On the back of Google’s 2021 announcement that promised to remove third-party tracking from their platforms in 2023, a bid to improve consumer privacy online continues to affect the targeted ad strategies of the future.
For marketers who rely on the use of cookie-based data for campaign personalisation, a new era of tighter data-sharing trends has made it harder than ever before to target consumers in a competitive e-commerce playing field.
As we step into a post-pandemic digital shift, active online consumers now want more control over the data they share and who they share it with.
However, while 80% of consumers are likely to share their personal information with a brand, less than one in four people believe they have full control over their data privacy.
(Image Source: Marketing Charts)
As you can see above, less than a quarter of all adults believe that they have full control over their data sharing. While Gen Z and Millenial consumers are more tech-savvy, they are only 10% more comfortable with third-party data sharing in the wake of the pandemic.
This is where a first-party future comes into play. As consumers place more restrictions of data sharing in response to a sharp rise in cyber-based crime, marketers of tomorrow must find new ways to get to know their target audience in 2022.
Read on as we discuss what a cookie-less tomorrow looks like for marketers and advertisers, and divulge our best-kept CX data gathering tips for successful campaign personalisation post-pandemic.
Addressing Data Privacy Trends In 2022
In a 2021 Norton Poll, four-fifths of respondents claimed that they were concerned about privacy invasion when sharing their data online.
After a post-Covid Checkpoint study revealed that cybercrime has risen by 40% since 2020 alone, consumers are becoming progressively more worried about their privacy as major online organisations become targets for mass data breaches.
As the threats of cyber breaching and consumer phishing rise online, the average online user is three times more likely to stop sharing their personal information with third-party companies.
The question is, how can marketers personalise a campaign without sufficient consumer data? This is where first-party data collection comes into play.
“first-party cookies are directly stored by the website (or domain) you visit.” claim experts at CookiePro. “These cookies allow website owners to collect analytics data, remember language settings, and perform other useful functions that provide a good user experience. The domain host can see the data that the cookie retrieves.”
Read on as we discuss the CX tracking strategies of the future, and how you can use your target consumer’s first-party data to your advantage.
How To Track CX Data In 2022
There are a number of ways to track your CX data in 2022. On the back of a social media boom, and a call for conversational UX design, there is a multitude of strategies marketers can use to keep their consumers engaged when interacting with their site.
From social listening to staying on top of market trends, here are the key tactics you should introduce to your user testing strategy in 2022.
Start Social Listening
One key tactic to include in your CX research strategy is social listening. On the back of a social media boom, where 4.62 billion users now interact with at least one social platform, it’s important to be gathering data from their actions/conversations in a social sphere.
Defined by Hootsuite as the act of “tracking social media platforms for mentions and conversations related to your brand, then analyzing them for insights to discover opportunities to act,” social listening can provide a great window into demographic trends and target consumer behaviour.
The key here is to be as visible as possible in an online social sphere. The more you position your brand as a key player across popular social platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, the more likely your consumers are to interact and engage with your brand.
With each engagement, analyze and identify trends within content comments and shares, as they could be indicators of what products/services are most popular with your audience.
If we take a look at the stats, over half of all businesses now have a social listening system worked into their CX data strategy.
(Image Source: Social Media Today)
In fact, experts at Social Media Today claim that more than 82% of marketers rate social listening as a key CX data collection strategy in 2022, making it a quick and low-cost source of user testing.
Tap Into Your First-Party Data
Another key tactic to tap into is your first-party data. Collected from your consumer’s click-through data, website engagement and physical feedback, first-party data can be used to monitor what areas of your site are performing well and which points need improvement.
Using first-party data visualisation methods such as heatmaps, marketers can view their CTR in real-time, and the heat map identifies hot and cold spaces of consumer engagement.
This could indicate which landing pages are most integrated with and, in turn, suggest which products and services are most popular. For those pages that don’t perform so well, it might be time to revamp your content strategy and change up your target approach.
While first-party data is often drawn from UX-based user testing, you can also take it to the next level by introducing physical feedback options. Providing consumers with a space to write about what they like and dislike about your site/service is the quickest path towards improvement for a positive CX future.
Keep Track Of Market Trends
Last but not least, it’s time to take a wider look at the industry market. Taking a step back to research your competition and the growth of your niche market can offer you a quick competitive advantage moving forward.
Marketers that stay on top of industry trends find it much easier to plan campaigns in advance that are targetted, well researched, and likely to perform well in a current consumer climate.
However, the key to success lies within adaptability. In a post-pandemic landscape, where online trends crop up and fly away within the same 24 hours, marketers need to be able to act fast. While using your CX data as a starting point is smart, creating a campaign that can be adjusted to fit an audience’s ever-changing needs is the key to triumph.
As we step into the future of tracking CX data, it’s important to cover all online basis. From social platforms to click-through data on-site, marketers no longer need to turn to third-party cookies in an attempt to get to know their audience.
