First-party data, in a marketing strategy, can complement, enhance and reduce the need for other types of data.
For a long time, it was part of most marketers’ routine to create a first-party data strategy. These were high investments in data about consumers potentially interested in your products and/or services in order to improve segmentation and communication strategies.
There is a common truth for all marketers: retaining customers brings more strategic benefits than finding new ones. According to a Deloitte study, customers with more frequent purchases spend 33% more than new customers.
The study notes that these same customers provide the greatest and most valuable strategic resource: data. A strategy based on primary data guarantees a higher return on investment than the same on any other type of data.
Yet, many marketers don’t have the right data technologies and strategies in place to harness the potential that this data could bring to their business.
Creating the kind of personalized experiences that drive brand loyalty and retention means being able to understand and respond to customer demands, needs and intentions with contextual relevance. There’s no better way than to create a strategy based on primary data to boost your business.
But where to start?
Contents
Map all primary data sources
A first-party data strategy should take into account all possible points of contact and customer data collection.
This mapping, while complex, is critical to the strategic decisions you decide to make for your business. Some primary data sources may be more obvious than others, such as:
Website
If we could bet, we would say that this would have been the first primary data source. And rightfully so! Monitoring user behaviors and transactions is important for subsequent targeted retargeting strategies.
We caution, however, about mobile versions of your site. Not all devices allow the use of JavaScript or cookies. Encouraging login through the site allows the collection of important data about users, even in the after-cookies future, with first-party data.
Applications
Mobile app users are, as a rule, the most enthusiastic for your brand. After all, they have downloaded the app to their cell phone. To ensure that the data you collect is what best benefits your brand strategy, define which events best fit your strategy for data collection and treatment.
Email and SMS
Good old friends never disappoint! By sending email communications, you can find out data such as open rates, click-through rates, bounce rates, etc. There is also information about who is involved with these communications or not. This allows you to segment contacts by level of interaction. The SMS data is similar: because text messages are an intimate form of communication, customers allow brands to engage using SMS with a high level of interest.
Point of Sale and CRM
This type of offline information often goes unnoticed. However, they are sources of data that allow you to learn about consumer habits and behaviors. This data is important for online segmentation and activation of your best customers. They are also very useful for measurement and analysis: brands can see what is selling, what is not, and where.
Beacons
In-store beacons generate new types of in-store customer data based on location. In this way, they offer huge data potential, as they collect detailed aspects of consumer behavior.
Call centers
Call centers are one of the most significant points of contact between the brand and the market. It is a point with conversion potential or, on the other hand, where most of the problems arise. Even if you invest in an automation strategy in customer support, the rich data that is being produced should not be left aside.
Integrate the different data
After mapping all the touchpoints, it is essential to integrate, aggregate and cross-reference the information collected. It’s time to decide what combination of data will be used to cross-reference and create new insights.
In most cases, we find that primary data matching is mostly focused on transactional data. However, this data does not bring much relevance unless it is put in context, for example: to understand the customer’s behavior in a physical store, what was the date of the last in-store purchase, which category is the most frequent purchase.
The goal is to connect all the dots, literally! Solutions like the Customer Data Platform provide valuable insights for your strategy, as this type of platform allows you to create highly accurate segments, given the wealth of data collected and added.
A “Frequent Customer” might be someone who buys many products a few times in a physical store, or buys few products but often online. A fan of your brand can be defined after 50 visits to the physical store, or by interaction with communication campaigns. The business strategy becomes something alive, that evolves with the wealth of collected data.
In conclusion
By joining all channels and information together, it will be much easier to understand if a customer went from an email to the app, where he completed the purchase. With a complete view of this process and its multiple variants, it is possible to segment and optimize for different audiences and turn to conversion.
Therefore, a first-party data strategy delivers accurate insights into your audience, which allows you to create and innovate in the way you interact and communicate. In this way, it improves the user experience. Based on what a company knows about its audience and their behavior across all touchpoints, it is possible to design positive and unforgettable experiences and contacts based on interests, preferences, locations, purchase history and more.