Remixing the marketing data mix – unlocking the power of third-party data

What do brand/advertiser’s want from third-party data?

Brands and advertisers strive to deepen their understand of customers and prospects, in order to communicate more effectively and offer better products and services. For a brand/advertiser, key considerations include:

• Consistency and Reliability: Advertisers seek consistent, reliable, and trustworthy third-party data to make informed decisions, reduce errors, and enhancing decision-making processes
• Scale and Scope: Particularly for global companies, having access to larger data sets become crucial for comprehensive insights, enabling brands to scale up and stay competitive in an increasingly dynamic marketplace
• Accelerated Decision-Making: Third-party data empowers advertisers to make faster decisions, activate campaigns efficiently, and enhance consumer experiences, ultimately drive improved business efficiency

How are advertising agencies using third-party data?

Agencies, who plan and execute digital advertising campaigns for brands, also value a deep understanding of customers, but they must contextualise with broader consumer behaviour to develop insights and deliver effective campaigns. Agency perspectives include:

• Effective Planning: Third-party data assists advertising agencies in upfront planning, enabling them to develop strategies that resonate with the target audience and drive impactful campaigns from the start
• Optimised Campaign Performance: During campaign execution, leveraging third-party data allows agencies to optimise performance by refining audience targeting, improving message relevance, and enhancing overall campaign effectiveness
• Valuable Insights and Continuous Improvement: Third-party data provides valuable insights that fuel future learnings, audience targeting, and campaign planning. By analysing the data generated throughout the customer journey, agencies establish a continuous improvement loop, making data-driven decisions and refining strategies over time

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What do platforms think of third-party data?

Platforms (for example social media, CTV, DSP, and programmatic) play a vital role in meeting the data needs of advertisers and agencies, while also exploring the potential value of other data sources. The platform perspectives include:

• Maximizing First-Party Data: Platforms leverage third-party data signals to make first-party data work harder, minimising wastage, and improving accuracy in targeting
• Enhanced Reach and Engagement: Third-party data enables platforms to effectively reach users who are more likely to engage with the brands’ products or services, particularly at scale. This particularly powerful in the realm of Connected TV (CTV), which combines digital targeting advantages with the mass reach of traditional television advertising
• Addressing Targeting Challenges: For brands with limited first-party data third-party data provides invaluable for platforms and effectively target audiences, addressing the challenges of audience identification and engagement

Overall, stakeholders across the marketing data ecosystem recognise the continued importance of third-party data in understanding consumers, improving campaign performance, and meeting broader business objectives. Advertisers emphasize scale and speed, advertising agencies focus on present optimisation and future insights, while platforms aim to maximise the effectiveness of first-party data and address targeting challenges. By harnessing the power of third-party data, stakeholders can unlock new opportunities and drive remarkable marketing results.