First Party Data, Data Privacy and Consent Management

Data is the oil of mass personalisation and targeted marketing. In the era of the fading out of third party cookies (Google Chrome phasing out third-party cookies in 2022 while Firefox and Safari have already done), first-party data with proper consent is the new fuel to power the marketing engine.

Marketers, publishers and brands are looking to better use first-party data, because of evolving of global data privacy laws and legislation.

First party data vs second party data vs third party data

There are new challenges of using first-party data in your digital marketing pipeline: how to collect first party data, how to use, how to manage consent etc. The whole digital marketing ecosystem in the privacy age will be redefined.

Secure data, privacy and compliance by obtaining consent then respecting user's preferences are the foundation of the new digital marketing system.

What is first party data?

First party data is the information about user companies collect directly from audience or customers. The company own the digital marketing data sources such as website, mobile app, CRM, social media etc.

The first party data are used to identifying consumer preferences, including:

Demography: age, gender, income, education, geographic location
Interests, hobbies and passions
Purchase history and intentions
Visit and interactions logs
Etc

First party data are considered more valuable because of the quality of the data, the trust and relationship you have built with the user.

1st party data binding with consent which is collected for free can also be segmented and monetised like third party data by using a first party data management platform PubSurge.

Why is first-party data important

Data are important for a business to make better decisions, better marketing, utilise personalised ads and services to increase the chance of a conversion.

There are reasons why first party data is more important in the future:

Data privacy legislation and technology are making data sharing and selling more difficult, so first-party data is more important.
The fade out of third party cookies by browsers such as Google, Safari, Firefox. This will be done in one or two years. Third party scripts won't be able to track users across the internet.
First party data has more controls: easy to collect, easy to erase, easy to keep update,

Example of first party data

First party data are essentially the data generated when a user intact with the assets of your business.

The example of first party data is:

Data collected in your CRM
Data and cookies collected in your website
Data collected with first party data DMP
Completed surveys
Customer feedback
Support tickets
Email collected with newsletters
Social profile of users
Subscription-based email
Products the user looked at
Articles the user interacted with
Time spent on websites

How to collect first party data

The normal ways of collecting first party data includes Google Analytics, mobile apps, social media, customer surveys, support and customer service email, SMS, CRM, point of purchase, and direct mail. You can also collect more data such as user interactions, gather and manage all the first party data with first party DMP.

How to use first party data

Identifying consumer preferences
First-party data programmatic advertising
Gain audience insights
Predict future patterns
Personalise content and advertisements

Use cases of first party data, second party data and third party data

Compare with zero-party data, second party data, third party data

While the first party data are the data you own, the second party data and third party data are the data you can buy from another company or exchange the value with another company to benefit both parties.

Second party data and third party data are the data from users you don't have a direct relationship. So the trust and data quality are lower.

Some companies or people also call the first party data voluntarily given as zero party data.

Data privacy and compliance

CCPA and GDPR have redefined how a company can receive, store, and distribute customer data. The general rules are keeping the process of using first party data transparent, collect consent for first-party data and allow users to update the data and opt-out if they want.

Firstly, you have to provide a solid privacy policy to users and keep the process transparent about how you will use a user's first party data.

Secondly, collect explict consent from users for the first party data with CMP like UniConsent.

Thirdly, provide preference management features to allow users to update and change their data have given.

Due to the privacy laws such as GDPR, CCPA companies need to take the audience’s consent before collecting personal data or allow users to opt out.

The General Data Protection Regulation requires companies to collect "Accept Cookies" consent before writing the cookies to the user's browser. This applies to all the non-essential persistent cookies including the first party data and cookies for personalisation.

About UniConsent

UniConsent consent management platform is a part of Transfon User Experience Platform serve tens of millions of users per day for global marketers and publishers to provide a seamless user experience. Contact us to know more: [email protected]