Data is king and the lifeblood of modern marketing strategies. With the inevitable death of third-party cookies, there has never been a better time to focus on gathering first-party data.
Third-party cookies are small pieces of data stored on a user's computer when they visit a website. Google is phasing out third-party cookies to protect user privacy and to provide more control over how their data is collected and used.
Following this move, first-party data will be a business's crown jewel, and is the most valuable information your brand can control. The data comprises all the interactions, actions, and feedback you acquire directly from your customers. It could be from website visits, purchase records, online surveys, or other forms.
First-party data makes building targeted marketing campaigns more effective for brands. It allows you to create experiences relevant to individual customers and build closer relationships with them.
What Is First-Party Data?
First-party data is the data your company collects directly from your audience, which can be customers, social media followers, or website visitors. You collect this data directly through interactions with the customer on your company's channels.
Examples of first-party data include demographic information like age, gender, location, or interests, and behavioral information like purchases made or pages visited. The data also includes CRM data, social media conversations, survey data, and online chat transcripts.
The world is moving closer to a cookieless future, making collecting first-party data a must for businesses. The move to phase out third-party cookies is part of the effort to protect users’ privacy.
As privacy is now a priority, many of the advertising channels you currently use are bound to change in terms of policy and targeting. You’ll need to rethink how you market to your audience across different channels. That said, collecting first-party data is a great way to counter the disruption of losing cookies and ad targeting capabilities.
What Are Some Sources of First Party Data?
You can gather first-party data from:
- Customer surveys
- Website visits
- App usage
- Customer service interactions
- Customer feedback
- Online chats
- Lead generation campaigns
- Social media
- CRM databases
- Email and newsletter subscriptions
The channels that you use to collect your data will depend on your audience and the type of information you want to gather.
Why Is First-Party Data Important?
Now that you know how to collect first-party data, let’s look at how it can benefit your business. First-party data can be your brand's goldmine if you gather it correctly. The data will help you in the following ways:
Owning Marketing Contacts
Owned contacts are those who willingly share their personal information, such as an email address or phone number, with brands in exchange for something of value. Owning this type of contact information can help you build deeper relationships with customers and increase the effectiveness of your communication efforts.
Creating More Purposeful Marketing
Accurate and reliable first-party data gives you a clear picture of your target audience's desires, meaning that you can create more effective marketing campaigns. You can translate this data into more targeted and personalized campaigns that speak directly to your customers in a relevant way and at the right time.
According to a Boston Consulting Group (BCG) report, marketers rely on first-party data to execute basic marketing functions such as customer segmentation. They also consider the data valuable for advanced marketing tactics such as cross-channel orchestration and personalization.
Another report shows that 92% of marketers trust first-party data as an essential tool for driving business growth. They believe that understanding what customers want is a critical factor in marketing success.
Building Relationships With Your Audience
Personalized marketing helps you build stronger relationships with your customers and increases the chances of conversion. The relationship continues long after the campaign, as you can use the data to continue providing value to your customers.
Relationships with your clients, users, and community are the lifeblood of your business. With first-party data, you can create more meaningful marketing that helps you engage with and reach these audiences without Big Tech algorithms getting in the way.
Platforms like Norby can help you surpass Big Tech's limitations and build better relationships with your community. Norby transforms your followers into real relationships you own and control, helping you create experiences that are personal to each individual.
Strengthening Your Brand
Having accurate and valuable first-party data can strengthen your brand. You can use the insights to create content that resonates with your customers and increase engagement on social media.
First-party data helps you stay ahead of the competition by keeping up with ever-changing customer preferences and needs. You can also use the data to create new products and services that cater to your customers’ needs.
Increasing Revenue While Saving Costs
One of the key benefits of accurate first-party data is that it helps you grow your brand without paid ads. You can increase revenue while saving costs by creating personalized experiences that drive conversions.
According to Think With Google and Boston Consulting Group, brands that leverage first-party data in their marketing functions can achieve a 2.9X increase in revenue and save up to 1.5X in costs. You can save this much because, with the data, you don't have to pay for ads or other marketing tactics to capture customer attention. With first-party data, you can build genuine relationships with your customers and nurture them into loyal brand advocates, thereby reducing your marketing costs.
How To Use First-Party Data
You can't get the most out of your first-party data if you're not sure of what you want to achieve with it. So before using it, think about your goals and how you will use the data to achieve them. Consider whether you want to:
- Build brand awareness
- Re-engage lapsed customers
- Drive more qualified leads
- Add more value to your customers
- Use personalization
Once you understand what you want to do with the data, you can start using it to create more meaningful marketing campaigns and experiences for your customers.
Six Effective Ways to Use Your First-Party Data
Once you have a clear understanding of how you want to use your data, you can start applying it in creative ways. Here are some practical ways that you can use first-party data:
Landing Page
With first-party data, you can tailor landing pages for different audiences coming from various channels. You can also use the data to guide your landing page’s layout and content. For example, if customers consistently bounce off the page after a certain point, you can use this to identify areas that need improvement.
Once you have identified these areas and made changes, you can use A/B testing to determine whether the changes are effective. A/B testing involves creating two versions of your landing page to see which one works best. You can choose the best-performing version based on metrics like conversion rate, bounce rate, and other factors.
Norby's landing page editor makes it easy to build and test multiple landing pages in one place, allowing you to easily track and analyze your performance. After creating your landing pages, you can view their performance to see who has interacted with them, how they got there, and their locations. You can then use this data to identify areas that need improvement and continue optimizing your pages.
SMS
You can use first-party data to send SMS texts to your customers; this can be one-to-many text conversations and 1:1 conversations. This communication can improve your relationship with customers, build a stronger community, and increase conversions. At Norby, we see three times the number of conversions when using SMS to send notifications.
With first-party data, you can personalize your marketing messages to make them more relevant to different segments. For example, if you know that a customer hasn't opened an email in the last month, you could send them a reminder via SMS. You can also use SMS to send promotions and offers, as well as gather feedback from your customers.
Norby makes it easier for you to build relationships with your audience through text messages. You can set up a sends campaign to engage with a wide audience in a personalized manner. You can filter your campaign based on custom fields or your audience's response to a question you asked them.
Let no one lie to you that emails are no longer effective. They remain one of the most powerful marketing tools, yielding an ROI of $40 for every $1 spent on email marketing.
Using first-party data, you can create more engaging and customized emails that are as relevant to each group as possible. You can segment your audience based on demographics like location, gender, age, and interests and send them personalized messages tailored to their needs.
Norby's sign-ups tool makes collecting emails and phone numbers from your customers easy by using a customized form. It’s easy to create a new sign-up and specify the information you want to collect from your audience. It could be a name, phone number, or email, which you can then use to create segments for targeted emails.
Paid Ads
Paid ads are a great way to reach distinct personas and spread the word about your business. With first-party data, you can create more effective ads that address the needs of specific audiences, convert more prospects into customers, and boost ROI. For example, if you know your customers are mainly women aged 25–35, you can use that information to create ads tailored to that audience and target them through different channels.
Social Media
First-party data will help you create targeted social media content that your audience will love. You can create in different formats, such as blogs, videos, carousels, digital guides, and reels. The key is understanding your audience and the type of content they prefer, which is easier when you have first-party data.
The data can also help you optimize the timing of when you post content on social media. Once you understand when your customers are most active online, you can ensure that your posts reach the right people at the right time.
Loyalty Programs or Membership
First-party data helps you create personalized loyalty programs that cater to the needs of different customer groups. You can offer early-bird access to sales and discounts.
You can also use the data to determine what type of free content your customers will engage with the most. The goal is to offer your customers something valuable in return for their data.
Ideas of How to Leverage 1st Party Data
The sky is the limit when it comes to leveraging first-party data. Here are some ideas of how you can do that:
Lead Generation
Leads are the lifeblood of any business. But how can you use first-party data to generate more leads? Start by using your top social channel to post enticing content to draw followers to your profile.
Provide them with something valuable, such as a digital good or a one-pager. Use the link in your bio to quickly gather your desired first-party data every time someone clicks on the link. With the data, you can send personalized nurture campaigns to those who have shown interest in your product.
The downside of using social media platforms to target users and collect data is that you're relying on the platform's algorithm to serve up your content. You also hand over control of the data to the social media platform.
Norby changes that by allowing you to collect first-party that you can use to generate leads without relying on social media platforms. For instance, you can use Norby Signups to collect your target audience's email handles and phone numbers. You can use this data to build an organic connection with your audience first, and target them later with personalized offers and messages to nurture them.
Optimize your sign-up forms
You can use first-party data to optimize your sign-up forms and ensure they are enticing enough. Consider the look, feel, and branding of your form. You can also check which fields are necessary and add some optional ones to collect additional data that you can use to create targeted campaigns.
Again, Norby Signups will help you create a custom form field that you can use to collect all kinds of first-party data relevant to your business needs. You can use the data to create targeted campaigns or move the dial on a key growth metric for your business.
Re-engagement/Win Back Strategy
It's not uncommon for people to forget about your business over time and fall off the radar. To win them back, you can use first-party data on your CRM to create and send personalized emails or SMS messages. The messages could offer a free download to hook people, a discount, or a free consultation.
You can manage your communications with the customers and audience you’re trying to re-engage with using Norby’s Inbox. You’ll get individual replies after sending out a group SMS using Norby’s Sends or Event notifications. Once someone replies, you can initiate a two-way SMS conversation.
Supercharge Your Brand With First-Party Data
First-party data is the new gold rush, giving you the power to create meaningful experiences for your target audience. It helps you understand your customers better and create relevant, tailored content. So why not leverage this valuable data today?
At Norby, we can help you collect and make the most of your first-party data. Norby Toolkit has everything you need to streamline your marketing, including easy-to-set-up landing pages and email and SMS marketing features. Learn more about Norby's features and join our platform to start building your brand today.
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