First to the party: Building a first-party data strategy

3. Barriers

Collecting first-party data is harder than most brands realise. What are the barriers that marketing must overcome so that you can make more out of your data?

B2B's barriers to entry

It's brilliant to embrace new trends. But let's be realistic.

Here are the biggest barriers that B2B marketers will
face when creating a first-party data strategy:

3.1 Siloed data warehouses must be broken open

3.2 Consumers are taking more control of their data

3.3 Pressure is mounting for Accountability and Governance

3.1 Siloed data warehouses must be broken open

The first barrier we often see should be your marketing teams’ highest priority to overcome. Much of the data required to activate marketing in this new world will already be sitting in your existing systems – but it’s kept out of reach by historical silos and a lack of schema. So how can you overcome this integration challenge?

To start, your sales, marketing and customer support data, often held in separate platforms, must be combined to get a single view of everyone your marketing could impact. Not only this, but your existing platforms such as analytics, marketing automation and advertising must also be audited. Then there’s future tools, such as chatbots and even your customer helpdesk, which you must plan to include now.

This will necessitate the creation of a new data warehouse, shared by all platforms. All your marketing data can be stored within a common structure that ensures access to clean data, with enough flexibility to allow for future growth.

You may be tempted to use an existing CRM (such as Salesforce, SugarCRM, Dynamics) for this purpose, but we would advise against it.

In the longer term, the myriad platforms and broad variety of tracking data from each source will cause an explosion of metadata. This could tie your teams up in change processes, slowing down your ability to effect change in a world that now prioritises agility and speed.

3.2 Consumers are taking more control of their data

Winning the trust of your consumer and gaining consent to use their data could be another significant roadblock in your journey to developing more effective, personalised marketing strategies.

Over the last ten to fifteen years, ad tech has done a spectacularly bad job of revealing what data is being collected, by whom, and what’s being done with it. And now the industry is being faced with a backlash.

In Europe, the all-too-familiar consent pop-ups have been largely modelled on the Transparency Consent Framework (TCF) devised by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Europe. However, a preliminary investigation by the Belgian Data Protection Authority (DPA) has found that the TCF does not comply with GDPR principles of transparency, fairness and accountability, nor is the data processing lawful. It’s expected that the investigation will be concluded and its findings shared with the EU DPA in 2022.

Regulators and legislators are hurrying to plug the gaps, but it seems that current practices of gaining consent are not fit for purpose. At a base level, as we look to a future without third-party cookies, gaining the necessary consent will require earning each visitor’s trust.

And that must be won at a much higher price than having users reflexively click on an “I’m OK with that” button.

3.3 Pressure is mounting for Accountability and Governance

The third major barrier to collecting data is regulation, in both current and future forms.

In response to the consumer’s desire for increased privacy, corporations and governments have been doubling down on initiatives to block the third-party technologies that are targeting consumers without their consent.

We’re seeing an increase in privacy-conscious legislation and policies, such as:

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA, 2018)
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR, 2018)
Apple’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP)
Firefox’s Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP)

These initiatives are designed to protect consumers, but they are also creating roadblocks for the digital/online advertising ecosystem. Which is something brands need to grow accustomed to with more legislation on the horizon, the UK Government reforming the UK’s data protection regime (GDPR) following Brexit (Data Reform Bill) amongst other draft legislation in progress.

Unless you solely operate in one market, Brands need to look at their compliance and consent at a global level and understand the nuances at a market (Country) level and optimise accordingly.

Accountability and governance are a focal element in data protection law and it's clear that, as technology evolves, regulation will continue grow alongside it.

That’s why compliance should not be regarded as a tick-box exercise that can be satisfied with the bare minimum – rather, these changes can be seen as an important opportunity to elevate your current data infrastructure, and position it for the future.

As digital advertising moves away from third-party cookies, first-party data will play a key role for brands, but any data infrastructure that’s put in place must have data protection at its core, by design.

This will offer more control to consumers, which in turn builds essential trust.

Jon Busby, CTO at Twogether