Digital Marketing
Dive Head First Into First Party Data With Your Dealership!
Leave the Cookies Behind and get Moving on First-Party Data With Your Dealership!
With the upcoming changes to Google Analytics on the near horizon, savvy digital marketers will switch to focus to leveraging 1st party data sets.
When Google announced it would be switching to GA4, the marketing community went into a panic. Google will no longer be using cookies or IP addresses for consumer data sets. This means all those 3rd party data sets will basically be rendered useless for marketers moving forward. Fortunately, there’s still time to get ahead of the curve and implement GA4 so you have historical data when the time comes for the changeover in July 2023 and we can help!
We recommend adopting a First-Party Data Strategy to help Combat Third-Party Cookie Loss
Amidst the Google Analytics changes on the horizon, we also face growing privacy concerns and regulatory laws, marketers face the loss of third-party cookies leading to challenges when trying to track and understand buyer behavior online. The first step in tackling third-party cookie loss is shifting to a first-party data strategy.
What is First-Party Data:
In it's most simplistic terms first-party data is sourced from the consumers themselves directly. This can be sources like your very owner dealership website, for example, the customer inputs their information on your website because their interested in a vehicle that you're selling with the expectations that you’ll be contacting them. Another method of sourcing first-party data could also be a survey of some sort.
Going back to the example of the data that your dealership sources direct i.e., data that resides in your dealership CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is considered 1st party data source due to the fact that it directly interacts with the customer. An example of a commonly used dealership CRM is Vinsolutions as pictured below.
On a larger scale, you might choose to deploy a CDP (Customer Data Platform). It gathers and combines first-party customer data from several sources to create a single, coherent, and comprehensive image of each client. An example of a CDP is Zeta, they’re a very robust data platform that large brands such as Hyundai use:
What is Third-Party Data:
A separate organization collects third-party data from multiple audiences, including ones unrelated to your audience. They then aggregate the data and package it with a nice bow and send it out to advertisers to use to create targeted ad campaigns and things of that nature.
Examples of third-party dataset companies are Explorium. They host 3rd party data and allow their customers to leverage this to build new audiences they didn’t have access to before.
It Sucks to be in Third
There are quite a few reasons as to why we’re switching away from third-party data, but the main reason is consumer privacy. Here’s an excerpt from Google’s Russell Ketchum, regarding consumer privacy and why it’s happening;
“Google Analytics 4 is designed with privacy at its core to provide a better experience for both our customers and their users. It helps businesses meet evolving needs and user expectations, with more comprehensive and granular controls for data collection and usage. Importantly, Google Analytics 4 will also no longer store IP addresses. These solutions and controls are especially necessary in today’s international data privacy landscape, where users are increasingly expecting more privacy protections and control over their data.”
Consumers are increasingly demanding privacy with their data, so even though it may seem like a daunting task to completely rethink the way they collect and use customer information, it’s a move in the right direction.
First place rules
Though it may not be the most appealing at first glance, there are huge benefits to moving to first-party data. One of the benefits is creating stronger relationships with your customers and being in direct contact with them, straight from the horse's mouth, as you would say. You’ll be able to know exactly what your customer's wants and needs are, and be able to curate your marketing to better suit them through this. You’ll also realize improved measurement and attribution, better precision and data quality, improved performance, and better ROI across the board. Starting to see the bright side of things?
How to Use First-Party Data Moving Forward
So we've covered the what, why, and how of First Vs. Third-party data, but the real question is, how do you leverage it to your advantage? No worries - We've got you covered! We've been focused on consumer privacy since day one. We use technology and meticulous data encryption to ensure that there is complete accuracy when it comes to building an audience and then targeting your ads so that the consumers' information is kept private. Our Identity Graph allows you to find all the consumer touch points of your target prospects and customers and our media distribution platform then ensures that they're seeing your advertisement, so you know your ad budget isn't going to waste. Our marketing solutions use this Identity Graph to map out individual consumers' information and provide robust avenues to target them, wherever they are. In addition, we use Pre-Click & Post-Click, Behavioral linking data, and Sha256 Hash-based identity resolution for the ultimate way to target consumers, online and offline. All of our data is extremely accurate and runs through triple verification to provide extreme accuracy, so you don’t waste time or money. Additionally, all of our programs are turn-key, simple to deploy strategies that help your dealership improve new customer acquisition, customer reactivation, and customer retention across both variable and fixed operations. So when it comes down to it, we've got you, the customer, and the future covered.
If you have any questions on first-party datasets and how using them can benefit your dealership - we can help! Reach out to us below! Also, make sure to subscribe to our newsletter here!
