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Forget 1st and 3rd Party Data. Meet SECOND-Party Data.
Forget 1st and 3rd Party Data. Meet SECOND-Party Data.
TodayInDigital is a daily podcast showcasing the latest in marketing trends and updates. Today, Tod touches on:
- In the looming battle between first-party data and third-party data, won’t somebody think of the middle-child: The second-party data?
- Yelp may label your location a COVID-risk. Agorapulse is about to raise its prices.
- The former head of Facebook ads has a new job.
- And how one small Internet provider’s oddball reaction to American politics may be messing up your social advertising reach.Below is the transcription from this episode
It’s Monday, January 11th, 2021.
Happy National Youth Day - India
I’m Tod Maffin from engageQ digital. And here is what you missed, today in digital marketing.
When a Bad Site Ranks Better
You don’t have to be in the digital marketing space long before you find a competitors web site that ranks better than YOUR web site — even though their web site uses spammy techniques to get there.
And you may have wanted to ask Google — what gives? They’re keyword stuffing and getting ahead of REAL sites.
There IS actually a way to ask Google these questions. One of their search engineers, John Mueller, does a weekly livestream where you can jump in and ask any question you like.
So someone did, with that very question, and John’s reply was a little surprising. For the first time, I think, he confirmed that Google knows a site is doing shady things — but rather than de-rank them… it just ignores that.
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This revelation surprised me a little. Until now, we’ve always thought Google gives a lower score to shady stuff.
One tip he did offer was a reminder to poll your users every so often.
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User polling is important, of course, but don’t always take your users’ word for it. At our agency, we work with a number of shopping centres, doing a bunch of stuff — engagement and moderation, social ad campaigns… but a big chunk is organic content. And we do poll their fan base a couple of times a year with a short survey asking what content THEY prefer to see on the Feed.
Almost without exception, the option for “Deals and Sales Alerts” ranks at the bottom of the survey. Almost every time. And yet, despite what people SAY in the survey, posts about sales are among the highest engagement posts.
So, as with everything in our world, grain of salt.
Second Party Data
Merkle's Customer Engagement Report is out for the year and the company’s forecast suggests the top issue digital marketers will be wrestling with in 2021 is first-party data. That’s information you’ve collected about your own customers on your own properties, like web sites and apps.
But our industry has relied on third-party data — collected by organizations without a direct connection to the customer — since forever, and with this continued trend towards privacy and anti-tracking, we can expect much less of third-party data.
But Merkle suggests there’s another route — something you’ll likely hear more about this year: second-party data.
Quoting MarketingDive.com: “This includes data shared via non-competitive partnerships, like a Buick tie-up with Amazon that sought to promote both the car brand and Amazon's Alexa. Second-party data is also shared via retail media networks, which continue to proliferate among retailers, including Walmart, Best Buy, CVS Pharmacy, Kroger, Target and Walgreens. These networks help marketers tap the data that retailers collect about consumers when they are close to making a purchase.
“A previous study by the IAB found that 41% of ad buyers didn't know if their stakeholders understand the ramifications of third-party cookies' demise and the changes to identifiers, suggesting that the road ahead could be a bumpy one.”
Covid and Yelp
Heads up if you run marketing for a bricks-and-mortar location that’s on Yelp. The company today announcing it will let users report places that aren’t complying with local COVID regulations. And if enough people report it, you’ll end up with a warning label.
This from StreetFightMag.com: “Compliant businesses will display a green check; non-compliant businesses will receive an orange question mark on their profiles. The company says that these indicators extend only to masks and social distancing today “because these are the health and safety precautions that can be most easily observed by customers.” It’s unclear how these indicators will impact business, though the earlier Yelp data suggest compliant businesses will see potentially greater engagement and revenue.
“Yelp explains that a number of criteria must be met before either the green check or orange question mark will appear. There must be enough responses to show a consensus. Only logged-in Yelp users can participate, and only responses received within the past 28 days will be considered. In franchise cases, each location will be treated separately based on feedback for that location.”
Yelp also added some new attributes you can apply to your profile, including “staff checked for symptoms,” and “disposable or contactless menu,”
Agorapulse Prices Going Up
The social media platform Agorapulse today warned that its prices are going up next month.
Quoting the company “We’ve been able to add more than 30 features over the past two years without any change in our pricing.”
A quick fact check here — That’s not entirely true. One of the features they point to — in fact, probably one of the biggest features they’ve added in that time was an enhanced reporting tool. That tool does indeed cost extra.
But Agorapulse has been one of the best values in the social media space.
It says starting February 2nd, prices will increase for NEW customers. Current customers will keep their existing pricing.
We asked what this new pricing would be, but they said they haven’t made that information public yet.
Blocking Facebook
If your business relies on targeting people in the North Idaho and Spokane Washington area, you may have noticed some strange numbers coming back on your social ad campaigns.
That’s because a local internet provider is blocking Facebook and Twitter from its wifi services — apparently as some kind of retaliation against the deplatforming of outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump.
The provider, called Your T1 WIFI, emailed customers this week saying: “It has come to our attention that Twitter and Facebook are engaged in censorship of our customers and information… Our company does not believe a website or social networking site has the authority to censor what you see.”
And so, starting tomorrow, the company will… well, censor what their customers see.
‘Cause… that’ll show ‘em? I guess?
Customers do have to request this… it won’t happen to everyone. And some media are reporting the move could actually violate Washington’s Net Neutrality laws. Idaho doesn’t have similar legislation.
Not all customers are happy, though. Krista Yep interviewed by local station KREM said:
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Also, side note. Your T1 Wifi. That’s the company name. T1. T1 speeds WERE a big deal a long time ago. But nowadays, this is like trying to convince the market you’re a future-looking brand by adding 2000 at the end of your name.
Anyway, if you’re seeing a little bit of strangeness in your reach numbers for that area, that could be why, but — honestly, this is probably not going to move the needle much.
Rob Leathern
Earlier this month we reported that, over the holidays, Rob Leathern, head of Facebook ads, left the company rather abruptly at the end of December.
Today, he announced his next gig — he’ll be joining Google's Privacy and Data Protection Office to lead product development there.
Finally
And finally, Facebook had a bug this morning that prevented third-party tools from posting reliably to the platform. That appears to have been fixed now.
Credit to Tod Maffin and the Today in Digital Marketing podcast, Produced by engageQ.com.
