First-Party Data Collection: Top Sources and Best Practices

TL;DR:

• Website analytics, email subscriptions, loyalty programs, mobile apps, and social media are all fantastic sources of first-party data.
• You can also gather first-party data through customer surveys — and the survey that Howes created with Jebbit is the perfect example of how to do it.
• No matter which methods you use for first-party data collection, you should follow a series of best practices for data management so that you can keep it secure while furthering your marketing efforts.
• It’s crucial to stay up to date with data privacy laws like the GDPR and CCPA so that you can maintain compliance.     

Looking for a way to truly connect with your customer base? First-party data collection is key. With first-party data, you can learn more about who your customers are and what motivates them — and that will allow you to tailor your marketing efforts according to precise customer profiles. 

In other words, with first-party data, you can create highly personalized marketing messages that will win your customers over.

Even better — there are many different ways to collect first-party data. We’ll show you how to leverage the best sources, and offer up best practices for user privacy and data management.

6 Ways to Approach First-Party Data Collection

One of the great things about first-party data is that there are so many ways to collect it — and that means not only more data for you but also more diverse datasets that will help you learn a lot about your target customers. Let’s take a look at some of the top ways to approach first-party data collection.

1. Website Analytics

If you’re a modern brand, then you have a website — and website analytics should be your go-to for first-party data collection. There are a few different methods you should deploy:

• Website behavior tracking: Analytics tools like Google Analytics will let you monitor user behavior across your website so that you can collect essentials like pages viewed, clicks, unique website visitors, form submissions, and time spent on pages.
• User registration: Modern e-commerce sites typically require users to register accounts — and part of the reason why is because this serves as a valuable data source for things like emails, names, and user preferences.
• Tracking pixels: These are small, invisible images that you can embed on your website to track metrics like conversions and site interactions.

2. Email Subscriptions

Email marketing is a great way to not only engage customers but also help out with your first-party data strategy. Here’s how it works:

• Choose a tool like Mailchimp or HubSpot that allows you to manage email marketing campaigns, subscriber lists, and customer data.
• Create subscription forms that invite users to sign up for newsletters, promotional offers, or other types of marketing emails. This will provide you with first-party data in the form of names, contact information, and other details.
• When you send out emails to your subscriber list, you can gather engagement data like open rates, click-through rates, and conversions.

3. Customer Surveys

One surefire way to gather first-party data is to simply ask for it — and you can make that happen through customer surveys. Here are a few ideas:

• Feedback forms: Use these to get information about the customer experience and how you can make improvements.
• Consumer research surveys: If you want to gather a larger amount of first-party data — things like demographic information, customer preferences, favorite products, or other details — consider creating a consumer research survey.
• Post-purchase surveys: After a purchase, ask customers about the purchase experience, and get feedback on the products they purchased, or any customer support interactions they had.

Howes, which is a family owned and operated business that specializes in diesel additives, has a great example of a consumer research survey that works. This survey asks customers about product preferences, how they use diesel additives, and more — and since it’s on the longer side, the brand incentivized it while it was running by entering participants into a drawing for a free iPad. 

This survey brought in loads of data for Howes. More than half of people who saw the survey engaged with it, and Howes collected over 12 million attributes. On top of that, the brand also experienced a 250% conversion gain from look-a-like audiences on social media.

4. Loyalty Programs

When marketers think about loyalty programs, they’re usually thinking about ways to build customer loyalty. However, these programs can — and should be — a two-way street. Use them to reward customers for their loyalty, and also to collect the first party data you need.

• Collect customer data — like names, birthdates, location, contact information, and more — during the membership signup process.
• Gather purchase histories, preferences, visit frequencies, and more throughout the lifetime of the customer’s membership.
• Offer points or rewards when customers complete surveys or provide information about needs and preferences.
• As you gather data, you can use that information to create tailored offers based on customer behavior — and that will in turn help you learn even more about the brands or products that certain customers are most likely to purchase.

Loyalty programs are another great reason to partner with Jebbit. Jebbit integrates with Yotpo Loyalty, which is an excellent tool that lets you build out a custom loyalty program that awards points or incentives for specific actions taken — and that includes awarding points for completing Jebbit’s personalized experiences.

5. Mobile Apps

These days, many consumers do at least some of their browsing and shopping on mobile platforms — but user experiences on mobile web aren’t always the greatest. Mobile apps give you the chance to create a much better experience than users might otherwise get when they access your site through mobile browsers like Chrome or Safari. Even better, you can enable first-party data collection in the following ways:

• App registrations: When users register for your app, you can gather contact information and enable real-time geolocation tracking.
• In-app engagement tracking: Tools like Google’s Firebase offer analytics for mobile apps so that you can track user behavior, time spent, features used, clicks, purchases, and more.
• Push notifications: Ask for permission to send push notifications so that you can engage users and collect information about the ways they interact with the notifications.

6. Social Media

Social media platforms are a great resource for so many things. It’s a good opportunity to form direct relationships with customers — and you can leverage it for first-party data collection, too. Even better, most social media platforms offer their own analytics tools, though you can often manage omnichannel efforts more effectively with analytical tools like Hootsuite Insights or Sprout Social.

• Gather details from comments, shares, and messages.
• Track likes and other engagement metrics to understand what customers like best.
• Create polls and surveys that you can share across social media platforms.

Best Practices for First-Party Data Collection

No matter which methods you use for first-party data collection, there are a few best practices that you should follow. We’ve created a list below that will help you get the most from your data while creating better user experiences and more effective marketing strategies.

• Set clear goals for first-party data collection (like understanding purchase behavior or improving the user experience) so that you can collect the data that best aligns with those goals.
• Regularly audit your data to ensure accuracy.
• Build trust and transparency by informing users about tracking mechanisms and allowing easy opt out.
• Keep surveys and other interactive experiences short and focused to encourage completion — or consider offering incentives to entice customers to complete longer experiences.
• Use behavioral data — such as recent purchase histories or website browsing information — to personalize assets like marketing emails or surveys.
• Leverage a data aggregator. For example, a customer data platform (CDP) or customer relationship management (CRM) platform will help you create a single secure, accessible storage space for all of your data.

Data Privacy Laws and Regulations

As you’re rolling out your first-party data collection efforts, it’s crucial to do it all with current data privacy regulations in mind. The two big laws to be mindful of are the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the U.S. Entire books have been written about how to maintain compliance with data privacy laws. You should do your research to make sure that you understand exactly what compliance entails and how to best maintain user privacy and security. 

For now, we’ve got you covered with the basics:

• You’ll be collecting data at a variety of different touch points throughout the customer journey, from mobile apps to your website. Along the way, keep customers informed about what you’re collecting and why — and be sure to give them opportunities to opt out.
• Make sure it’s clear who in your company is responsible for data security.
• Restrict first-party data collection activities to only the data that you need.
• Keep your data accurate and up to date. Be ready to dispose of data properly when it’s no longer accurate, relevant, or useful.
• Customers should be able to access their data at any time upon request, and they should be able to request deletion at any time too.

Make First-Party Data Collection Easy With Jebbit

While there are lots of different types of data out there, here at Jebbit, we’re all about first-party data collection. It’s an accessible data type that you can gather from website analytics, email marketing, loyalty programs, mobile apps, and more.

You can also gather first-party data via Jebbit’s interactive experiences. Customer surveys are a popular option, but it doesn’t stop there. You can create lookbooks, games, product finders, and more. Publish the experiences across multiple channels to engage customers as you learn more about them.

Ready to see how Jebbit can elevate your first-party data strategy? Schedule a call with one of our Experience Experts today!