In 2021, customers are seeing between 6,000 to 10,000 advertisements every day. Knowing how bombarded people are with this type of daily messaging fuels the never-ending mission of companies to find new ways to reach their customers that feel personalized to their needs. No longer can marketers put a single advertisement in magazines or on television and expect to target their ideal audience.
Instead, they need to adopt new strategies and technology to find the right brand messaging to attract more customers. One of the most significant changes marketers need to make is the shift from primarily using Third and Second-party data to incorporate self-declared data with Zero-party data.
What Is the Difference Between These Data Sets?
Before incorporating any of this data into your marketing, it’s essential to understand the differences between each type of information. Previously, companies had to rely on three categories of data for their marketing strategies, including:
However, these forms of data do not always provide the entire truth on customer’s preferences. The fourth type of data that brands have incorporated that have worked most effectively is self-declared which includes Zero-party data.
What Is Self-Declared Data?
Simply put, when a customer proactively or intentionally shares information with a brand, this is considered self-declared data. This data set may include preferences, personal context, how the individual wants to be recognized, or even the purchase intent. Plus, it helps to ensure privacy for your customers by gaining permission before collecting their information. Brands that utilize this opportunity will stay ahead of their competitors by gaining valuable insights into your customer’s preferences and tastes.
Targeting with Self-Declared Data
Having this highly individualized data helps companies meet customers’ preferences and demands. Self-declared data can build lasting customer relationships, enhance customer experience, forecast future trends, and even create strong customer personas.
When you can accurately build your customer profile and identify what your customer cares about, you can deliver timely advertisements that will have a higher ROI. For example, through self-declared data for your clothing store, you can learn the type of customers visiting your store. Maybe one of these groups are middle-aged females who love your yoga pants collection. Knowing this critical information ensures you’re not sending them a coupon for something they don’t care about, like men’s jeans.
As consumers start to have higher expectations regarding data privacy and brand experiences, marketers will have to reassess how they’re reaching their target audience. Thankfully, self-declared data provides an excellent solution to this ever-growing problem and allows your company to offer a personalized, relevant experience through customer data.
The vast majority of current web browsers now block third-party cookies or are on their way towards full blocks. This means that online advertisers and analytics firms cannot use browser cookie files anymore to track users as they visit different sites across the internet. The transition away from third-party cookies is causing brands to look at new ways to track visitor online behavior while also maintaining privacy.
It should be noted that the move away from third-party cookies by the three major web browsers does not mean an end to cookies.
Thanks to Third-Party Cookies entities were able to collect information about consumers without having a direct relationship with them. Sources of third-party data include consumer data brokers, credit reporting agencies, ratings companies, and publicly available records. Most commonly, data vendors aggregate unrelated sources to compile third-party data sets.
First-party cookies, that are placed on a person’s browser when they visit a website owned by a primary company or organization, will still be in place.
Companies will be able to track visitor behavior in terms of where they entered the site, how long they stayed, pages visited, and where they exited. This remains a core and central part of any organization’s data gathering practice and helps them determine how their sites and product offerings should be configured.
Another major concern for marketers thinking about their data is privacy. Because third-party data comes from an entity without a direct relationship with consumers, it’s the single biggest offender, and it’s coming up more and more in light of the GDPR.
Companies have to obtain consent from consumers to contact them for marketing purposes, share or sell data to third parties, and for any uses that the consumer “would not reasonably expect.” Consent is a must for profiling and segmentation that uses personally identifiable information (PII), automated decision-making, and direct marketing.
The blocking of third-party cookies is coming, but it’s not completely here yet. The slow crawl to a complete phase-out may seem like a temporary reprieve. In the meantime, companies should devote themselves to building a more mature, robust, and accurate attribution methodology that takes into account the multiple ways customers engage with brands.
To power personalization brands need self-reported data, actively given by consumers. Third-party data won’t give you that as it is taken from publicly available sources and mostly inferred. The opportunity for brands is to engage and get to know their customers better and to build a declared data strategy.
Seasonality planning certainly changed for 2020 which challenged marketers to evolve their thinking, for example Valentine’s Day 2021 a single day dedicated to celebrating love will boost the UK economy by £650m according to the National Retail Federation, this year I suspect there will be a different message, perhaps date nights at home or Online, Self-Love, gifting to those that you’ve not been able to see for a while (Valentine’s Day with Odicci).
Seasonal campaigns will always be in a marketer’s tool kit – Why?….because they work! However there is also an equal weight on the value of ‘Always-On’ for your customer marketing strategies, leveraging campaign automation around the customer journey. Which starts right at the beginning of the customer lifecycle.
The benefits of setting up ‘Always-On’ experiences is that once set up, they simply continue to run, responding to customers at the right time, in the right way, not based on a season, based on your customers timing and behaviour.
Don’t forget about them…use the time saved to constantly review the results and optimise in line with a test and learn approach.
Here are some ideas of ‘Always-On’ Experiences you can easily setup with the Odicci platform:
by Camilla Bass, Content Marketing Manager at Freshrelevance
First-party data – such as actions a customer takes across your website – is the backbone of any good personalisation strategy. Packed full of behavioural insights and implied interest, it allows marketers to personalise the shopper’s experience across all stages of the customer journey.
But if you want to enhance your personalisation with additional insights that first party data can’t provide, consider using zero-party data – the data which a customer intentionally and proactively shares with a brand. While first party data helps marketers infer a customer’s interests and preferences, zero-party data provides explicit information to add colour to customer profiles.
Here are three ways to enhance your personalisation with zero-party data.
If you’ve ever visited an eCommerce pet product retailer, you might have been asked to share information about your favourite animal, type of pet you own or your pet’s name. This is a prime example of zero-party data, information that can enrich a customer’s experience with that retailer.
Let’s say your customer owns a labrador named Lucky, and they’ve shared this information when signing up for your email newsletter. You can use this data to enhance the personalisation of your newsletters. For example, you can catch their attention with a dynamic hero banner that pulls in an image of the relevant animal and breed, in this case a labrador, along with the pet’s name. This will help you resonate with your customer, build their confidence and keep them engaged with your brand.
You can then use first party, real-time purchasing data to recommend bestsellers in your selection of labrador products. Including personalised product recommendations in email newsletters is proven to boost sales by up to 24%, making it a tactic worth adding to your marketing toolkit.
Most of us have eagerly shared our date of birth with retailers, restaurants and brands in exchange for the promise of birthday discounts and treats. This information enables marketers to delight their customers each year by sending them a token of appreciation. And since birthday emails generate 342% higher revenue per email than promotional emails, the customer won’t be the only one celebrating.
Marketers can boost the revenue-generating potential of birthdays by combining zero-party data with first party data. For example, try sending your customer a personalised coupon on their birthday to spend on their most frequently browsed or purchased product category. A targeted offer such as this is more likely to resonate with customers and lead to a conversion.
Bonus tip: The most effective coupons follow customers from triggered and bulk emails to your website, and vice versa, to increase the exposure and redemption rate.
Many maternity and baby product retailers add the option for customers to share their due date while signing up for their newsletter. When combined with first party data such as frequently purchased or browsed products, this information can help marketers boost the effectiveness of their product recommendations. For example, before the due-date marketers can recommend maternity clothes in the customer’s most browsed brand, switching to baby products once the due date has passed.
Recommending frequently browsed or purchased products is a great way to harness the power of familiarity, as customers tend to prefer items they have seen multiple times. Try using this recommendation type on the homepage to encourage shoppers to click through to your product pages. Displaying onsite personalised product recommendations is proven to boost sales by up to 12%.
By capturing consumer motivations, intentions, interests and preferences at scale, marketers can build upon first-party data to enhance their personalisation. Whether you’re new to zero-party data or you’ve been collecting customer insights for a while, these three personalisation ideas are guaranteed to provide your visitors with an experience that delights and converts.
Feeling inspired? Download The Ultimate eCommerce CRO lookbook for 21 real-life eCommerce personalisation examples to help you increase your conversion rate.
