First Party Data Marketing is also known as retargeting and remarketing.
Previously we went into the mechanics of how data is cultivated. Most of our actions online and offline are tracked, the raw data sets are captured, refined into segments, and those segments are sold across data markets.
Since data is a key element of how advertising and marketing is deployed in 2020, the way data is used is very important.
The focus of this post primarily is first party data, also known as retargeting or remarketing data.
There are five types of first party data that we should be thinking about.
First party data is the data that’s owned by you, and is propriety to you.
Whoever you are, the data that you have that is unique to your business is that first party data.
Facebook’s data is first party proprietary to Facebook. Same with Amazon, BrillMedia.co, and every single company that exists.
Some companies will have more first party data than others. This data is important because it’s so unique to your business.
No one has the customer relationships that you have, whether you have 10 customers or 10 million. Those are your data sets, and with those data sets the connections that you have to those consumers are incredibly valuable.
In fact, this data is a moat around your business that protects it from competitive incursions.
Here are the five types of first party data:
- Site or App
- Page
- Purchase
- Behavior
- Social
- Email or contact info
All of these data sets are available for targeting to consumers.
Site of App Data
When we talk about remarking this is the most common form of remarketing. Ads are delivered to users who have recently been to the website.
Page
This is invaluable for direct to consumer or e-commerce brands. Ads are delivered to people who have gone through the shopping process, but have not completed the purchase. For other advertisers, page level retargeting is all about target people with different interactions to your business.
For example, we have an Instagram Guide for Location Dependent Businesses, and we have a 2020 Advertising Trading Desk Success Guide.
The person interested in the Instagram marketing guide will be different than the person who wants the Advertising Trading Desk guide. So, by hyper targeting users based on the individual pages they came from, we get to segment the creative messages to these different audiences.
Behavior
Behavioral retargeting is about targeting people who took a series of actions on our site.
Maybe I want to target people who visited the Advertising Success Guide page three times in the last week with a different message, than people who visited the page one time.
Or, if a user visited any five pages on the BrillMedia.co site they are getting a different message than one who visited one page in the last week. The person who visited more pages on our site indicates higher overall interest.
Social
This is powerful across social platforms, but I’ll focus in on Facebook. The idea with Facebook is that anyone who engaged with our page in the last 14 days should see an ad because their interest is fresh.
Or, I can target ads to people who interacted with our lead form, but who didn’t actually submit their information. We can do this with Instagram, events on Facebook, button clicks on the Facebook page, anyone who sent a message to our page, or anyone who simply visited our page.
Purchase
Purchase remarketing is great for ongoing story-telling. After a person gets to the purchase page you have the opportunity to run ads that give them follow up offers.
Email Or Contact Info
If you have people who subscribe to your email list this is valuable. These people may have opted in to download a white paper, bought something on your website, or attended an online webinar.
Email address remarketing, or phone number, or address data can be used to target people with ads. The ads appear across platforms including banners, video, connected TVs, digital audio, Facebook, and across social platforms.
This is particularly powerful because you get the opportunity to remarket to people with new offers or opportunities after they’ve already connected with you.
Relationships
First party data, as you see in the examples, is used to connect to people who have existing relationships with your business so these relationships are extended. Typically we see three things happen with first party data:
Dynamic creative
Dynamic creative is an opportunity to give users a one to one experience between with the brand. Ads are delivered based on a logic that understands the images and copy the user should see in the ad.
The use of dynamic creative is one way that creative is an amplifier to the media investment. We see higher return on ad spend when our remarketing ads are delivered to users who abandoned cart and then see an ad with the exact product or service they recently viewed on the website.
Dynamic creative requires initial setup, determination on logic, standardized creative formatting, and the buildout of templates that are used to house the creative variations.
Customized messaging
With customized messaging there is less effort that goes into the initial setup, but the creative is still customized based on where the user is in the purchase funnel. This means that a user is in the consideration phase gets one set of creative executions and the user in the purchase phase gets another set of executions. The ads are not dynamic because they don’t change based on direct one to one relationship to the consumer. These ads are easier to build and still preserve the traditional creative development process that sees the creation of fully formed advertising messages packed in final ads.
Used for pushing a sale
Finally, even without dynamic or custom creative we use remarketing to ensure that people who are about to purchase see our messages as they make their purchase decision. If you’re not sure if you should be remarketing, chances are you should, as remarketing keeps your brand in front of key interested consumers.
