Data-driven Marketing in a Cookie-less World

For years, cookies have been the lifeblood of data-driven marketing. They've allowed us to track people as they move across the internet, build profiles of their interests and behaviours, and serve them targeted ads accordingly.

Third-party cookies are used by websites to keep track of the user's web movements. Later, this information is shared with advertisers so they can customise ads for you online based on what sites or pages have been visited before without having any personally identifying data being collected about users in total anonymity.

Think to the time you accidentally (or on purpose) stopped on that fashion website to check out that dodgy pair of orange trousers; or bought a pair of the latest Ugg boots, then suddenly everywhere you wandered virtually, there they were, orange trousers and pink Ugg boots everywhere!

But, with privacy regulations like GDPR and Apple's Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) putting the kibosh on cookies, and plans to marketers are having to re-evaluate their strategies.

So, what's a data-driven marketer to do?

Here are a few things you can do to adjust your data-driven marketing strategy in a cookie-less world:

First, take a step back and re-evaluate your goals.

Ask yourself, what are you trying to accomplish with your marketing?

If your goal is simply to drive awareness or traffic, then you can likely continue using cookies without much concern.

However, if your goal is to convert visitors into customers or leads, then you'll need to get more creative.

Next, look at first-party data. This is data that you collect yourself through things like website analytics, CRM systems, and surveys.

First-party data can be incredibly valuable since you don't have to worry about it being anonymised or deleted by browsers.

You can also supplement first-party data with second- and third-party data - just be sure it's high quality and from reputable sources.

Finally, focus on building relationships with your customers and prospects. The more you know about them - their needs, their wants, their fears - the better able you'll be to reach them with targeted messages that resonate.

And while cookies can help you gather some of this information, there are other ways to do it as well. Try conducting customer interviews or surveys, for example, or using social media listening tools to tune into relevant conversations.

As the cookie-less world draws upon us, it doesn't mean data-driven marketing is dead - it just requires a bit more thoughtfulness and effort than it did before.

By taking a step back to assess your goals, focusing on first-party data, and building relationships with your customers, you can continue running successful data-driven marketing campaigns that deliver results.

For a strategy call on how you can build your?zero-to-first-party data get in touch with me at:

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Thank you for taking time to read this article and I look forward to sharing more about this and other topics with you in the future!

Dionne Buckingham-Brown?is a UK-based sales development rep for MarTech company Deployteq. She is also a business owner and consultant specialising in planning and execution of LinkedIn social selling, lead generation and sales strategies for UK, Europe & USA business revenue and growth.