Your First Party Data Strategy: Tech Infrastructure

The phase out of third party cookies, means that the way we handle and process user data is about to significantly change. Traditional methods of collecting, storing and measuring data that predominantly rely on cookies, are going to have to move aside to make way for more robust and privacy centric approaches. Two of the key contenders are Server-Side tracking and Customer Data Platforms (CDP’s).

Server-Side Tracking

Server-side tracking involves sending data directly to the server, bypassing the user’s browser. This means where data related to user interactions, events, or activities on a website or app is sent to and processed on the server side instead of relying solely on client-side tracking like cookies. This is already used in performance marketing with the Conversions API on Meta ads. 

We are big advocates of server side solutions and these are the three reasons why. 

  1. Enhanced Privacy Protection: By sending data directly to the server, server-side tracking reduces the exposure of user data to potential tracking across different websites, thereby enhancing user privacy. From a data security point of view this massively reduces the risks associated with data breaches.
  2. Reduced Dependency on Browser-Based Tracking: Browser tracking can be unreliable at times as we all know. As the third party cookie roll out happens, server-side tracking provides an alternative method for data collection, ensuring a more consistent approach across different browsing environments.
  3. Mitigation of Tracking Limitations: It helps mitigate some limitations of client-side tracking, such as restrictions imposed by browser settings or extensions that block cookies or tracking scripts. I think we’ve all used an ad blocker at some point in our lives.

Customer Data Platforms (CDPs)

Current platforms such as Data Management Platforms (DMPs) rely heavily on third party data. The solution to this is to move to a Customer Data Platform (CDPs) solution, as they primarily rely on first-party data collected directly from customer interactions. This requires a change in your current infrastructure.

A lot of companies are already using CDPs, think Microsoft Dynamics, Segment etc. The reason these companies are using these platform are because of these three areas:

  1. Segmentation and personalisation without cookies: CDPs enable you to segment your audiences based on various criteria, including their behaviors, preferences, purchase history, and more. You can then use these segments to create personalised and targeted marketing campaigns, reducing the need for cookie-based targeting.
  2. Unified customer profiles: CDPs aggregate and organise rich data sets from multiple touchpoints into unified customer profiles, providing you with a holistic view of each individual customer.
  3. Facilitates consent-driven marketing: With the emphasis on user consent and data privacy regulations, CDPs are part of the solution in managing and respecting user’s privacy preferences. They will enable you to continue to track and honor their consent preferences, and ensure you are compliant with privacy laws.

Now this is by no means a direct replacement for third-party data, but the other real benefit of CDPs is they can integrate with and support targeting methods such as contextual advertising which is one of the previous tips we’ve discussed, leveraging the data within the platform to inform your targeting decisions.

With these four solutions, we hoping you will feel more prepared for the third-party cookie phase out next year – it is not as scary as it sounds. We’ve seen changes in the industry before and we’ve become stronger for it (think ATT in 2021), and this is no different.The game is changing but we have the tools available to us to make what we do even better than before.

If you’d like to discuss any of the solutions above, or if you need support during the third party cookie phase out, please contact us.