Three Ways First-Party Data Improves Your Digital Strategies

Yes, marketers need to rely more on first-party data now that browsers are taking away access to third-party cookies, but that’s not a bad thing! Here are three reasons why:

Increased Privacy

When you build your data collection and modeling strategies on first-party data, you avoid the struggle of contending with what to do when you no longer have access to third-party cookies. You’re prepared for the new, privacy-centric, cookieless world by adhering to regulations and standards. You’re future-proof. (Well, as future-proof as you can be.) 

And for even more privacy, you can use tools like Ads Data Hub (ADH), Google’s data warehouse built for the future. With its unique privacy-centric capabilities, you get access to advanced analytics on your Google media, including:

• Custom Reach & Frequency
• Campaign Overlaps (Across Advertisers/Publishers)
• First-Party Data Joins (Connect Your CRM and More)
• Google Audience Data Utilization (Affinity & In-Market)
• Audience Activation (Google Ads/Display & Video 360)

More Omni-Channel Measurement

Marketers understand the value of multi-channel data and what that means for understanding a customer’s relationship with their brand. Oftentimes, the all-important business data (or offline touches) are not included in digital strategies due to technical debt and hurdles in cross-organization collaboration. Solving these challenges provides the critical business insights digital marketers need to be as effective as possible.

When you collect your owned data from across your organization – like business forecasting information, margins and profits, inventory levels and more – and integrate it with your marketing data, you can improve your value-selling and bidding automation, and strategically meet operational-level goals.

Better Attribution

The right attribution model can significantly impact a company’s understanding of their ROAS. But the first challenge is more strategic than technical. Attribution ends where silos begin, but too often, we see a brand not agreeing on how to share and attribute their data. You need to address both the strategic and technical challenges, while creating an environment where the data itself also has a strong voice.

Then use your first-party data from both online and offline sources to accurately measure the incremental lift that your many channels contribute to the customer journey. Multiple attribution strategies are common and it’s important to strategically coordinate and align expectations throughout the organization, channel partners and affiliated partners.

To learn more, download our guide, “Take Your First-Party Data Further with Google Cloud for Marketing.”