Why 1st-party data is marketing s hottest asset.

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hartehanks.com

Why 1st-party

data is marketing’s

hottest asset.

by David Rodnitzky

Founder & CEO

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Introduction

One of the most powerful (and talked-about) digital marketing trends over the past year-plus has been the proliferation of data. At 3Q Digital, we believe that 1st-party data – your data, gathered by you and unique to your business – is the most powerful and highest-quality data available. And there’s a huge bonus: it’s free.

In this whitepaper, we’ll explore the different ways of collecting and using 1st-party data: the platforms, the benefits, the strategies, and more (including a handy chart of all the options). Let’s dive in.

What is 1st-party data?

First-party is data gathered on your customers, or potential customers who have visited your site. It includes:

• Email addresses

• Demographic information • Referral activity (viral coefficient)

• Shopping cart activity (size, abandonment) • Purchases (payment info)

• Database marketing (email) - Opens

- Clicks - Purchases • Unsubscribes

At the very least, you probably already have:

• CRM: This is great data that you can easily sort by RFM – Recency, Frequency, Monetary. Once those lists are segmented, you can tailor messaging and creative to send more relevant ads.

• Email lists: Which list(s) they subscribe to, the type of email address they use, and the freshness of the information is all helpful in segmentation.

• Visitors to your site: Pixel data (you’ve placed pixels, right?) will show you which pages people have visited and what they’ve put (and possibly abandoned) in their carts. This kind of segmentation is golden in retargeting

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3 How do you gather 1st-party data?

You can gather this kind of data in a few ways.

1. Your audience can actively provide it through actions like subscribing to your blog or newsletter, registering for an event, downloading a whitepaper, making a purchase, etc. (You’ll have to create a subscription/download form with the fields you’d like to capture – name, email, company, position, etc. – and this form should ideally be integrated with a CRM system like Salesforce.)

2. You can passively gather data on your audience through on-site interactions, like browsing behavior. You’ll need some sort of analytics tool, like Google Analytics, to track these events.

3. You can also gather data on internal marketing initiatives such as email marketing campaigns. Tracking events like opens, clicks, purchases, and unsubscribes provides great insights into what your audience responds to, whether it be a messaging style or particular products/services you offer.

How do you use 1st-party data?

It’s a long list (which is sure to grow as platforms emerge):

1. Basic retargeting 2. FBX 3. Custom audiences 4. GDN similar audiences 5. Tailored audiences 6. Email retargeting 7. RLSA

8. CRM-driven display retargeting 9. CRM-driven landing pages

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Now let’s break down how each works:

1. “Basic” retargeting.

Retargeting has been in the marketers’ playbook for a while, but if you’re just sending the same message to everyone in your database, you’re doing it wrong.

Even if you’re just dipping a toe into retargeting, without investing in one of the better-known retargeting platforms like Retargeter or AdRoll, you should have the ability to segment users – and messaging.

For instance, look how easy AdWords makes it to segment your base of users (note: “remarketing” is Google-speak for “retargeting”)

All the data referenced in the templates above – pages visited, tags, dates – is your very own first-party data. And as you can see from the advanced rule builder use case, there’s tons of drill-down potential.

Let’s break down a few powerful use cases:

Retargeting for ecommerce: Let’s say you’re an eCommerce store, and you have a base of customers, an email list, etc. You can target those folks directly based on purchase history (or abandoned carts). For instance: Bought a new pair of running shoes eight months ago? It’s probably time for a new pair.

Custom Audiences are also a great way to promote loyalty programs, purchase add-ons, etc.

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5 4. Google display network’s similar audiences.

Google’s version of Lookalike Audiences is Similar Audiences, which AdWords produces by studying the browsing history and interests of your remarketing lists and finding new users who share those characteristics.

5. Twitter tailored audiences.

Twitter didn’t let Facebook’s Custom Audiences go unchallenged for long. At the end of 2013, they intro- duced Tailored Audiences, which takes 1st-party data including email addresses, Twitter usernames, and Twitter user IDs to build customized target lists.

6. Email retargeting.

This is a little trickier and more expensive since you’ll need to partner with a technology company like Triggermail, Tedemis, or LiveIntent. You can reach past visitors to your website who haven’t yet subscribed to your email list by matching cookies with your chosen technology partner’s database. Before the user winds up on your lists, he/she is emailed a notification and given the choice to opt out.

7. RLSA.

Google brought retargeting to the world of search when they launched RLSA in the summer of 2012, and it

immediately fine-tuned the already stalwart performance of well-run SEM campaigns by allowing marketers to adjust bids, ad text, and messaging based on users’ previous on-site behavior. Use cases, which we’ll dive into more below, include: coupon offers for cart abandoners, bidding on broad keywords that would otherwise have been prohibitively expensive, and excluding users who had already purchased the service or item advertised.

8. CRM-driven display retargeting.

CRM retargeting essentially takes your mailing list – including both email addresses and physical addresses – and retargets these high-value customers with display ads. Again, you’ll need a partner to help serve these ads, but a quick Google search will let you sift through a dozen or so right off the bat.

9. CRM-driven landing pages.

CRM data (described above) and pixel data can be used, through the help of technology partners like Monetate, Predictive Edge, or Ion, to dynamically change landing pages to align with a user’s browsing or purchase history – a huge advancement in personalized marketing and user experience.

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1st-party data — in chart form.

At the risk of hurting your eyes, I put together a chart that outlines exactly which of your collected data points can be used with each of the channels outlined above – and whether you can drum up new, high-value audiences from those platforms:

10. Great uses cases

…and just in case you’re still not convinced of the awesome power you hold in your very own data warehouse, here are 10 great use cases to spike your ROI:

1. Exclude converted customers 2. Create personalized landing pages 3. Increase/decrease bids in AdWords

4. Upsell/cross-sell new products and services to existing customers 5. Amplify your email/direct mail campaigns

6. Find new customers based on your existing customer profile

Email Addresses Postal Addresses Phone Numbers IDFA User Ids App User Ids Pixel Data CRM Data Lookalike Audiences

Display retargeting x x x x x x Yes x Yes

FBX x x x x x x Yes x Yes

Google similar audiences x x x x x x Yes x Yes

RLSA x x x x x x Yes x x

Email retargeting Yes Yes Yes x x x Yes x Yes

Facebook custom audiences Yes x Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes x

Twitter tailored audiences Yes x x x x Yes Yes x

CRM display retargeting Yes Yes x x x x Yes Yes Yes

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7 About

the author

David Rodnitzky is founder and CEO of 3Q Digital, a position he has held since the Company’s inception in 2008. Prior to 3Q Digital, he held senior marketing roles at several Internet companies, including Rentals.com (2000-2001), FindLaw (2001-2004), Adteractive (2004- 2006), and Mercantila (2007-2008). David currently serves on advisory boards for several companies, including Marin Software, MediaBoost, Mediacause, and a stealth travel start-up.

David has a B.A. with honors from the University of Chicago and a J.D. with honors from the University of Iowa. In his spare time, David enjoys salmon fishing, hiking, spending time with his family, and watching the Iowa Hawkeyes, not necessarily in that order.

About

3Q Digital

3Q Digital, a digital marketing agency based in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, San Diego, and Chicago, believes clients deserve three things from an agency: passionate service and complete transparency (EQ); channel-specific intelligence and knowledge (IQ) to develop new strategies as digital marketing evolves; and rock-solid execution (XQ) to ensure optimization of every campaign.

The company developed these beliefs as PPC Associates (2008-2013), which made its mark as a pioneering, results-oriented SEM agency before expanding to offer best-in-class services in display advertising, social media advertising, mobile advertising, video advertising, and SEO. 3Q Digital works with some of today’s fastest-growing clients, including GoPro, 23andMe, 2U, SurveyMonkey, Fitbit, and RentTheRunway.

Conclusion

Let’s loop back to one of the biggest benefits of 1st-party data: it’s yours! All you need to do is make sure your pixels, cookies, and CRMs are in good shape, and you’ve got a mother lode of data that just needs to be mined. Digital marketing being as dynamic as it is, there will likely be even more ways to use the data by the time you read this. As with anything, test to see what works, iterate, optimize, and watch the ROI roll in.

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