The marketing and advertising space is full of acronyms, jargon, and lesser-known terms. This can make it quite confusing for anyone who is just getting started in the industry.

If you’ve ever thought “WTH is 1pd?” this is the blog post for you! In this marketing data glossary, we’ll provide an overview of some must-know customer data vocabulary, advertising definitions, and marketing terms.

4 Data Types to Power Your Marketing Campaigns

There are four types of data that every marketer should know: First-party, second-party, third-party, and zero-party. But, what’s the difference between first-, second-, third-, and zero-party data? And, how do they each power your marketing strategies?

First-Party Data

First-party data (also called 1pd or 1p data) refers to the information that customers share through their interactions with your owned properties, such as your website, app, or physical store. Since it originates from your direct relationship with users, first-party data is considered reliable and trustworthy. 

First-Party Cookies

One type of first-party data is first-party cookies. These digital advertising cookies are collected when a user visits your website. Their main purpose is to improve both the functionality of the website and the overall customer experience.

Second-Party Data

Second-party data is information on your audience that you don’t collect yourself. The most common way to collect this data is through partnerships or co-ops with other brands. 

Third-Party Data

Third-party data (also called 3pd or 3p data) is information collected by an external organization that doesn’t have a direct connection with the consumer. 

Data compilers gather this information from multiple sources—which can include public records, court filings, real estate transactions, surveys, member registrations, magazine subscriptions, transactional history,  charitable donations, and more—and package them up as datasets that you can purchase for your company for audience targeting, customer enrichment, or data analytics. 

Third-Party Cookies

Third-party cookies function similarly to first-party cookies, except these track users across multiple websites. Many users choose to opt out of third-party cookies, making them less reliable in recent years. 

Zero-Party Data 

Zero-party data, the newest addition to the category, is data intentionally shared by your customers. This is often in the form of feedback, such as surveys, interviews, or poll answers

Deterministic vs. Probabilistic Data

What is the difference between deterministic and probabilistic data?

Deterministic Data

Deterministic data is highly accurate. It’s sourced from known, definitive identifiers, offering a high level of certainty. This data guarantees a match to a specific individual, household, or business. This is particularly valuable in creating a unified customer view and enabling highly targeted campaigns.

One prime example of deterministic data is the information derived from offline sources like postal addresses or phone numbers. Since these identifiers are directly tied to a real-world entity, there is no room for ambiguity. 

Probabilistic Data

Probabilistic data, on the other hand, leans on patterns and correlations to make probability-based assumptions. 

In other words, probabilistic data identifies potential matches based on behaviors, characteristics, or attributes that often coexist. However, it is not as definitive as deterministic data.

Marketing Strategy: Audience Targeting Terms to Know

Marketing audiences refer to the group of potential customers you hope to reach with your campaigns. 

What is a target audience?

A target audience includes consumers that are likely to be interested in your products or services and possess particular traits or behaviors that make them more likely to respond to your marketing efforts.

What is an audience segment?

An audience segment is a subset of your target audience. For example, your target audience may include all people who have demonstrated an interest in healthy living, while an audience segment may just focus on members of Gen Z within that larger group.

What is a lookalike audience?

Lookalike audiences are audiences created to mirror your existing customers. These prospects share characteristics, such as interests or demographics, with your current customers—making them more likely to be interested in your product or service.

Common Marketing Data Services 

Data-driven marketers know that first-party data is the key to improving overall marketing performance. There are a variety of marketing data services that can help marketers activate customer data for improved targeting, enhanced customer engagement, strategic positioning, and improved marketing ROI. Here is an overview of the top data solutions every marketer should know.

Data Hygiene

Data hygiene is the process of keeping databases clean and error-free. Data that is outdated, incomplete, duplicated, or simply incorrect is known as “dirty data.” 

Data Enhancement and Data Enrichment

Data enhancement refers to the process of improving your first-party data with context pulled from additional, external sources. Similarly, data enrichment is the process of supplementing your first-party data with third-party data to confirm you have the most accurate, reliable, and comprehensive database possible.

Data Append Services

Similar to data enhancement and enrichment, a data append includes supplementing the information within a brand’s internal database with additional data from external sources.

Predictive Models

Predictive models use a combination of historical data and statistical techniques to build models to predict future events, like response and purchase behavior. These insights enable marketers to seamlessly craft ideal target audiences, predict realistic media budgets, and identify key performance indicators. 

First-Party Enhanced Onboarding

First-party enhanced onboarding, also called first-party data onboarding, enhances customer data with additional identifiers like additional email addresses, phone numbers, IP addresses, and Mobile Ad IDs. This data service is often used for social media marketing campaigns, as it boosts match rates to social media platforms like Meta and TikTok, as well as programmatic platforms like The Trade Desk.

The more identifiers that flow to a downstream platform, the more likely it is that the platform will be able to find a match. This solution helps expand addressability and improve match rates, enabling improved first-party data activation.

Identity Resolution

Identity resolution is the practice of combining disparate identifiers into a single customer identity. Since customers interact with brands across various platforms, channels, and devices, brands may collect different pieces of information about them from different sources. Through identity resolution, brands can unite all of this information to create comprehensive customer records,

Digital Marketing Industry Terms: Conclusion

While the industry is ever-evolving and there are always new terms and phrases coming into play, this marketing data glossary provides some of the most common marketing and advertising terminology. To learn more about data-driven marketing best practices and emerging marketing trends, visit our blog.

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Curious about the difference between “addressability” and “identity”? Learn the difference between these two important advertising terms in this AdExchanger article: When It Comes To Addressability And Identity, What’s Old Is New Again