Using data looks different these days! In today’s increasingly privacy-focused world, it can be challenging to strike a balance between connecting with your target audience and respecting their choice and privacy. 

Between rapidly shifting regulations and increased consumer privacy expectations, marketing and advertising are in the midst of a major transformation. This shift makes reaching your audience more difficult every day.

Here’s our ultimate guide to optimizing your data strategy in today’s privacy-focused landscape.

Use Third-Party Data to Fill Gaps

Marketers and advertisers have had to adapt to the instability of third-party cookies, the increased importance of zero- and first-party data, consumer concerns about transparency, and more.

While marketers and advertisers can no longer rely on third-party cookies, third-party data is more important than ever. After all, most companies do not have enough customer data in their database to rely solely on first-party data for their targeting efforts. And, the data they do have might be outdated, incorrect, or incomplete. 

Third-party data can be used to fill in the gaps and update your current customers’ information, making it a key part of an effective data strategy. Having accurate customer data is vital to succeeding in a competitive market. However, in the average database, 74% of records would require updates to be useful. 

As a population, we are incredibly dynamic—constantly moving, growing, and changing. Each year, millions of consumers change their contact information, home addresses, names, and other information. 

Data files, on the other hand, capture a moment in time and cease to change following their creation. For marketers to fully understand who their customers are and how to reach them, they need accurate, current information. 

If your database is full of missing, outdated, or otherwise incorrect data, it can be challenging to reach your audience. Filling in the blanks with third-party data can help. That’s why marketers should utilize high-quality data solutions to keep their database accurate and actionable, such as:

• Identity resolution: the practice of combining disparate identifiers into a single customer identity.  
• Data hygiene: the process of keeping databases clean and error-free.
• Data enrichment: the process of supplementing your first-party data with third-party data to confirm you have the most accurate, reliable, and comprehensive database possible.

These services can help marketers improve the quality, depth, and accuracy—making it easier to better understand their customers.

Use Your First-Party Data to Understand Your Customers.

Especially with the loss of third-party cookies, the quality of your first-party data is more important than ever. Combining first-party data with third-party data can help marketers keep up with the new environment and help them future-proof their data strategy. 

To effectively target your ideal audience and inform future data buying decisions, it’s helpful to understand more about the customers and prospects you currently have in your database. When done right, marketers can easily drive cross-channel performance, nurture existing customer relationships, reengage dormant accounts, and foster new customer relationships. 

To maximize your data’s potential, you need a strategy to extract insights from your first-party data. That way, you can leverage it to create content that resonates with your customers and find new prospects. While Google Analytics can provide location data and basic demographics, you’ll need a more sophisticated tool to reveal deeper insights into your audience. 

An automated profiling service like Customer Insights can provide an actionable demographic insights report, including which demographic segments are most significant. You can use this information to inform your ideal customer profile and future marketing initiatives. With insights into your customers’ demographics, you can find the right audience to target for specific ad campaigns. 

When you know who you’re talking to, you can tailor your strategy and messaging to meet the needs and preferences of your ideal customers. Having a clear picture of your target audience improves the efficiency of your marketing efforts by enabling you to spend your time and money on campaigns you know will have a high ROI. 

For example, if you’re a fashion brand with a target audience in their late teens and early twenties, you can tailor your strategy and messaging to maximize your impact on that group. You can also understand lifestyle changes that might become a purchase trigger: If a segment of your target audience is entering the workforce, a campaign that promotes office-friendly clothes will be particularly impactful

Improve Data Activation to Boost Reach

Marketers need to know not only who their customers are, but also how to engage them effectively. It’s critical to be present in the channels that your customers use throughout their decision journey—where they research brands, read reviews, seek support, and more. 

A solution like Enhanced Onboarding can help you reach your customers online, ensuring your product and service offerings remain top of mind. By ingesting your first-party data and matching your customers to a robust identity graph, Enhanced Onboarding can reach customers at critical moments in their decision journey.

Scale Campaigns by Identifying New Segments

Data providers can take what you know about your current customers and use that to identify additional third-party segments that will allow you to expand your reach. By matching significant attributes of your current audiences with third-party audience data, you can create lookalike audiences. 

These audiences, which share commonalities with your existing customers, allow you to target segments that are more likely to be interested in your product or service. This process can also help you develop your brand’s ideal buyer personas to focus your sales and marketing efforts, reduce marketing spend, guide product decisions, and ultimately allow for better alignment across your organization.

Additionally, modeling services analyze patterns within your first-party data to isolate key segments designed to meet your marketing goals. Whether you seek demographically-driven lookalike audiences or predictive models to best guide your efforts, Deep Sync has the data science expertise to execute customer profiling and analytics processes using industry-leading datasets and techniques.

Turn to Privacy-Focused Third-Party Audiences

Third-party data providers can also offer targeted audience segments. A data partner can point you in the direction of audience segments that are similar to your current customers and help you identify segments you might not currently be reaching. These services allow you to effectively target prospects with your campaigns, enabling you to expand your current customer base. 

Find a data provider that adheres to all applicable data privacy laws and other privacy regulations. Storing and handling personally identifiable information (PII) is a huge responsibility. Perhaps the biggest benefit of working with a reputable third-party data partner is that you have support managing privacy and compliance. When vetting a potential data partner, consider:

•  Relationships with accredited organizations, like the Association of National Advertisers.
• Compliance with state and federal regulations, like CCPA.
• AICPA compliance, such as a SOC 2 Type II certification
• Access to high-quality, diversified data sources.
• A process to manage opt-outs.
• Time in business. 

You shouldn’t have to worry about data quality and compliance; that’s why you need a partner that provides deep data expertise and has privacy-focused data handling practices.  

For more privacy-focused data strategies, download our eBook: “Using Data Looks Different These Days: Optimizing Your Data Strategy in Today’s Privacy-Focused Landscape.”

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Deep Sync is the industry leader in deterministic identity and AI-powered data solutions. Leveraging our 35-year foundation of compiling direct mail-grade datasets, Deep Sync develops data-first technologies that power marketing, measurement, AI, and business intelligence for agencies and brands with our fully deterministic identity graph, privacy-first audiences, comprehensive data solutions, and integrations with leading platforms and cloud providers.