First-party Data

First-party Data - data that the company collects directly from its audience: email and phone numbers from forms, purchase history from CRM, behavior on the website from its own analytics, data from the mobile application. The key difference from third-party data: you collect it yourself, you have the user’s consent, and it does not depend on intermediary platforms.

There are three levels in the data hierarchy: first-party (yours), second-party (others’, which they sell or give to you - for example, partner data), third-party (data from brokers, purchased on the market, collected through cookies on other people’s sites). Third-party data is rapidly dying with browsers refusing third-party cookies and tightening iOS/Android policies.

Practical application of first-party data in performance marketing: loading your own audiences into advertising platforms (Custom Audiences in VK, Customer Match in Google Ads), similar audiences (Look-alike) based on your customers, personalizing landing pages for segments from CRM, retargeting without third-party pixels through server integration (CAPI).

Collection of first-party data is not a one-time event, but an infrastructure project. You need: a form with a lead magnet, a CRM with correct segmentation, a CDP (Customer Data Platform) or at least a normally configured BigQuery, a data processing agreement. In 2024–2026, companies that have invested in this infrastructure will pay noticeably less for advertising - their Look-alike audiences are more accurate and cheaper than those of competitors working on “cold” targeting.