Three senior digital marketers answered pressing questions about an impending future without third-party cookies at our recent Tech-Talk Webinar, “Designing the Future of Enterprise Customer Data Strategy.” Here’s their advice to help craft effective customer data strategies while staying privacy-compliant.
How will the deprecation of third-party cookies impact the omnichannel customer experience?
Logan Patterson, senior director of global business advisory services at Slalom: “We’re starting to see a gap in what we grew accustomed to. Now, we’re going backward to less personalized ads and less relevancy, and consumers are frustrated with that. The demand [for personalization] is still there, however, just without any of the privacy implications that we’ve seen in the past.”
Key stat: More than 75% of US adults over the age of 30 are concerned about the use of personal information for targeted digital ads, per the Out of Home Advertising Association of America and Morning Consult. Comparatively, only 66% of those ages 18 to 29 are concerned.
What’s your biggest challenge when trying to get brands to shift to zero- and first-party data ownership?
Jennifer Fleck, senior principal of global business advisory services at Slalom: “First and foremost, it’s about getting internal stakeholders together. They need to think, ‘If we’re going to run efficiently, and if we’re going to have modernized marketing, we need to have some consensus around where this data lives, how it’s governed, how it’s operationalized, and who owns it.’ Then, consider putting some funding toward a data cleanup before they even start talking about things like [customer data platforms] and managing first- and third-party data.”
Steve Zisk, product marketing principal at Redpoint Global: “A brand needs to figure out how to have a coherent voice. So the things that a customer is experiencing in a loyalty app, in a store, online, or in a call center all have to be geared toward the same thing.
The incoherent voice is actually getting in the way of data collection and contributing to fatigue and exhaustion on the part of the customer.”
Key stat: Nearly half (49.0%) of advertisers worldwide believe that activating their own first-party data is the most promising solution to cookie deprecation, according to DoubleVerify.
How do you balance delivering personalization without compromising privacy? What successful strategies can you recommend for scaling?
Fleck: “It’s the concept of the value exchange. As long as you are providing a relevant and a personalized experience in a responsible way, most consumers—particularly younger consumers—are open to that type of marketing activity.”
Zisk: “If you collect the right data at the right time, handle it in the right way, and use it to interact with the customer in meaningful, valuable ways, the customer will naturally scale up their interactions with the brand.”
Key stat: 85% of B2B data decision-makers were using or considering using data clean rooms (DCRs), according to Ipsos on behalf of the Interactive Advertising Bureau. DCRs will likely become essential for the privacy-compliant advertiser, but there are hurdles to widespread adoption, including a high cost and a need for specialized data scientists.
Watch the full Tech-Talk Webinar.
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