely to make a purchase than those who never saw your ad to begin with. Customers who see your ads two to five times are 4.4% more likely to convert, especially if the messaging is hyper-relavent to their interests or behaviors. 

As third-party data and cookies become a relic of the past, smart marketers will stay ahead of the curve and take matters into their own hands by collecting first-party data via their CRMs. Linking your CRM’s data directly to your ad strategy is a great way to create data-driven campaigns that drive real results.