Digital marketing as we know it was built on third-party cookies, allowing businesses to build promotional campaigns based on user behavior data captured across their web activity.
While many marketers are concerned by the death of third-party cookies, we can assure you that it isn’t actually a bad thing. Data-driven brands on platforms like Shopify Plus and BigCommerce can still capture data across the customer journey, understand their customers at scale, and build hyper-targeted marketing campaigns — they just need to shift their tactics.
And by tactics I mean both strategy and the right tools to help you get there!
Instead of tracking users’ activity across other companies’ websites, brands have had to discover new sources of insights into their target market’s demographics, buying preferences, and browsing behaviors.
What better place to start than your own site? That’s where first-party data comes in.
Tip: Want to see where your ecommerce tracking can improve? Book a data audit with one of our analytics experts.
First-party data is data that you own, collected directly from your customers through your website, app, or channels like email and SMS. This includes everything from contact details and purchase history to browsing behavior on your site and more. It can be used to build powerful marketing campaigns, create precise audiences for retargeting, and guide product and UI/UX decisions, all while respecting recent privacy regulations.
Adapting to a world without cookies
It’s not enough to know what first-party data is, understanding how to collect it in full and utilize it to fuel your marketing efforts is a whole other challenge.
Lucky for you, our latest white paper covers everything you need to know about first-party data:
- What is first-party data? And what isn’t?
- How to track first-party data in the top reporting tools
- How to use first-party data to optimize your marketing and make smarter business decisions
Learn what using first-party data looks like in practice with insights from industry experts in A World Without Cookies.