You are reading part 1 of the 3-part digital marketing playbook. Jump to Measure customer interactions accurately or Activate insights to drive growth.
Strengthen customer relationships and build trust with the right value exchange
Every customer interaction provides an opportunity to grow your foundation of first-party data, but it’s critical to approach this opportunity with a customer-first mindset. Eighty percent of consumers in surveyed countries are concerned about the state of their online privacy today.1 Any collection of data should, above all else, build customer trust in your brand and help you meet people’s needs.
Once you’ve done this preliminary work to ensure you’re respecting people’s choices, you can pursue larger objectives around measurement and business growth that are enabled by a robust first-party data strategy.
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Two important ways brands can unlock first-party data are by delivering helpful experiences and creating fair value exchanges. These can be achieved by making interactions meaningful, memorable, and manageable. Following these steps can help explain to users what data is being used, what value they’ll get by granting data permissions, and how they can control their data sharing.
Make it meaningful
For marketing to feel relevant, people should be able to find value in an exchange.
Why
According to Boston Consulting Group, over 90% of consumers are willing to share their personal information for the right incentive, such as improved convenience. And research from Google and Ipsos reveals people will voluntarily share data with companies that demonstrate a clear value proposition.2 Marketers can anticipate their customers’ needs with relevant and timely messages that communicate the clear benefit of such an exchange.
Make it memorable
For marketing to feel responsible, people should be able to remember having shared the information that informs the marketing they see.
Why
Many internet users have a limited understanding of how online privacy works and that affects the way they feel about advertising. But those who remember the choices they’ve made about data sharing exhibit more positive responses.3
Make it manageable
To make your marketing feel useful, give people control over their information.
Why
When people feel they lack control over their personal data, they can become skeptical of digital marketing.4 Marketers should provide the tools and information people need to manage their privacy.
There are clear actions that advertisers can take to increase customers’ feelings of control. The most effective combinations can help optimize for consent, increasing your store of first-party data.5
Apple’s App Tracking Transparency
Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) policy requires iOS developers to ask for permission when they use certain information from other companies’ apps and websites for advertising purposes, even if they already have user consent. Review Apple’s documentation and applicable laws and regulations. If the ATT framework applies to your app, you may decide to create and display a warm-up or explainer screen before asking for consent with the ATT consent prompt. Implementing the prompt may improve the performance of your iOS App campaigns.
Generate and connect first-party data from your customer relationships
Once you have identified how to create meaningful, memorable, and manageable experiences for your customers, the resulting first-party data can be imported into your preferred tools for data management and collaboration.
These technologies, including customer relationship management (CRM) platforms and customer data platforms, can then be integrated with Google’s advertising and measurement tools, such as Google Ads, Google Analytics 4, Campaign Manager 360, and Search Ads 360.
Approach
Kia wanted to build better experiences for car shoppers visiting its channels, with the goal of increasing engagement and dealer visits. It partnered with dealers to customize its website experience by region and allow customers to book test drives online, in the process receiving useful customer signals.
Results
Kia’s first-party data strategy resulted in a 4X better conversion rate, a 268% increase in click-through rate, and a 55% improvement in new-user engagement compared with their benchmarks.
Approach
Zoe Financial, a New York-based wealth platform, used HubSpot to safely store first-party data and provide valuable insight into what makes an ideal client. By using HubSpot’s CRM platform to import offline conversion events, Zoe Financial measured conversion values across its full lead-to-sales journey. This new comprehensive view allowed it to optimize Google Ads campaigns to focus on converting the right prospective clients.
Results
As a result, Zoe Financial saw its most valuable client segment rise to 60% of sales.
