1st vs. 3rd Party Data

There are two main types of data that can be utilized when setting up audiences for programmatic advertising.

The most reliable and accurate type is 1st party data, which is obtained directly from your own customers. It comes with low privacy challenges because you’ve already obtained content to use the data. It is also not shared with other companies because it is your data. You can receive this information from email addresses, phone numbers, names, addresses, and more. This information can be obtained from form fills on your website, phone calls you received, or leads that were filled out on your social media channels. Since these are people that have already given you information, you could consider targeting them with retention messages or even upselling if you are selling products or services. This data can also be used to create lookalike audiences to find consumers who are similar to your customer.

Any information you can obtain from your Google Analytics is also considered first-party data. Google Analytics (GA) can give you valuable information about who is visiting your website and can be used to help guide media placement decisions. Age, gender, and location are all things you can see about your website users. Finally, any data you obtain from your social platforms is also considered 1st party data. Like GA, Facebook will give you age, gender, and location information about your audience.

Once you’ve obtained any of this 1st party data, it can then be used to guide your programmatic advertising approach by considering what age, genders, and locations make the most sense to include in your audience.

Unlike 1st party data, 3rd party data is data that is obtained from multiple outside sources such as credit card bureaus' public records, or government records. Consent to use the data is dependent on the data provider since it is not your own data, and you have an indirect relationship with the consumer. It also comes with lower accuracy and is less reliable than 1st party data. It can come with higher privacy challenges and because it is shared with many companies, the audience could be oversaturated. 3rd party data is also heavily relied on cookies, which could soon become outdated. Data collection has also diminished things like the Apple IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers) that now require apps to ask for users to opt-in to advertising. Like with 1st party data though, any information you obtain from 3rd party sources can be used in programmatic advertising to target the right audience with the right message at the right time, no matter where they are consuming media.

Whether using 1st or 3rd-party data, you can achieve the same result – strong programmatic advertising campaigns to reach potential customers.