As a digital marketer, you’ve probably heard the term “first-party data” floating around. But what is it, and how is it collected? In this blog post, we’ll break down everything you need to know about first-party data, including what it is, how it’s collected and used, and some of its key benefits. Are you ready to learn more? Let’s dive in!
1. What is first-party data?
It is data collected directly from an audience of customers, site visitors, and social media followers. The term “first party” refers to the party who gathered the data firsthand for retargeting purposes.
We think that first-party data is the best type of data to use for retargeting since it is like studying a pond that you own. You know precisely how these fishes behave and what it takes to catch one. With this knowledge, you can catch them again or try to catch fishes that behave the same way as the fish in your pond and add them to your own pond.
It is essential to know your audience, and there is no better way to study it than by collecting data from them! Therefore it is also the most reliable method for forecasting audience behavior.
First-party data can consist of many different sources, some of which are:
- Data from behaviors or actions taken across your website, app, and/or product
- Data from your CRM
- Data from your social media profiles
- Data from your subscription-based emails or products
- Data from surveys
- Data from customer feedback
2. How to collect first-party data.
The best way to start collecting data is on your online store, and you are probably already collecting first-party data, for example,
- Newsletter sign-ups
- Customer transactions: containing email addresses, customer names, and products bought.
These things can already give you a lot of information about your customers. For example, by analyzing the products bought, you can recognize some patterns (Products frequently bought together). With these, you can make recommendations based on what people add to their carts.
The result: People are more likely to buy more products in your store, and you are increasing the shopping experience by only analyzing your customers!
You can analyze many other things, for example, customer browsing behavior, which can show the points when visitors leave your website. by tackling problems like these, customers are more likely to purchase products.
*When you are analyzing and improving your website to establish KPIs, it is complicated to measure your success without them.*
If you want to up your game, you can also try implementing artificial intelligence and machine learning and expand personalization efforts to new customer segments and customer journeys.
3. Implementing AI and machine learning
You can also use AI to collect data and make decisions. To make the process of AI easier to understand, I have segmented the process into four steps and will give an example after.
Collection: You can obtain personal information about an unknown visitor using AI and First-Party data; this information is consent managed and easily given by the visitor. The information may include their location, email address, and so on, and you can also acquire information about the visitor’s behavioral tendencies.
Reconciliation: Using all of the obtained first-party data, you can develop a customer profile and exclude those with duplicate, false, or missing information.
Segmentation: Depending on your target audience. The newly formed profiles can be split into several categories. Demographic, psychographic, geographic, and behavioral characteristics.
Activation: A compelling and tailored content message can be established, and the segmented profiles can now be reached using the personalized content created for them.
For instance, a visitor comes to your website, browses through it, looks at various pages, and then leaves. All of this data has been collected. A week later, they return, but they sign up for your newspaper this time. By doing so, their email and behavioral data—from what they were looking for to how long they spent browsing it—have been collected. Two weeks later, they return, click on a call to action, and add a product to their cart. After collecting first-party data, you can email them product recommendations and a personalized discount code.
The part with sending an email can also be automated using AI!
AI solutions out there
Some options are:
- Billy Grace
Billy Grace is unlike any other marketing tool out there. Their AI engine is changing the way marketeers think and work, and you can feel it as soon as you start using the system. With Billy Grace, you have complete insights into every aspect of e-commerce, and can automatically optimize your ad budget across all channels – something which is totally unique to this system. Not only that, but Billy Grace makes it easy to track your progress and see how your ads are performing. As a result, you can make sure that your campaigns are always on target, and that your budget is being used in the most effective way possible.
- AdScale
AdScale claims that AI automation creates the appropriate advertising campaign based on store data and order history, allowing you to contact the appropriate customer with the appropriate products on the channel. Since many stores utilize AdScale, AI is aware of what is effective. The starting price is $199. - MadGicx
In order to create an all-in-one solution for automation tactics, AI audiences, ad creation, creative insights, bidding and budget optimization, and a strategic dashboard, Madgicx claims to be integrating seven adtech products into one. - Conversific
Ecommerce analytics made simple; the user can access all necessary information on a single dashboard. They suggest that, in comparison to Google Analytics or Shopify Analytics, these dashboards provide added value.
The future of AI is looking bright, and we are just scratching the surface of its capabilities. First-party data collection will become more critical as we move forward. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up-to-date on the latest trends in AI and digital marketing. We’ll keep you posted on how you can use AI to improve your business strategy.
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