Introduction: The Day the Data Died
It’s a moment I will always remember. It was about two years ago, and my client’s voice was dripping with panic.
“Are ads dead?” she asked, the panic practically zippered to the end of her voice.
Her screen showed a bleak picture. Their performance on Facebook ads had fallen off a cliff. No conversions to be found, years of reliable tracking were broken, and their ad spend was disappearing into an alien. What happened? The big iOS privacy updates rocked the digital marketing world.
For years, we have been enjoying a fairly easy, albeit a bit creepy, digital handshake: third-party cookies and tracking. This process allowed us to re-target people across websites and served ads that were laser focused. Then the tide turned in the digital world. Consumers wanted more control, and tech companies responded. All of a sudden, many of the shortcuts that had built a lot of businesses disappeared, and a lot of marketers felt invisible and lost.
But here was the truth I shared with my client that day, and the truth that will determine success in 2025: No, ads are not dead. The way we measure and connect with people has changed dramatically. And for the better. This piece of mind.
1. Moving Beyond the Cookie Jar: The Power of First-Party Data
The most significant error brands may be making is pursuing a new “hack” to replace third-party cookies. The more advisable approach is to pivot your focus altogether to first-party data: the information we systematically accumulate from customers because they willingly share it with us, and share it directly.
When the old tracking strategies failed my client, we stopped chasing strangers around the internet and built a warm, inviting home for prospective customers. The mind shift was focused on earning permission and not unilaterally harvesting data.
Key Steps to Building A First Party Data Engine
- Create Irresistible Lead Magnets: We produced a beautiful, useful free style guide that tied into his products. It wasn’t a sales pitch; it was a helpful bit of content. Customers exchanged their email address for the value he was providing.
- Get Explicit Consent: After we developed the lead magnet, we clarified the sign-up process. It had to be obvious customers were giving consent to hear from him, not giving consent to be tracked indefinitely online. This opt-in model became the cornerstone of building a relationship.
- Keep Your Data in One Place: Store all customer data from a website sign-up (contact information, interests, etc) to past purchase history in one place (a CRM, for example). This way you can create highly personalized, relevant experiences without having to rely on outside trackers to accomplish that. Ultimately, it will make your job easier to deliver the right message for the right audience at the right time.
- Enhanced Accuracy: This vastly improves the quantity and quality of conversion data returned to your ad platforms, giving them the information they need to help find similar, high-value customers.
- User privacy: It sends less individual identifying information and is oriented toward aggregation of conversion events, allowing you to accurately measure ads, while respecting user privacy controls.
- Enhanced Optimization: When the ad platform has real-time conversion data, its machine learning algorithms can spend your budget much smarter, finding people more likely to convert. Our client’s CPA immediately started improving once we got this set up.
- Future proofing: As more browsers (like Chrome) begin limiting, or eliminating, third-party cookies, server-side tracking will help ensure your critical measurement infrastructure does not collapse with every new wave of privacy updates.
- Greater Open and Click-Through Rates: The effectiveness of the email marketing skyrocketed. Customers opened the emails more often because they are confident that the brand’s communications are relevant and useful (they opted-in to get the style guide!).
- Increased Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): This first-party customer base did not just purchase and leave. They were incredibly loyal and came back to purchase over and over, knowing that they were getting value from the brand.
- Lower Advertising Costs for Retargeting: When you retarget an audience that is made up of people who opted-in, your relevance score is high and your ads convert better—which can significantly decrease the cost of getting in front of them.
- Increased Brand Affinity: By being transparent and offering consistent value, the brand began getting real, unsolicited praise and mentions on social media; they were now receiving appreciation for going from just transactional selling to building real relationships.
- Be a value broker, not a data mugger: Articulate clearly why you are asking for their data, and how are you planning to assist them with that. For instance, do you want to give exclusive offers? Do you want to save their shopping cart? Do you want to give them personalized recommendations? Make the value exchange clear.
- Invest in owned channels: Double down on platforms you control like your website, blog, email list, and dedicated applications. They are our safe harbours in an unpredictable digital storm.
- Next Consider Creative Storytelling: Since you can’t rely on hyper precise targeting techniques alone, you must have your creative execution better. Your ads must be interesting enough to stop a scroll and earn a click, even with a broad audience, Viable marketing must always be more meaningful marketing.