First party data & You

Google is about to join in a wider trend of blocking third party cookies on its Chrome browser, catching up with Safari and Firefox.

• But why should it interest marketers?
• Why has it happened?
• How can you protect your lead generation capability and sales pipeline?

Blocking third party cookies means that it will be harder for external advertising or lead generation platforms to track user activity on your website. In reality, many big firms are moving their advertising away from third party tactics to first party cookies. For instance, Facebook switched to first-party cookies by releasing new implementations of their tracking code. So it's likely that by updating existing trackers some tracking functionality will be retained, but this is not a substitute for getting better at Data collection.

User Privacy is a growing trend

User privacy is on the rise, with audiences seeing value when you take it seriously - by making sure you provide them with relevant content and services that they have opted into.

Regulators and consumers are taking a growing interest in data privacy. We have already seen cookie pop ups due to GDPR driven PECR changes. It is also already possible to use browser extensions or even software installed on an Internet router to block data being sent to many 3rd parties. This trend emphasises the importance of collecting first-party data where possible.

Why is more user privacy good for Drupal site owners?

Drupal's data and content handling capability means that you have an engine to drive meaningful first party data acquisition - or simply put - to give your users exactly what they want. Getting the best audience data and contacts possible has always been vital for thriving engagement with your brand online.

The exact nature of what you do will vary based on your business goals. It could be email capture to send out campaigns, marketing or for lead generation. It could be that you integrate into a CRM to provide tailored login experiences, or allow customer self-service.

NDP Studio has driven hundreds of data collection strategies on Drupal sites, across a range of sectors, and we can safely say that the same fundamentals apply across the board. The end of third party cookies is something that may remove some tools for marketing, and engagement, but it still leaves a lot of useful tactics on the table. The effectiveness of your strategy is often down to carefully selecting what works best for your audience, and then consistently applying it.

First party data - explicit and implicit collection tactics

Collecting more data directly, without relying on external platforms can deliver the same benefits for your insights into your audience without creating privacy concerns for users - because the data you collect isn't combined with other platforms to track them across the web.

First-party data is data about customers or an audience which your organisation collects and owns. This can be data explicitly, or implicitly collected. As part of your strategy, you can blend explicit and implicit data collection to build a better understanding of your audience, and their needs. And for the foreseeable future there is also the opportunity to use third party sources.

Explicit data collection tactics include:

• Find out what interests your audience by asking them when they arrive on your website/app
• Ask your users for their contact preferences
• Collect data from forms, surveys, newsletter signups, and registrations
• Use exit modals to offer incentives and collect contact details
• Collect data on purchases
• Match up your event attendance records

Implicit data collection tactics include:

• Collect location and device data
• Record specific website/app interactions (specific page visited, link clicked etc) to determine interests
• Use of 'widgets' to detect interests
• Record use of interactive content - e.g. videos watched, pages read, time spent
• Record downloads used or products purchased
• Tracking of marketing campaign engagement
• Broader web page, app analytics and trend data

Is this time for a Progressive Web App?

There is a huge opportunity for mobile-friendly Progressive Web Apps (PWA's) for specific parts of your site content, or services.

These allow your audience to have a delightful and smooth mobile experience but using what is already on your site, so a lot less costly and labour intensive than a traditional app. It also lets you capture device and engagement, to better understand what they are doing.

A PWA gives you push notifications that are a powerful way to bring users back to your site, or service, and increases your communications channels.

Let's talk soon about your First party data collection strategy

We are consultancy led and business goal focussed - that means we work with you to drive your site to meet the goals you have. Data collection is a big part of this, from B2C ecommerce to charity, or B2B lead-gen and sales. Working on Drupal also means that there is a huge range of potential tactics, which we deliver technically and ensure work strategically. Schedule a time to see how we can help