First-Party Data And Search

What is first-party data, and how can you use this data to enhance your search campaigns? In part two of his multi-part series exploring the data landscape, columnist Alistair Dent tackles these questions.

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Last month, I wrote on Marketing Land about the data landscape and how it looks for DIY marketers without huge enterprise software budgets.

Today, I’m back — and talking about first-party data and what it can do to enhance your ROI.

What is first-party data? This refers to data that you own, which is collected from interactions between users and your brand. This type of data generally comes from one of three sources:

  • Website analytics
  • Mobile app usage
  • User-supplied information (from making a purchase, filling out a form, etc.)

Linking your first-party data sources together can be hugely beneficial to your digital marketing efforts, allowing you to build more targeted and creative campaigns. Getting first party data into search became a big deal over the last year as advertisers learned to use RLSAs (Remarketing Lists for Search Ads) — putting a pixel on my site and triggering it whenever I want lets me get almost anything I can imagine into my search targeting.

Check out the second installment of my series on Marketing Land to learn more about what kind of data is available and just how you might want to use it to improve your search and other digital channels. Keep checking back as we explore the entire marketing data landscape and how you can leverage it for your business.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Alistair Dent
Contributor
Alistair Dent is the Head of Product Strategy at iProspect, the UK's largest performance agency. Working closely with media owners, technology platforms and clients, Alistair ensures that the right digital strategies are in place to improve performance. Alistair speaks and writes about paid media on a regular basis, and has written for Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Land, Econsultancy and The Drum, as well as speaking internationally at SMX, SES, PPC Masters, Ecommerce Expo and Internet World.

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