Safeguarding data for the cookieless future

Data forms the backbone of all good decision making, and with advertising budgets being more heavily scrutinised post-COVID, and digital advertising costs increasing, quality data will provide marketers with an edge when creating and running campaigns. However, two-thirds of marketing leaders claim that they sometimes make decisions without adequate data.  Whether this is the result of increasingly tightening privacy restrictions, reducing access to audience data, or the lack of understanding on how to handle quality first-party data, there is work to be done to achieve advertising success.

Balancing the need for more data insights with growing privacy restrictions can seem like an impossible task, but it is essential to enhance efficiency, performance, and decision-making. Good quality data, that has been collected in a privacy-compliant manner and from a reliable source, can solve both these issues. But with only two-thirds of marketers rating their organisation’s overall level of data quality as good, there is a clear need for brands to refine their practices.

With so much to consider, what are the key steps for implementing a data strategy that will ensure teams are making the right decisions for campaign success?
 

Sweating the small stuff

When dealing with data, good housekeeping is essential. Standardising naming conventions and attribution processes helps to keep it tidy and easily accessible. Pixels and tags should be tested and results recorded when they are created, allowing a large quantity of high quality data to be retained and utilised.

Marketers should also stick to one attribution window and type to generate comparable results, and again, keep naming conventions unified. This will improve usability, even if initially only for a single channel. 
 

Simplifying workflows

The promises of advanced tech solutions are appealing, but marketers should be selective when considering new options. On-boarding endless new software will leave data systems difficult to use; over three quarters of marketers have had to merge multiple systems in the last three years, pointing to sprawling technology suites.

Optimal solutions should be chosen for their ability to immediately extract, harmonise, and coordinate data from multiple channels into a consistent format, allowing clearer visibility for better decision making. In addition, real-time alerts are a powerful tool for marketers to pinpoint and resolve problems as they happen. With this level of agility, brands will be able to reduce wasted spend and maximise the potential of campaigns.

While clever data tools can be indispensable to marketers, without care and attention to the aforementioned fundamentals, data’s true potential will be left unlocked.
 

Future proofing

Privacy-compliance goal posts are constantly shifting for advertisers. With privacy regulations expanding far beyond the UK and Europe, and with international jurisdictions in dispute, all arrows are pointing towards a data-secure world in which first-party insights  will be imperative to advertisers hoping to make informed decisions. Clean, clear, and privacy compliant data is a must, but with the constant changes, how can brands keep up?

Meticulous focus on the details is yet again the order of the day. Making sure data orchestration engines are connected to the full stack correctly will help marketers maintain a high-flow of quality data - covering analytics, measurement, and ad platforms. Dashboards should be personalised to constantly monitor advertisers’ full toolkits and display key metrics for quick reference.

Despite a delay to when third-party cookies will be removed from Chrome and changes to alternative possible solutions, one thing is certain, Google is unlikely to change its mind on the end result - as demonstrated by the recent expansion of its Privacy Sandbox to Android.

Marketers must therefore continue to prepare for the post-cookie world, focusing especially on two particular areas. Firstly, ensuring that safeguards are only deployed to ingest data from consenting users, similar to Google’s ‘Consent Mode’, and secondly identifying the steps required to bolster opt-ins and secure a steady supply of first-party insight.

But the measure of true, long-term success will be benchmarked against the industry as a whole shifting its mindset away from needing vast quantities of data to draw insights, to only requiring specific, useful data to effectively inform decisions. As hoarding every possible fact about a consumer not only leaves advertisers open to falling foul of privacy regulations, but also means they hold a cumbersome amount of data, more difficult to manage and therefore less useful. 

It's an important lesson - better quality data leads to better quality decisions - it really is as simple as that. As the industry becomes more data-focused, and adapts to evolving requirements, the need for agility increases. Ensuring the precision of, and focus on data handling practices, will safeguard long and short-term success.