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

4. Strategies

In a future that makes privacy a top priority, what are the tools, techniques and strategies to help you build more meaningful customer relationships?

Tools, techniques,
and strategies

Getting started with your first-party data strategy doesn't have to be a daunting task.

The sooner you get started, the sooner you'll be ahead of the eventual changes coming to the world of B2B marketing.

So, here we'll uncover:

4.1 Auditing your existing data

4.2 Improving the value of your data

4.3 Creating a value partnership

4.4 Gaining consent for use of data

4.5 Achieving scale through partnerships

4.6 Ensuring your leadership are on board

4.1 Your existing data: what do you have now and what are the gaps?

The first step of moving towards a first-party data strategy is to understand and audit the data you currently capture – and determine whether you have consent to use it.

Consider, when auditing your CRM…

When was the last time you spoke to these customers and prospects?
Are you sure they’re the right fit for your business?
For those you can contact, what information do you currently store on them?
Is this information in the right format to be used across your tech stack?

Asking these questions and auditing your data early-on will provide an initial format to map your available information. This will allow you to highlight any instances where new platforms or enrichment sources may be required to fill the gaps.

As discussed previously, siloed data is a significant barrier to performance, so as you go through this process be sure to include any platform that could contain customer or prospect data, such as your CRM, helpdesk, or existing intent platforms.

However, even collating all of this information will rarely give you the full picture.

You can get more mileage from your existing data by using a data enrichment platform. These tools compare your anonymous traffic and extract more useful insight that helps to segment your audiences, personalise web experiences, or help your sales team to close.

4.2 Improving the value of your data

When improving the value of your data, there are some top tips you can follow:

Keep your lead gen forms short and prioritise key details to offset the risk of people dropping off before it’s completed
Consider just capturing a business email address (with consent of course!), as often the prospects name and company can all be derived from this one field
If you’re already using a marketing automation platform – take advantage of your progressive profiling features to ask your prospect different questions each time they return – enriching your own first-party data!

Data enrichment can reveal
valuable items such as:

Account name / business name
Business size
Industry / vertical
Company age
Location

At a more granular level this can also provide:

Job title
Seniority
Social profile details
Biography
Blog posts

4.3 Creating a value partnership

One of the most effective ways to win your customers’ trust is to build a relationship that’s based on mutual value exchange.

This can be as simple as creating a mailing list that enables your prospects to sign up for regular, relevant content. For SaaS platforms, you might provide a trial of your platform in exchange for collecting the relevant ID information you need to target users and create audiences.

The key to providing customers with value will be understanding what’s relevant to them. By becoming a brand publisher, you can offer an expert point of view in exchange for users’ identifiable information. This can enable greater insight into what matters for individual customers, and provides them with material that’s tailored to their journey.

Tips to become a better brand publisher

Let readers follow their own journeys
Make your content scannable
Optimise for mobile touch screens
Make content fresh, relevant and valuable
Reuse and repurpose content in multiple channels and formats

Meanwhile, as marketing tactics move away from cookie-based programmatic advertising, a variety of alternative targeting strategies will be needed to fill the gap.

This is partly why we have seen a shift back to contextual targeting, which will also deliver the most scale.

Ensuring brand alignment with content and topics will therefore remain vitally important for creating the most relevant customer journey.

4.4 Gaining consent for use of data

It’s important to acknowledge there’s a fine line between what users will consider an invasion of privacy, and what’s effective personalisation. More often than not, that line will be user consent.

Once a user has expressed interest in your brand and provided their details, this can translate to improved customer experience, reduced churn and greater revenue opportunities – providing enhanced value for both business and customer.

Tips for gaining consent

Give people genuine choice and control over how you use their data
Be aware of geographical requirements, as some countries/states have developed their own regulatory frameworks
Provide a clear explanation of how the data will be used
Emphasise the right to withdraw consent at any time
Lean into guidance and best-practice from industry bodies and government, for now this is the TCF framework, but we expect this to change in the future

For a great guide on best-practice use of cookies and similar technologies, we suggest you check out the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) website. The ICO is an independent UK authority set up to uphold information rights and data privacy in the public interest.

Checklist for managing risk

Firstly, any methodology should consist of the fundamental blocks of unification, configuration and automation. Then you can…

Create a comprehensive data privacy management programme to map user consent
Compare your existing practices against the ICO’s guidelines
Consider whether you could improve existing practices
Understand methods for demonstrating compliance
Record, track and report on progress

4.5 Achieving scale through third-party partnerships

Unless you are a huge B2C brand, you’re not going to be able to fulfil digital advertising campaigns using only first-party data, as you will likely be relying on small numbers of high-value users that have already engaged with your brand. Therefore, most B2B brands will need to enrich their data through third-party partnerships.

First-party data is the key that can unlock that additional resource. Activating or learning about your first-party audiences can unearth insights that assist with scalable targeting strategies, such as contextual advertising or sourcing relevant audiences from third-party data companies. In order to deploy this tactic properly, it’s vital that brands organise and understand their audience in depth.

First-party data can be broken down into two main groups –

Hard first-party data: The best way to collect this is to segment users, site visitors and CRM data into different categories. For example, these categories could include: product pages the user is browsing, the country or market they’re based in, and the assets they have downloaded. This data can then be passed to activation teams and easily used for relevant advertising activity.

Soft first-party data: Developing a picture of your audience outside of any categories you create is also key. Answering questions such as: what devices are they using to engage with your site? Which browser do they tend to use? What city do they tend to be in? All these things can further assist activation teams to create real-world “look-a-like” audiences for testing and optimising performance.

Such detailed insight can only be achieved through the centralisation of data – reviewing every touchpoint a customer has had with your brand to build up a picture that’s clear enough to personalise their journey. Performing this with an incomplete picture can be risky and in some cases, it can deter users more than a generic experience.

Here's a look into how first-party data can unlock alternative targeting strategies:

4.6 Ensuring your leadership are on board

Finally, as you look to create a strategy, it’s important to bring your company’s leadership along on the journey, ensure that everyone and everything is aligned; from the teams and resources required to the KPIs that will be used to measure success.

One common pitfall you may encounter is relying on previous metrics to measure success. If you use the strategies outlined above to build out your plan, you’ll create unique audiences that you can target with incredibly relevant content – driving up your pipeline, something we will all agree is important.

However, if you rely on older metrics or vanity metrics, such as form fills or the raw number of leads – you may be tempted to ignore this targeting to hit your goal. In this case, you may receive a larger number of leads, but it’s highly likely your pipeline will be lower, and your sales teams will become frustrated with the quality of contacts being provided.

Instead, we ask that you trust in your targeting and bring leadership along on the journey. Sample sizes may be smaller, and the number of leads may be lower, but those leads that do come into the sales teams will be more engaged through the relevant, personalised journeys you have provided. Ultimately this will return a higher conversion rate and more qualified pipeline.