Marketers today face fresh economic uncertainty, compounded by an urgency to find new ways to understand and reach their customers while privacy concerns loom.
Brands need to understand what users want to see, and users expect a personalized customer experience (CX). Meeting the soaring demands of consumers is difficult, and marketers must ensure their strategy is fueled by a robust first-party data strategy, good content to support storytelling, and the right technology.
To gain perspective on these pillars, Acquia worked with Vanson Bourne to collect the views of 2,000 consumers and 200 marketers in the U.K. and U.S. in August 2022. The survey explored shifts in expectations from marketing decision-makers and consumers about CX, martech, budgets, and consumer data privacy.
Direct relationships give organizations an edge
The study found that organizations that build direct, high-quality relationships with their customers have an edge. Marketers need to collect, organize, understand, and protect the first-party data that customers choose to provide, which might include digital interactions, contact details, product preferences, and purchase history.
Acquia’s report also found that marketers are creating first-party data strategies to generate insights for personalized content and an engaging CX as web browsers prepare to phase out third-party cookies.
The cookie shift makes owned data more valuable
Marketing teams cannot escape the reality that third-party cookies will effectively meet their end when Google starts removing them from Chrome in 2024. The shift will make owned data ever more valuable for understanding target audiences: the topics that interest them, the channels they prefer, and the purchases they have made. More than eight in 10 (84%) say scrutiny of browser cookies has increased the importance of first-party data. Yet the loss of the cookie will be a sea change for the industry. Perhaps it is not surprising that only a third (35%) strongly agree that their organization is fully prepared for the cookieless future.
Collecting data is not the same as protecting it
Companies that collect first-party data must also safeguard it. While 58% of marketers say their organization follows policies designed to protect the privacy of customer data to a great extent, an alarmingly high 39% say they do so only to some extent.
In fact, only half of consumers (51%) trust that all brands will handle their personal data properly, consistent with last year (54%). Likewise, 86% of consumers say they receive marketing communication from brands they do not recall opting in for. On the other side, eight in 10 marketers (78%) think their customers trust their company’s use of their personal data more this year than last, a jump from 2020 when 63% said so.
Building trust starts with treating that data as something customers lend you, not something you own. Talk to our team about collecting and activating first-party data responsibly.