Why First-Party Data Is Your Most Valuable Marketing Asset

For years, digital advertising ran on borrowed information. Brands bought audience segments built by third parties, assembled from cookies and tracking pixels scattered across thousands of websites, and used them to decide who should see which ad. It was convenient, and it was never as accurate as it looked.

That model is getting harder to rely on. Browsers like Safari and Firefox block third-party tracking cookies by default. Apple requires apps to ask permission before tracking people across other companies' apps and websites. Privacy laws, from GDPR in Europe to state laws like California's CCPA, give people more say over how their data is collected and used. And the fastest-growing screen in advertising, the connected TV, was never built around cookies in the first place.

The brands that are best positioned for this shift are the ones that know their customers directly. That knowledge is first-party data, and it is becoming the most valuable asset in marketing.

What first-party data is

First-party data is information you collect directly from your own customers and audience, through your own channels, with their knowledge. It includes:

• Purchases and order history
• Website and app activity on your own properties
• Email and newsletter sign-ups and engagement
• Loyalty programs, accounts and subscriptions
• Customer service conversations
• Survey responses and stated preferences
• Interactions with your own ads and content

It helps to compare it with the alternatives:

• Second-party data is another company's first-party data, shared with you through a partnership.
• Third-party data is collected by companies with no direct relationship to the people involved, aggregated from many sources and sold to anyone who wants it.

Some marketers also single out information customers share deliberately, such as preferences, interests and intentions they tell you directly, and call it zero-party data. Whatever you call it, it is the most explicit form of first-party data: not something inferred from behavior, but something the customer chose to tell you.

Why first-party data is so valuable

It is accurate

Third-party segments are built on inference. Someone visited a car review site, so they are "in market for an SUV." Maybe they were; maybe they were reading about a friend's car. By the time a segment is packaged and sold, the signal is often old, second-hand and mixed with guesses.

First-party data comes from what your own customers actually did and said, with you, recently. A customer who bought running shoes from you last month, or told you they are training for a marathon, is a far more reliable signal than a stranger who once read a fitness article.

You own it

Data you buy can be repriced, restricted or discontinued, and your competitors can buy exactly the same segments. First-party data belongs to you. It is built from your relationship with your customers, it is unique to your business and it is a competitive advantage that cannot simply be purchased by someone else.

It is built on consent

Because first-party data is collected directly, you can be transparent about what you collect and why, ask for consent where it is needed, and give people control over their information. That makes it far easier to respect privacy laws and platform rules, and it builds trust. Customers are more willing to share information with a brand they know than with companies they have never heard of.

It lasts

Every change to browsers, mobile platforms and privacy rules in recent years has made cross-site tracking harder. First-party data does not depend on following people around the internet, so it is far less exposed to those changes. A strategy built on it keeps working when the rules shift again.

What you can do with it

First-party data is only valuable when you use it. The most common applications include:

• Personalization. Show customers products, offers and content that reflect what they have bought, browsed and told you.
• Better audiences. Reach existing customers with the right message, exclude people who have already converted, and use your best customers as the basis for finding new ones like them.
• Measurement. Connect campaigns to outcomes you can see directly, such as sign-ups, purchases and repeat orders, instead of relying only on estimates.
• Creative and product insight. Learn which messages, products and offers people actually respond to, and feed that back into both advertising and the business itself.
• Retention. Spot customers who are drifting away and reach them before they leave.

Advertising can collect it, too

Most marketers think of first-party data as something collected on a website or in a store. But advertising itself can be one of the richest sources of it, if the ad gives people something to do.

A traditional video ad produces almost no data: at best, a record that it played. An interactive ad is different. When an ad lets viewers choose among products, explore content or start a purchase, every choice is a direct signal of what that viewer is interested in. It is not inferred from a browsing history; it is declared by the viewer, in the moment, inside your ad.

This matters most on connected TV, where browser cookies were never the basis for targeting and measurement. An interactive TV ad can learn what viewers want directly from the viewers themselves.

That is the idea behind VideoStorm's StormTracker: it captures first-party data on customers' true interests and intentions from the choices they make in an interactive ad. Because VideoStorm ads can offer a menu of 25+ choices, each interaction says something specific, at the audience level and for each individual viewer who engages.

Getting first-party data right

Collecting first-party data well takes more than adding forms to a website. A few principles go a long way:

1. Offer a fair exchange. People share information when they get something for it: a better recommendation, a discount, useful content, an easier checkout.
2. Be transparent. Say clearly what you collect and how you will use it, and honor people's choices.
3. Collect what you will use. More data is not better if it sits unused. Focus on information that will improve the customer's experience or your decisions.
4. Keep it secure. Customer data is a responsibility as well as an asset. Protect it accordingly.
5. Connect it. Data scattered across systems is hard to act on. Bring it together so it can inform campaigns, creative and product decisions.

Third-party data let marketers guess at who their customers were. First-party data lets them know, and keep knowing, as the rules of advertising continue to change.

Want to turn your video advertising into a source of first-party data? Get in touch.