Data First Party : the new marketing strategy for advertisers

With the end of third-party cookies scheduled for 2024, and the tightening of the RGPD, advertisers are reviewing their targeting strategies and finding new solutions to reach their audience.

Many are turning to Data First Party, a data collection technology heralded as the future of customer relations.

“Data First Party (DFP) is the future of customer relations. It helps companies to better understand their customers by providing valuable information on their purchasing preferences, browsing habits and online behaviors, enabling them to propose better adapted offers. It makes personalization more effective, enhances the customer experience and strengthens shopper loyalty”, explains Romain Charles, CEO of Lucky Cart, a French start-up founded in 2010 and specialized in the analysis of sales receipt data.

As he explains: “Data First Party is a method of data collection that takes place directly under the advertiser’s domain name (so the data is the advertiser’s property) and requires the Internet user’s consent – de facto reinforcing a company’s commitment to transparency and helping to strengthen consumer confidence.”. With the elimination of third-party cookies and the growing desire of consumers to protect their data and no longer be invaded by advertising (according to a recent international study by Treasure Data, a third of them use ad blockers and do not wish to communicate their data), the DFP will be “an obvious choice”, assures Romain Charles, pointing out that “for several years now, Internet users have been expressing their desire to regain control of their own data, demanding greater transparency in its collection and, above all, in its use”.

More precise data

In response to this trend, companies are increasingly looking for ways to collect first-party data, with multiple benefits. More secure, transparent and compliant with current confidentiality standards, more accurate analyses (with a detailed and reliable view of user behavior and preferences), more profitable (as it enables companies to optimize their customer experience and improve targeting to boost conversions), less costly (it can even be collected free of charge) and not subject to blocking…: this data helps marketing professionals to get to know their customers better and considerably improve their campaigns. “That’s why most marketers consider it to be the best source of customer data,” comments Lucky Cart’s CEO.

A study carried out by Google and Boston Consulting Group even revealed that companies using this first-party data to develop their marketing strategy increased their revenues by 290%, while reducing their advertising budgets by 150%.

For Romain Charles, whose company Lucky Cart supports 250 brands in France, “DFPs are the data on the receipt”. “On a ticket, we will be able to use up to 80 different criteria: the brand, the category, the share of promotional and private label purchases, the average basket, etc.”.

If this purchasing data has always been used by brands which, for example, linked a customer’s loyalty card to their receipt, “the technologies for using DFPs have changed a lot in the last 5 years. The first revolution is the volume of data that can be processed. The second is to be able to process them in real time. The third is AI, which is capable of proposing an offer with consumption prediction algorithms. “.

Federate customer data

Technologically, the use of First Party Data requires integration on the retailers’ site, which the third-party cookie did not require. At Imagino (a company aimed at marketing and customer relations teams who wish to independently manage the activation of their customer data), its CEO Stéphane Dehoche has been offering his Customer Data Platform for several years now.

The goal ? “Bring together customer data that companies already have but have difficulty using because they are scattered across various IT systems. Centralizing this data helps them in their marketing campaign because by accelerating the creation of a unified view, the solution allows the implementation of automatic scenarios, multi-channel orchestration and one-to-one personalization of CRM and digital campaigns. “.

The company, launched in 2017 with a few major accounts such as Clarins and Leclerc, now has around forty companies in mass distribution, transport and tourism. Like Val d’Isère Tourisme, the resort is improving the structuring and analysis of its data, a necessary element to offer a personalized route based on customer preferences.

With Imagino’s Customer Data Platform solution, “this has allowed us to develop and pool knowledge of our customers in order to improve commercial performance, guarantee excellence in customer relations and nurture station preference in the long term.” », Testifies its general director Christophe Lavaut.