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Everything You Need To Know About First-Party Data Collection

Table of Contents

You’ve likely been involved in data marketing for years and developed an SEO strategy to help your business. Google is the industry’s king, and it is constantly improving its product. These updates are called core algorithm updates.

Google makes one or more improvements each day to its search results. Some of these changes are specific. Others are more general changes. This means that your SEO strategy should include these core changes. You also need to constantly tweak your plans in order to achieve the best results.

How Does Google Algorithm Work?

Google algorithms refer to the set of rules the tech giant uses in order to rank websites within search results. Google’s complex algorithm retrieves data collection examples and pages from search results and attempts to understand the needs of searchers to rank pages based on their relevance and quality.

In recent years, Google has made sure to filter out bogus websites and produce top-notch results via their search engine. This means that it has developed new sets of algorithms that will help check each website. One of these algorithms is checking first-party data.

What Is First-Party Data?

First-party data definition and first-party cookies refer to information that a company receives directly from customers. Marketers have a wide range of data at their disposal, including first-party data (also known as 1P data). It can enhance, complement, or reduce the need for certain types of data. This guide will show you how it can be a powerful tool for modern marketers.

Marketing professionals know it’s cheaper and more profitable to keep customers than to find new customers. Brands spend 33% more on repeat customers than they do on new customers. Only one-fifth (or 80%) of all future profits are generated by existing customers. These customers, who have interacted and transacted previously with your brand, have the most valuable marketing asset: first-party data marketing.

The Difference Between the Types of Data

Why is it important to be able to distinguish between different types of data? Data is the key to successful marketing today. The best data marketing strategy for you depends on your situation and goals as a marketer. Let’s now look at what each type is and how you can access them.

Second-Party Data

You can acquire second-party data collection examples from a trusted friend. This allows you to know the quality and accuracy of the data. The data is also relevant because it comes directly from a partner who you share mutually beneficial relationships with.

Importantly, you should also ensure that your partner complies with privacy regulations, such as the GDPR and the CCPA. You can rest assured that the data collection examples were obtained with the consent of the consumers.

Collaborating with partners through Data Marketplaces allows you to buy second-party information. By buying data through this method, you can discuss with the partner the data you are interested in and make your selections. You can rest assured that the marketplace is reliable and that the partners you’re connected to are reliable. Furthermore, you can ensure that your data is properly managed.

Because it is collected in the same manner as first-party data, second-party data can be confused with it.

It is easy to collect second-party data. Once you have it, you will need to keep it safe and make it accessible through the same means in your systems. To ensure that your second-party information is accurate and relevant, validate and clean it the same way as your first-party data.

Third-Party Data

Another type of data is referred to as third-party data. Unlike first-party data marketing, data aggregators don’t collect data directly, but rather obtain it from others and combine it into one dataset. Data aggregators can get data from many sources, including large and small ones, and it’s difficult to know where the data is coming from.

The majority of third-party data can be purchased via a Demand-side Platform or a Data Management Platform. This is used for advertising. Third-party data marketplaces include Acxiom and Nielsen, Google, OnAudience, and Google.

Programmatically, third-party data can be bought and sold. However, you don’t know where it came from, so it is difficult to ensure accuracy or reliability. It is also impossible to verify that it was collected in compliance with privacy regulations. You must research the source and method of data collection before you choose a third-party provider.

Zero-Party Data

This type of data is a newer classification coined by Forrester Research. According to them, unlike first-party data collection, zero-party data is customer data that they intentionally and proactively share with a brand. This can include purchase intentions, preferences center data, and personal context. The individual may also want the brand to recognize her.

Advantages of First-Party Data Collection

Now that you are aware of the differences between the types of data that is helpful for your digital marketing, let us find out why marketing first-party customer data is among the most important aspects of marketing and how it can help your brand’s SEO strategy.

Predicting Patterns

You can confidently predict future patterns based on the accuracy of first-party data. If your data shows that a certain user visited webpages regarding basketball shoes and then added a pair to their shopping cart, it can be used by marketers to predict whether they will buy basketball shoes in the future.

However, if your audience isn’t interested in banner ads but rather engages with video ads regularly, it means they are more likely to click on video ads. This will let you know that video ads are preferred by them and will continue to be so. This information allows you to choose ads that appeal to your audience more.

Get Audience Insights

Even though your audience may be small, you can still benefit from first-party data. Analyzing your data can help you identify traits in your customers and expand your initial audience to include customers with those traits. First-party data collection will allow you to expand your customer base, increase your insight, and grow your business.

Personalize Ads and Content

To personalize ads or content that you display to a user, you can use first-party data. You can use the marketing first-party customer data you collect about a visitor to your website to gain better insight into their interests and needs so you can provide personalized content.

As an example, let’s say you have a series of promoted videos about different topics that you want to share with customers as part of your inbound marketing strategy. You can use data from the past to determine your audience’s interests and send them videos on science, music, fashion, nature, health, or other areas that interest them.

GDPR Consent Compliance

Transparency is key to data privacy. Data privacy is essentially two parts. The first is how data is collected, stored, and flows. The second part is about what information you collect, how it was collected, and why.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has a key component in relation to first-party data collection. Companies must prove they are collecting data ethically. However, most companies employ a data privacy officer. This can prove difficult if you are dealing with second- and third-party data.

First-party data proves consent easier than any other data type because you can show when and how users consented for their data to be collected on your app or website.

Commonly Asked Questions Regarding First-Party Data

Understanding first-party data and how it affects Google algorithms can help you improve your brand’s SEO strategy.

It is quite understandable that all these terms and information may overwhelm anyone who is not familiar with how competitive digital marketing works. In order to make the information more palatable, here are commonly asked questions regarding
First-party data and the answers to these questions.

Why Is First-Party Data Important to SEO?

Understanding the whole organic search funnel is essential to understanding your SEO program. To understand the impact of search terms on your business and what brought traffic to your site, you need to look at your first-party data collection.

It doesn’t matter where your competitors rank. It doesn’t matter where your competitors are ranking. You can only change the performance of your website. First-party data is crucial because it can be used to drive positive changes for sustainable growth and make decisions.

Where To Get First-Party Data Collection?

Google Search Console Performance is the best place for SEOs looking to obtain first-party data. Google Search Console Performance reports show you how your site ranks in Google Search Results. It can be accessed by going to the verified property in Google Search Console and clicking on “Performance.”

Google uses these metrics to display information about how your site is performing. These include clicks, impressions, and CTR. You can also filter the Performance report to see data according to specific dimensions.

  • Clicks – When a searcher clicks one of your URLs in the SERP and is directed to a page other than Google Search, a click is recorded in Google Search Console. Google clarifies that clicks on Google properties that keep a searcher on Google Search (such as query refinements) are not considered clicks. It’s not necessary to explain too much — all that matters is that a searcher clicks on your URL in search results and is taken directly to your website.
  • Impressions – A Google Search Console impression occurs when a URL appears in search results for a user. URLs can be viewed even if they appear “below” the fold. This means that a searcher would need to scroll to view the result regardless of whether the URL was scrolled into view.
  • Click-Through Rate – CTR stands to indicate ” Click-Through Rate” and is a metric that indicates how many people click your URL from search results. Google divides your clicks and your impressions to calculate CTR. For example, if you have 1,000 impressions and 100 clicks, then your CTR will be 10%.

How To Put First-Party Data To Action?

Online tools are one of the best ways for first-party SEO data to be used. These tools combine that data with other data sources within your business to give you more actionable insights.

These tools will help you identify which keywords contribute to getting more impressions and clicks over a period. Aside from impressions and click-through rates, first-party data collection can also help in monitoring if your website pages are being crawled by search engine algorithms.

How Can I Maximize the Value of First-Party Data?

First-party data collection is an essential resource. Advertisers who have a solid strategy to maximize this asset will be ahead of the curve when third-party cookies sunset.

However, first-party information is only as strong as the tools that you use to understand and enhance it. Without third-party data, it’ll be a challenge to track user behavior. Brands will find themselves needing to find alternative ways of gathering insights about their customers.

Effective marketers use tools to enable digital activation of their first-party data, whether it’s purchase and loyalty information, opt-ins for email, or direct mail. They are also adding third-party data in order to improve their customer understanding and scale their reach.

How Does First Party Data Collection Work On Mobile Phones?

First-party data is often collected from customers who convert on an eCommerce website or mobile app. The following information is typically collected by brands: email address and purchase history.

Marketers must rely more heavily upon first-party data collection as they don’t have access to ID for Advertisers (IDFA), and as we move to a cookie-less world, marketers will not be able to access IDFA. First-party data offers many advantages over third-party data. This includes more precise data, real-time processing, and the ability to gather the data you need in the format that suits your team best.

Advanced Digital Media Services Helps You With Your Digital Marketing Strategies

Trust will be built with those who visit your site and use your products using first-party data. This data can help you comply with data privacy regulations and bring you halfway to creating a digital marketing strategy that understands your customers.

Understanding your customer experience requirements across your entire organization is the first step. Once you have a clear understanding of your goals, you can determine the data required to create those experiences.

Digital marketing is a must-have tool. Businesses want to increase their market visibility and user experience. It can be daunting and overwhelming to create an SEO-friendly website that contains top-ranking content. This is why professional assistance is recommended for launching your business or brand online.

Advanced Digital Media Services is able to help you if you need SEO Services in Denver. ADMS can help you with web development, Google passage ranking, content creation, and making sure your website ranks well in search engines.

For more information, call us today.

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ADMS Paul Donahue

About Paul Donahue

Paul Donahue has been in the digital marketing realm since 2009. He has an intense passion for creating a dynamic digital presence for his clients through modern websites that rank well on Google. His company’s website is Colorado’s top-ranked SEO company. Author of three books published on Amazon, he is particular about staying abreast with the constantly changing SEO and digital marketing industry trends.

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