The First-party data madness – why it matters?

How bothered have you been as a consumer seeing all those targeted unsolicited ads from brands that you never interacted with? The good news is, you will soon start seeing your privacy is respected and your consent matters on the internet. That's all. Period.

(Only continue reading if you are a marketer or entrepreneur)

The good ol' days of ads and using 3rd party data are going away. The only way to stay competitive in the coming days will be to keep your customers engaged with your business in a meaningful way - not just treat them as money machines.

It's a good thing too. You will get the opportunity to grow as a brand instead of just another internet business.

*What's 3rd party data?*

When you browse the web or use apps on your phone, websites and apps collect your data such as name, email, age, etc. They keep track of you using cookies (browsers), IDFA (iOS), and AAID (android).

Later these aggregated data are sold to entities who may not have any direct connection with you or you never gave them consent. That's 3rd party data.

Advertisers can create comprehensive audience segments based on these data to show targeted ads. The process is more complex in general.

*Why it matters?*

Apple starting from iOS 14.5 made it compulsory that every app needs to display a pop-up asking for the user's consent to get access to IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers). It's that small "ask app not to track" that you always click I can guess. A recent survey reported less than 20% of users allow apps to track.

Google is following the privacy route too. They delayed a bit for COVID but not any longer. They are planning to retire both AAID from android and 3rd party cookies from Chrome by 2023.

While consumers love personalized experiences, they absolutely hate tracking. Now it's up to marketers and advertisers either to increase ad budgets or rely more on first-party data to respect privacy but offer personalization.

*How first-party data can help?*

First-party data is the information you collect from your audience directly. Your audience generally gives their consent and you can reliably engage with them.

In the coming days, to make ads efficient, you would need to attach a first-party data source. Doing so will also help you to portray a complete image of your audience, understand how they interact with your business, and finally communicate with them through personalized messaging.

First-party data is valuable and thus difficult to collect. Being reliable, relevant, and robust - first-party data is often called First-Rate data. A scalable first-party data collection strategy will help to grow your business as a trustworthy brand.

Advergames, lead gen campaigns, content sharing, surveys, etc can help you to collect first-party data at scale. 2nd party data from beneficial partnerships can be helpful too. But all these for another write-up!

#idfa #startup #firstpartydata #ingameadvertising