Want More Customer Data? Build An Enterprise Data Strategy First

In the era of data deprecation, many B2C marketing clients are asking me “How can I get more first-party data?” or “How do I get more customers to share data with me?” It’s a valid question and a totally understandable one. A common recommendation (including from Forrester) to contend with the loss of third-party cookies, device IDs, and other inferred signals is to focus on capturing first- and zero-party data.

But consumers have more control than ever (as they should!) over when they share their data and with whom. Brands need a clear use case when they ask customers for their data so that the brand can explain and demonstrate how it’ll use the customer’s data and what benefits that sharing data provides back to the customer.

Before launching experiences — like website pop-ups — that ask for customer emails, phone numbers, and more, marketers should take a pause and reflect on their goals for that data. What is the brand trying to achieve by capturing “more” first-party data? How is “more” data going to be defined? The answers to these questions span beyond the remit of marketing, which is why our new report, which just published today, advises marketers that “more data” isn’t a strategy; they must collaborate on an enterprise data strategy instead.

There are already insights that live across an organization that can impact a customer’s experience: categories such as supply chain data, sales data, and customer service data. And data aside, collaborating on a data strategy at the enterprise level also opens up resources — not just data scientists and customer analytics experts but also risk and compliance folks who can ensure that customers’ data is treated responsibly, IT teammates who can spin up new data capture experiences and activation use cases, and customer experience pros.

The burden of convincing a customer to share their data ultimately rests on the brand. Chasing an amorphous goal of “more data” isn’t going to work — customers need clear and tangible benefits to share their data and stay engaged.

Check out the new report here: The CMO’s Guide To An Enterprise Data Strategy. A huge thank you to many Forrester colleagues who contributed to the report and to the brands and agencies that participated in the research, and stay tuned for more research to come on this topic.