By Carey Finn. We look at why marketers need to own their data, and what that means for media planning.
“Despite repeated warnings that third-party cookies will disappear — taking away advertisers’ ability to target prospects using unique identifiers gleaned from their browser history — many marketers have yet to build substantial first-party databases,” Charlie Stewart, CEO of Rogerwilco, tells us. “It’s puzzling, since the cookie deprecation process started back in 2017, when Apple introduced Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) on iOS. I’d put it down to laziness on the part of brands and media agencies who’ve grown fat feeding at the trough that keeps on giving, while disregarding the privacy concerns and security risks that are inherent with third-party cookie collection. But now that the food’s running out, there’s a palpable sense of panic.”
Janette Hardman, head of sales South Africa at InMobi on behalf of Microsoft Advertising, sees this as an opportunity for marketers. She believes they should focus on mining their first-party data, getting closer to their customers, and investing in more frequent direct communication. “The deprecation of cookies will force brands into a way of working which should have been here all along,” she says. “Relying on third-party cookies to target has its place, and changed the advertising world completely, but utilising your own data effectively will not only enhance your customers’ experience with your brand, but also give you more control, greater quality, and better insights.”
Glen Attwell, Africa media director for Coca-Cola at EssenceMediacom, believes that how brands use data will be a key differentiator in the next three to five years. He urges marketers to consider two questions when thinking about first-party data: what is the value exchange for the end user, and how can the brand simplify data collection? “Instant gratification is a thing,” he says. “People are not interested in long ways of filling things in. [Brands need to] make it simple, make it mobile friendly, let people do it on the go — they’re going to be multitasking.”
First-party data isn’t for everyone
“The downside to first-party data is the limited scope,” says Hardman. “It only gives you interactions with clients or customers based on a limited marketing strategy, which means you might only be speaking to this group of relevant customers periodically. Collecting and maintaining first-party data can also be expensive, and requires significant infrastructure with required specialists and tools, to be successful.”
What about brands without a large customer base or direct customer relationships? Stewart points to FMCGs, who sell through distribution and retail, as an example. “They could set up data clean rooms in conjunction with their distribution partners,” says, “where they each load their data and compare and enrich it.”
The alternatives
Marketers need to familiarise themselves with all of the alternatives available to them, including those from Meta and Google. “The Facebook Conversions API uses server-to-server tracking in place of browser tracking, so it mitigates the issues privacy organisations and regulators are looking to address by preventing brands from capturing personally identifiable information,” Stewart explains. “But it requires a lot of tech, which sadly puts it out of scope for many smaller brands, for the time being.”
From Google, there is the open-source initiative Privacy Sandbox, “which is basically a bunch of APIs”, says Stewart. “The Topics one categorises web pages into topic areas, which allow advertisers to show relevant ads without knowing much about the users, so interest-based advertising can still happen.” Though there is once again a “data science challenge” for smaller businesses, Stewart believes that in time, it’s inevitable that both Google and Meta will “find ways of simplifying the tech stacks” to ensure SMEs keep spending money on their platforms.
“Then there’s retail media such as advertising on Amazon, Takealot, etc, which is one of the fastest growing areas of digital advertising,” adds Stewart. “More than 50% of e-commerce searches now take place on Amazon — and you don’t need to have an e-comm product to advertise on it, so you could do brand-building here, or sell.”
Where to start
“Right now, advertisers have the opportunity to re-evaluate their identity strategies and adopt a proactive approach,” says Hardman. Though there may still be time to develop alternatives, she recommends that plans be in place. “Step one, update your pixel strategy to benefit from privacy-enhancing technologies,” she says. “Step two, leverage first-party data. And step three, future-proof your measurement and attribution.”
To begin, test — and then test some more, advises Stewart. “Consumers are understandably sceptical of brands who collect their data, so make sure there is a clearly explained value exchange,” he says. “Run your hypotheses to establish how you can use your first-party data before you start collecting it. Develop several data-capture mechanics and split-test these against key audience segments. Only collect the data you want and can use. Make sure you’re obtaining explicit consent, and keeping a record of it. Above all, make sure you’re adhering to GDPR and POPIA.”
Attwell echoes the importance of working within the POPIA framework. He encourages marketers to start off by familiarising themselves with the various technicalities and legalities involved in storing, using, and sharing any customer data — even internally, across teams. “First do your due diligence,” he says.
“We’ve been here before”
The cookie panic is all too familiar, says Stewart. “The SEO community had to deal with something very similar a decade ago, when Google stopped showing keywords used in organic search in Google Analytics,” he explains. “It caused hysteria and hand-wringing, but if anything, the SEO industry is stronger today than it was back then.”
Carey Finn is a contributing writer to MarkLives MEDIA and MarkLives.
