What’s the deal with first-party data?

Imagine a party packed with your customers, all talking about what they think of your product, what frustrates them about your website, and their individual preferences as B2B buyers.

That doesn’t happen much, but if it did, wouldn’t you want to be a fly on the wall? First-party data, while far removed from an actual party, works in a similar way: you can use it to get feedback from customers without having to speak with them individually.

In B2B, the right first-party data strategies help you gather high-quality information and make informed decisions about your marketing plan, improve your customer experience, and fine-tune your sales process. That’s something to celebrate.

Defining all the “parties”

You’re probably already collecting first-party data in some form — here are some examples.

• User behaviours drawn from website interactions

• Audience demographics

• Customer feedback and testimonials

• Social media conversations

• Results from customer surveys

Second-party data, on the other hand, is one step removed from first-party data. It’s collected by a partner that shares audience insights with your business for mutual benefit. Third-party data has the broadest scope, often compiled from multiple sources and collected by a business that isn’t directly linked to yours.

Which one’s better?

None of these options is objectively better or worse than the others — they’re all part of a well-rounded marketing strategy.

While second and third-party data can give you broader insights that you might not have access to otherwise, first-party data can be less costly to gather because it comes directly from interactions with your brand. It’s also more likely to deliver relevant and useful data points while staying compliant with data privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA.

Why collect first-party data?

First-party data is more crucial than it’s ever been. Buyers want smoother, more personalized, and higher-quality digital experiences, and marketers are tasked with helping them access the information they need to make purchasing decisions. If they can’t find it, they’ll leave.

First-party data is a precise tool to understand your buyers and deliver the experience they want. The trick is knowing how to effectively and securely collect that data by incentivizing customers, then analyzing it correctly so it can be applied to your marketing efforts. All that requires having the right infrastructure in place.

Collecting and using data responsibly

As the conversation around data privacy evolves, it’s even more important for B2B businesses to collect data in a clear, transparent way. Only 33% of Americans believe companies use their personal data responsibly, and 72% are reluctant to share their personal data with businesses. If a business were to lose their trust, 73% of customers say they would “spend significantly less” on that business’ products or services.

By gearing more of your marketing strategy around first-party data, you invest in stronger, trust-based relationships with your audience and ultimately build better quality engagement with your content.

5 ways to capture first-party data in B2B

Interactive content

We’ve talked about how interactives can be beneficial for B2B products and services that are complex, dry, or difficult to show off in a more traditional medium.

When users engage with an interactive, they’re providing information willingly. For instance, their answers to a social media quiz could identify gaps in their knowledge. Responses to a built-in poll in your email newsletter can tell you more about your audience’s pain points or interests. A more in-depth interactive on your website, such as a calculator tool or product finder, could reveal information about the industries or applications your customers work in.

Website analytics

Website analytics can tell you a lot about a customer. Which product pages do they visit most? Do they favour specific categories of services? Are they reading your blog or other resources, and if so, what are their favourite topics?

To go a layer deeper, certain aspects of website audits, such as user journey exercises, can tell you more about how users navigate your website. The exercises identify where people tend to get lost and where they get frustrated and leave, which can help you reevaluate and design experiences that quickly connect users with the content they want.

Email and social media analytics

Email analytics reveal which topics interest your audience enough to engage with your content. What gets the most clicks, and what goes straight to the trash can? The idea is simple, but once you start creating new emails based on those insights you gleaned, your emails evolve from a monologue to a two-way conversation with readers.

Similarly, your social channels are chock full of data (provided you’re posting regularly). You can compare the reactions, comments, and shares between posts to understand what people want to see more of.

Surveys and feedback forms

If you really want to know something, you can always ask your customers directly. Surveys and customer feedback forms can highlight how people feel about the quality of your products, how they like to use your website, or their experience with your customer service reps. Remember to keep your forms focused and respect the time you’re asking of your audience.

High-value resources

Modern users know their data has value and, naturally, they want value in exchange. If the topic is enticing enough, offering access to exclusive content can encourage users to provide their information.

The content should be relevant to your audience, accurate, and packed with value. It could be a technical whitepaper, a webinar that covers hot topics in your industry, or a report with insightful statistics.

What can I do with this information?

With all these new sources of data, you’ll need a plan to implement it. For starters, you can use the data to segment your audience based on demographics, characteristics about their company, and behaviours to create more targeted marketing campaigns. You can glean customer insights from patterns you see in their behaviours and interests online, then apply that to reach them more effectively.

To get even more granular, try personalizing emails for individual customers by delivering content you know will resonate with their interests. Similarly, use first-party data to create precision-targeted ads across all platforms. The tailored approach helps build stronger relationships with customers and boosts engagement.

We could dedicate a whole other blog to this (heck, maybe we will), but the key is to track and analyze your data to get the most mileage.