Why Your First Party Data Strategy Is Your Most Valuable Marketing Asset

Privacy laws are changing, third-party cookies are fading, and customer expectations are rising. In this environment, the strength of your first party data strategy can help set your marketing apart. It’s a way to build a relationship of trust with your customer base and learn how to best serve their needs. This strong customer connection is essential for any brand looking to drive long-term, sustainable growth over short-term clicks.

Collecting First Party Data

Let’s start at the beginning. First-party data is the data your business collects directly from your customers — from purchases, CRM systems, website interactions, newsletter signups, app usage, surveys, and loyalty schemes.

It’s:

• Consent-based
• Accurate
• Owned by you

And it’s becoming more valuable by the day. As reported by Google’s Shruti Maheshwari in this keynote speech at a Launch event, First-party data is no longer a ‘nice to have’ — it’s your most powerful, future-proof asset.

But collecting data correctly is key. It starts with something simple: a cookie banner that works — and earns trust from the moment someone lands on your site.

Understanding Customer Insights

The strength of your first-party data lies in its context. It doesn’t just tell you what your customers did — it tells you what they care about.

By analysing behaviour across channels, platforms, and purchase journeys, you can:

• Tailor content and offers to different audience segments
• Understand who your highest-value customers are — and how to find more of them
• Predict future buying behaviour based on past signals

This is where machine learning thrives. Combine first-party data with automated tools like Google Ads’ enhanced conversions and you can accurately model what’s working, even when cookie tracking fails.

The Limitations of Third Party Data

Here’s the hard truth: third-party data is unreliable.

It’s often:

• Outdated
• Aggregated without consent
• Bought from unknown sources

Worse, using it could put you at risk of breaching data privacy laws like GDPR and CCPA — particularly if consent wasn’t clearly granted.

According to Deloitte, only 34% of respondents trust companies to be transparent about data usage, indicating a significant trust gap. (source).

That’s a trust gap you don’t want to fall into. By leveraging first party data, you control both the source and the standard.

Creating a Value Exchange

People won’t give you their data just because you ask nicely. There has to be something in it for them.
This is where value exchange matters. Give people a reason to share their email, preferences or feedback by offering:

• Exclusive content
• Discounts or loyalty points
• Personalised experiences
• Faster checkout or saved preferences

And be transparent. Make it clear why you’re asking and how you’ll use their information.
When customers understand the benefit, they’re more likely to say yes, and to stay engaged.

Implementing a Consent Management Platform

Your Consent Management Platform (CMP) is the foundation of compliant data collection.
It ensures that:

• Users can make a real choice — including the option to ‘reject all’
• Consent decisions are recorded and auditable
• Cookies are only activated after consent

Platforms like Google and Microsoft are updated in real time through Consent Mode v2

At Launch, it’s one of the first things we audit for any new client. A broken CMP means broken trust — and bad customer data.

Want to see if yours holds up? Try declining cookies on your own site. If tracking still works, that’s a red flag.

Data Management and Quality

Garbage in, garbage out. Even the best platform can’t deliver results if your data quality is incomplete, inconsistent or outdated.

To make your first-party data strategy effective, you need:

• Clean, deduplicated datasets
• Standardised naming conventions and taxonomies
• A regular hygiene schedule for review and update
• Integrated tagging and tracking setups (e.g. GTM, GA4, CRM)

High-quality data helps platforms like Google Ads and Meta deliver smarter targeting, better optimisation, and stronger measurement.

Developing Effective Marketing Strategies

First-party data gives you a clearer picture of who your audience is, what matters to them, and how they behave. That’s the foundation for smarter marketing campaigns.

It can really help you maximise on your performance marketing budget as your agency can use it to:
Build and refine audience segments

• Personalise ad creative based on past behaviour
• Improve bid strategies and budget allocation
• Test and optimise messaging, formats and platforms
• Build full-funnel strategies — from awareness to conversion

This doesn’t only apply to ads. Your email marketing, landing pages, product pages and UX should all reflect what your data is telling you.

Working with Data Providers

Even if you own your data, you might still work with external partners — analytics platforms, customer relationship management vendors, data specialists or ad tech providers.
Make sure your partners:

• Support GDPR and CCPA compliance
• Offer secure, encrypted integrations
• Can demonstrate data lineage and consent tracking
• Help activate your data, not just store it

Don’t be afraid to ask tough questions. At Launch, we work closely with our clients’ providers to ensure everything works together seamlessly.

You shouldn’t need five dashboards and six logins to understand your data.

Enhancing Customer Experience

There really is no better way to be relevant to your customers than to deepen your understanding of their behaviour using data willingly given.

Customers expect brands to know them — but not in a creepy way. Unlike third party data, first-party data allows you to:

• Show relevant products based on past browsing
• Send timely emails triggered by behaviour
• Reduce friction at checkout or signup
• Keep messaging consistent across platforms

Done right, it’s invisible. The customer just feels like everything flows.

That’s the magic of combining insight with empathy. It’s also what turns one-time buyers into long-term fans.

Building Trust with Customers

Trust is earned, not assumed. And today’s customers are savvier than ever.

The new generation — like my toddler Emily — will grow up knowing what cookies are, what consent means, and what data they’re willing to part with. We need to build for that future now.

Start by:

• Being transparent about what data you collect and why
• Letting users control their data and preferences
• Demonstrating the value customers get in return
• Showing up consistently, not just selling

Two out of three consumers say they want personalised ads — but 64% don’t trust brands with their data (Google/Econsultancy). Our job as marketers is to close that gap.

Measuring Success and Defining Goals

What gets measured, gets managed. But what should you measure? A good first-party data strategy should give you valuable insights into:

• Attribution: what really drives conversion
• Lifetime value: which customers are most profitable
• Channel performance: where your best leads come from
• Audience engagement: what resonates and what doesn’t

Work with your measurement agency to set clear goals, track consistently, and feed learnings back into your strategy. You should also work with them to ensure tools like GA4, BigQuery, Looker Studio and your CRM are working together, not in silos.

Creating a Customer-Centric Approach

When building your first party data strategy, think of it as a fundamental shift towards being customer centric. It’s not just about data. It’s about the most important aspect of your whole business: the people who buy from you.

So you’re not building lists. You’re building relationships. This means:

• Listening more closely to customer behaviour
• Tailoring experiences to individual needs
• Prioritising relevance over reach
• Making decisions based on what your customers want, not what a platform algorithm guesses

When you make your customer the centre of your strategy, the performance follows.

Using Data to Inform Business Decisions

Your data isn’t just for marketing. It should influence product, pricing, UX, customer service and more.

We’ve helped clients use first-party data to:

• Decide which product lines to scale
• Identify gaps in their funnel
• Shape content strategies that actually drive interest
• Adjust pricing based on behavioural data

This is how performance marketing becomes business intelligence — not just spend and clicks, but strategic insight.

Avoiding the Risks of Third Party Data Provider

Let’s be blunt: relying on third-party data is a gamble. You’re risking:

• Regulatory penalties
• Poor performance
• Broken customer trust
• Black-box algorithms you can’t control

Instead, own your edge. Build your own data ecosystem. Use platforms that respect data privacy. And work with partners who help you get the most from what you already have.

One brilliant solution Launch has been using to improve measurement for our clients is Server Side tracking, which effectively converts third party data to first party.

Your competitors are already making the shift. Don’t be the brand that waits too long.

Final Thought

A strong first-party data strategy is no longer optional. It’s the difference between chasing performance and owning it.

Start with trust. Build with insight. Scale with intelligence. And if you’re stuck? That’s what we’re here for.

Need help auditing or improving your first-party data setup?
Reach out to Launch →

Useful resources

In our guide to Unlocking First Party Data, we walk you through the basics of getting set up to gather and process first party data while complying with privacy laws. Download it here.

Other resources you might find helpful:

• Mastering measurement ebook: we break down the actions you need to take to achieve clean data that fuels success in your digital activity. You’ll be able to benchmark where you are now, and then follow our detailed steps to get where you want to be.
• Data privacy ebook: What do recent changes to regulations and cookie banners mean for your performance marketing tracking and how you can make sure you are compliant with data laws? This ebook explains.
• Blog series: Navigating the Data Revolution: Your Guide to Third-Party Cookies, Consent Mode, and Data Privacy. In this three part blog series we unpack issues such as how to create a compliant cookie banner and how to configure your ads accounts to ensure you’re not wholly cookie reliant

About the Author:

Ian Lewis is Head of Data and Analytics at Launch. He believes that the data you report is only as good as the data you feed it, and loves trying to decipher what’s important and how we build on it. He enjoys idea generation, problem solving and trend spotting with a keen interest in psychology and user behaviour.
Connect with Ian on LinkedIn.