In April of last year, “Apple required that all apps running on its devices get consumer permission before tracking their activity on other apps and websites. The company has already outlawed the use of unauthorized third-party cookies on its Safari web browser.

Last week, we saw the impact of this when (Facebook) Meta Platforms shares dropped 26% losing more than $26B. During its earnings call, Meta Platforms projected a potential 2022 negative loss at $10B citing Apple’s privacy changes and iOS.

By the end of 2023, Google Chrome will stop using third-party cookies. “Google’s feature will let marketers continue to target desired buckets of consumers, just no longer using an individual’s web history,” making it more difficult to combine ad-tracking with data collected from data brokers like like Acxiom, Epsilon, Oracle, Experian and TransUnion, which has enabled brands to design their digital media strategy around target audiences based on age, race and gender.

As shared here, “Safari, Firefox, and even Google Chrome—representing 86% of browser traffic—will transition away from third-party cookies in 2022.”

Back in 2018, in answer to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook stopped allowing any use of outside third-party data. “The only data their advertisers will able to use for targeting on Facebook is either their own first-party data or the data that Facebook collects itself, such as likes, location data, interest data, or search history.”

“Safari, Firefox, and even Google Chrome—representing 86% of browser traffic—will transition away from third-party cookies in 2022.”

Data-driven performance marketing has been measured by capturing various stages of the consumer journey that measured brand awareness, clicks and other conversion metrics that were designed to bring the customer down the marketing funnel. Outside of digital marketing, other metrics can’t deliver the level of granularity to support other metrics or attribution models.

Building Your New Data Pipeline

As of today, more than 77% of websites and 82% of all digital ads use tracking cookies consisting of third-party data. First-party data is data sourced directly from your customers that your brand or organization owns and has access to. This includes audience demographics, purchase history, website activity, email engagement, sales interactions, support calls, customer feedback programs and surveys, social channels, apps and CRM, and other insights that are obtaining and learning the audiences’ behaviors.

To further clarify, this data hasn’t been purchased through a marketplace or third-party resource that has no association with your brand.

“Companies who adopt data-driven marketing are more likely to have an advantage over the competition and increase profitability. In fact, they are six times more likely to be profitable year over year.”

“companies who adopt data-driven marketing are more likely to have an advantage over the competition and increase profitability. In fact, they are six times more likely to be profitable year over year.”

While it may seem daunting at first, by directly engaging with your audience and capturing every interaction across the aforementioned channels and platforms, you’ll be able to construct a comprehensive view of your customer, providing audiences with a customer experience that is personalized, highly relevant and measurable.

Below, are several benefits of architecting a 360-degree customer insight first-party data strategy:

Increased Precision in Targeting Prospects. By identifying audiences, their interests and intent across your website, app and other channels, you’ll be able to improve efficiencies and tactics, resulting in increased conversions.

Greater Accuracy Tailored to the Customer Journey. Devise unique brand experiences that are crafted from the customer journey and are personalized to specific interests, user preferences, location and purchase history.

Improve ROI, Performance Goals and Operational Efficiency. By taking an omnichannel approach and centralizing all online and offline customer interactions, you’ll create a single view of the customer that will align marketing, sales and finance with what provokes customer engagement across all brand channels.

Validate Attribution and Relevance. First-party data defines what content, messaging and channel are most important to the user. The ability to have the proof point that informs decision making is a clear first-mover advantage, demonstrating which channel, platform or media is impacting conversions and attribution, and how spending is directly impacting online and in-store sales.