The body content of your post goes here. To edit this text, click on it and delete this default text and start typing your own or paste your own from a different source.At last week’s Programmatic Pioneers, Hybrid Theory were honoured to participate in a debate on one of today's hottest topics in the industry: first-party data-driven advertising. The discussion focused on how marketers can use first-party data to strengthen customer connections, offer users greater control, and enable greater personalisation.

Without hesitation, our clients are jumping into adopting cookieless solutions with varying degrees of sophistication. And there are two important factors we're seeing:

1. Agility - being able to adapt to new approaches to data collection and analysis.
2. Visibility - being able to plug data in to see the whole ecosystem. 

So, what are the key elements of data-driven advertising for marketers today?

Start with your own first-party data

100% cookieless and based on recent interactions with customers, first-party data is an invaluable resource that can help businesses market to current and new customers. It doesn't compromise on privacy. Yet it still delivers marketers relevant and accurate insights that can be used to target customers better and boost ROAS.

Augment with data partnerships

Despite its many advantages, first-party data still poses a challenge, as it doesn't display the entire customer journey. Data is fragmented across different channels and touchpoints, so brands need to be able to pull all that data together across the open web for a more holistic view of how consumers are moving from one channel to another.

So for us at Hybrid Theory, 'first-party data' refers to our clients' data, which we merge with our own to help drive their goals (be it ROAS or performance related) and enable better measurement and tracking. Marketers are really starting to focus on the metrics that matter while abandoning irrelevant metrics.

Compiling all this data isn't easy and this is where data partnerships come into play. By using powerful technology including AI to aggregate disparate data signals across social, video, CTV, display - and applying it to different use cases - marketers can better connect with consumers no matter where they are in their journey.

Add in personalisation

Targeting customers - and understanding them better - doesn't just mean collecting as many data points as possible across a variety of environments. It also boils down to greater personalisation. Marketers need to go one step further, enriching all the data they collect to generate new insights on audience discovery and on their current customers' journey. This will enable them to create relevant ads that meet customers at just the right moment.

Remember to remain transparent

As well as opting for non-cookie-based targeting methods and creating relevant ads, there's also a need for brands to be as transparent as possible about the data they collect from audiences. Customers are more aware than ever before of their privacy and data rights, so marketers need to ensure they're reaching audiences in a way that abides by industry regulations. We're hearing clients asking more about data resources. And it's important to ask, because there is a lot of blackboxing going on and transparency is important.

Futureproof your advertising strategy

As data continues to become the oil of the advertising industry - incredibly valuable once processed, analysed, and utilised - we need to be mindful of the allocation of power within the digital ad ecosystem. The focus on cookieless data and the ability to target customers based on their interests has led to new growth opportunities and models.

Not all brands will be up to speed up on these emerging models and techniques. They'll need to collaborate with a partner that can guide them on this journey and help them futureproof by rethinking how they approach the measurement and attribution of their data, while coming up with privacy-focused and effective solutions.

It's essential that marketers get directly involved in these discussions and ask their partners questions about which platforms and channels are best in the short, medium, and long term. This will enable them to incorporate all relevant channels - social, contextual, and programmatic - not just now, but well into the future.

The future of advertising rests on a distinct value exchange between marketers and audiences - one that builds and maintains customer interactions while safeguarding their privacy. There's no set method, model, or blueprint for this - there are so many different approaches brands can take. But I think that's what makes it exciting.

Also published in: Marketing Donut

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