Why Is It Important To Own Your Data as a Brand?
Brands need access to first-party data. It is important for them to have data that truly belongs to them. Brands need data to help them run effective marketing and advertising campaigns.
It might not seem pressing now; however, third-party cookies are being deprecated by late 2023. The sunsetting will have an impact on brands looking to keep up with their competition. If you are a brand that currently uses third-party data, there are several reasons to switch to first-party:
- Third-party data is less accurate and will only become more inaccurate as Google sunsets support for third-party cookies. Most major browsers, such as Safari and Firefox, have already deprecated third-party cookies, so those relying on them are missing about 50% of shoppers.
- It's more expensive and belongs to the companies who it truly belongs to. This means you won’t see a real ROI since you don’t own that information and cannot see your true audience.
- It’s not collected and used in real time. Most third-party data is guesswork—guesses on who is interested in your product and/or service, how close the consumer is to purchase, and on the likelihood to purchase based on demographics that aren’t cleaned frequently.
Not a lot of companies are aware of these changes or issues regarding cookies and data. Many aren’t even thinking about it. By learning these steps to using first-party data, you have a competitive advantage to provide your business.
The Steps to Using First-Party Data
As a business, you want to leverage your first-party data and grow sales. What is the first step? How do you collect that brand data? Once you get it, where does it stay and what do you do with it once you’ve collected it?
The First
The first step to consider is whether you want to go through an agency or on your own for marketing. Depending on how your marketing arm works, you need to invest in a technology service that transforms cookie audiences into households.
While you have information from previous customers, what about other sources of a brand's data? If you aren’t sure of the answer to that question, it’s time to invest in a technology. fullthrottle.aiTM is one of the companies that can convert those audiences into households.
The Second
The second step, once you have your list, is to segment it down into what those consumers looked at. Here are the people you want to focus on, down to household. Then, you need to find ways to activate that data.
Now, it is not super easy to find the pipes and the tactics available besides direct mail. Just about anyone can do direct mail. Besides direct mail, you’ll want to use things like video, audio, display, and social—all focused around household-driven data. It’s not very easy to do so.
The Third
Step three is to find sources to deliver your immersive tactics.
At fullthrottle.aiTM, we knew this would be an issue, so we created both the means to transform those audiences into household data and the pipes and integrations. So, if you wanted to activate your data with podcast audio inventory with iHeartMedia, you can do so very fast. You can also do that with Effectv, Comcast, Spectrum, and Charter. Typically, activation through these companies doesn’t exist. Through our partnerships with them, we’ve made it possible.
fullthrottle.aiTM is also fully integrated into the Amazon API, allowing you to interact with Amazon’s audiences, sending display and direct mail.
After You Have Your List
Once you have created your list, segmented it, and determined who you want to focus on within that list, it’s important to immerse the households in as many tactics as possible.
As an example, if you have identified a set of 10,000 households out of 100,000 that are looking at your products the most, it's safe to assume they will be buying your products soon.
As a brand, how do we immerse the households who are currently considering your products?
There are a few ways to do this: when they listen to audio and podcasts, when they watch TV (whether it’s on their set-top box, in their family room, or a streaming site on their laptop), or on any kind of display and social.
Immersing them is important. You’ll want to explain to consumers why your brand is the best source and place and why they should do business with you or upgrade their services with you.
How To Know These Steps Worked
People often ask us how to know if these steps worked. The beauty of starting with first-party data is that you have the list—you know who your customers are. If they bought garage upgrades, you’ll know it. You can compare customers who purchased to your list to see how many of them you were able to convert.
Being Ahead of the Curve
We have all seen the results when running campaigns with first-party data versus no first-party data. The results are that our brands are seeing true return on investment––especially with first-party data that they own. It is comprised of people who are interested in their products/services.
The conversion rates and the effectiveness of those campaigns utilizing that first-party audience have been off the charts.
It's so important to start now. Start building up that audience, so you can slice and dice and run campaigns whenever you want to.
Because right now, if you're reading this, you are ahead of the curve.
How fullthrottle.aiTM Helps You Own Your Brand Data
We have helped over 3000+ businesses collect, store, and activate their own first-party data. When you own your data, it gives you more freedom to run your marketing campaigns. Why not take advantage of that?
Interested in what fullthrottle.aiTM can do for your brand? Schedule your discovery call with one of our First-Party Data Analysts here.
