First Party Data: Putting Your Customer Data First

Thanks to the rise of digital marketing and first-party data, brands all over the world are now able to identify their most loyal customers and develop customer segmentation strategies and personalized marketing campaigns that appeal directly to their consumers. By collecting data from various sources including websites, mobile apps, and social media channels like Facebook and Twitter, marketers can create highly targeted campaigns based on each individual user's likes, dislikes, or purchase history.

In today's competitive business environment, delivering personalized customer experiences is a basic requirement that your customers expect. Customers gravitate toward brands that pay attention to their specific wants and needs as rounded individuals. In fact 72% of consumers say they only engage with personalized content. How do brands do this well? Being successful in any personalization initiative today means embracing first-party data.

What Is First Party-Data?

First-party data is considered the most valuable type of information for marketers and advertisers because it's collected directly from the customers. It can be used to create personalized marketing campaigns, which are more likely to resonate with customers than generic messages.

First-party data includes:

• Customer information (e.g., name, email address)
• Digital footprints left by consumers when they interact with brands online (e.g., browsing history on websites)

First-Party Data and Personalization

As Google and Apple put more control of user data in the hands of consumers, brands will have to gather information in new ways. This will force most brands to rely more on their own first-party data to personalize digital marketing efforts like ads and customer experiences, making personalization tactics much more effective.

That’s why many brands are making the shift to collecting, storing, and organizing first-party data. It provides the information needed for personalized interactions that drive increased sales and create brand loyalists while protecting the consumer. This data can ultimately be used responsibly to create personalized brand experiences.

So How Do You Collect First Party Data from Customers?

It’s simple, just ask. Utilize gamification, have your store teams collect the data at checkout or sign up for loyalty, and be sure to ask customers only for what’s critical in the personalization journey – don’t get superfluous with your requests. While it might be nice to know your customer’s favorite color – what will that information be used for?

Stick to the basics like how do they prefer to be contacted and what is their contact info? What are some basic preferences surrounding the product? These details feel relevant to curating the customer’s journey with your brand and will be easily offered by customers.

A trusted partner like Baesman can help you analyze and collect data from web channels, mobile apps, offline point-of-sale sources, CRM, email, and SMS data to provide a solid foundation of first-party data to work from. This foundation will give you a much more comprehensive view of your customers.

First-party data is key to understanding the customer journey and personalizing the customer experience and content across all channels, as well as targeting and retargeting campaigns.

Keeping Your Data Updated to Inform Future Marketing and Outreach Efforts.

As the first-party data landscape continues to evolve, it's important to keep in mind the importance of collecting, organizing, and keeping your data updated. While there are many ways to do this, one of the most effective is by using a CRM platform that allows you to track all customer interactions across multiple channels. A good CRM strategy will help you create a holistic view of each customer's journey so that you can better understand how best to reach them in the future.

Personalization is a critical differentiator for companies that want to remain competitive in an increasingly digital marketplace. Leveraging first-party data can supercharge your personalization strategy, enabling businesses that use it effectively to improve customer acquisition costs, generate more revenue, and improve the efficiency of their marketing campaigns.

Partner with Baesman for Customer Analytics Insights to Drive Growth

Baesman is the partner you need for CRM and analytics that inform your marketing campaigns and drive growth for your brand. We clean up and consolidate data across all your platforms and help you analyze it using our own tools and expertise. As a strategic partner, we’ll deliver insights into your customers and remain invested in the results of execution so we can help you optimize your marketing campaigns.