Cookies are on their way out, and the big change is just around the corner. This will reshape the marketing and advertising game.
In a cookieless world, combining first-party and third-party data opens up new avenues for targeting and marketing to continue to drive growth.
To succeed in a world without third-party cookies, it’s important to prioritize bolstering your first-party data. Strong, clean, first-party data can avert the risk of having fewer people to market to post-cookie deprecation. It will also help you understand your website visitors so that you can engage with them in a meaningful way.
There are two types of cookies in the jar:
1st Party Cookies – the ones created by websites you visit. These are the ones that save your information for that particular website, like your password, etc. These may become king with the changes coming to 3rd party cookies.
3rd Party Cookies – the ones created by external websites. For example, if you’re reading an article on a media website, and there’s an ad for a product, the company selling the product may use a cookie to collect information about you even though you’re on someone else’s site.
You have options when it comes to gathering first-party data
One way to gather first-party data is by leading with valuable gated content. With the right solution or platform driven by AI or machine learning, you can take your first-party data and match it to other types of data, as well as enrich your data with buyer insights. You can also:
- Link your website visitors to firmographic data (web visitor insights)
A good web visitor insights solution for B2B marketing should, at a minimum, offer you enough information about your visitor so that you can engage with them in a meaningful way. Some basics include their company information and job title so you can know who they are.
- Track and manage campaign engagement information to determine what your customers are interested in.
It’s likely you’re using multiple platforms to engage and track your audience through various channels, which creates siloed engagement reporting. This can limit your overall understanding of audience behavior, making it harder to know how to take action. You can build a strong first-party data foundation by consolidating your engagement KPI’s in one place.
- Digital marketing: beyond third party cookies intent data to better target within your audiences and deliver the right message at the right time.
If you want to engage with relevance, you need data that can help you better locate target audiences without needing to purchase cookie-based information. One option would be to rely on a reputable intent data source such as Bombora, an organization that has a strong perspective on a cookie-less future. Either way, don’t be afraid to rely on experts to help you get the most out of your first-party data.
If you need a solution to help bolster your first-party data, make sure it accounts for the following:
People are Power – Modern B2B marketing is about engaging with people, not companies. People are the ones who research purchases and make decisions, so the key to a successful marketing strategy is to personalize engagement and connect with those decision-makers. That means having consolidated data and a single view of the buyer.
Privacy is Paramount – Increasing privacy concerns are part of what’s driving the decision by Google and others to ban 3rd party cookies. You need to be aware of the potential shrinking of marketable audiences. This means that building your foundation of first-party data and connecting platforms that house first-party data is more important because it’s going to be more important to use it.
Consent is key – Updated restrictions around how you can and have to gather consent information may directly impact the amount of data you have access to—which means you need a tool that can comply with the laws and track consent so that you don’t lose data that enables your department to function.
Omnichannel is table stakes– Sophisticated marketers aren’t only engaging with their buyers in one place. They’re planning for multiple touchpoints across their buyer’s journey and thinking about how to accelerate them from awareness through to purchase. Marketers will need a data collection strategy that supports always-on, omnichannel campaigns.
Above all, a customer centric solution that puts the needs of consumers first will set you and your team up for long-term success.
Get ready for the shift!
Learn how D&B Rev.Up™ ABX can help you target audiences precisely -- and in a privacy-friendly way -- plus, accelerate engagement with personalized buying experiences at scale.