Working backwards:

3rd Party Data: Purchased data acquired from large data brokers like Experian and Acxiom.

2nd Party Data: Less commonly known, this is another company’s first-party data put up for sale, (which is becoming more and more frowned upon).

1st Party Data: Your CRM, DMS, and data you’ve collected from website visitors, social media followers, email subscribers, etc.

Introducing a type of data you might not be familiar with:

• Zero Party Data: Data a customer intentionally and proactively shares with you, implying explicit interest and preferences for how a brand should communicate with them.

The American Marketing Association (AMA) recently reported that “Quite a few forces are converging to squash third-party data. Foremost is consumer concern around personal data and privacy.” This comes as little surprise, but also doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

Simply put, 3rd party data isn’t accurate enough in the age of hyper-personalization. That’s where 1st party data comes in, but it, too, can suffer from inaccuracies.

To avoid this, one option to help create a stronger 1st party database is through incentives, offering something valuable in return for consumers providing personal data. Or rather, the targeted offers and loyalty programs of the world. Consumers will tell you what you want to know to better market to their needs as long as they get something out of it besides a sales pitch.

Where Zero Party Data begins to play a larger role is through deeper questions of perceived value, and more importantly, consent.

The CCPA, or California Consumer Privacy Act, which became active on January 1 of this year, has created new consumer rights relating to the access to, deletion of, and sharing of personal information collected by businesses – which basically covers everything.

EXCEPT Zero Party Data, which is already automatically compliant because it is a consumer willingly telling you what about them you can use to market to them and how.

Forrester recently said that “While brands might historically have considered this self-reported data to be ‘first party,’ consumer expectations have forced the need for a new term and a new way of treating this kind of personal information.”

Consumers expect more control over their data, and Zero Party Data is their way of requesting better personalization and rewards.

So, how can dealers capitalize on this trend? Provide what consumers expect – personalization, preference control, and ways of communicating that with you. Even before someone fills out a form, you can use the data you have – 3rd, 2nd, and most importantly, 1st – to begin building the foundation that provides consumers with what they want.

When you communicate regularly based on consumers’ intrinsic needs and interests, they’re more likely to engage and share additional information, further building their consumer profile so that your marketing efforts are more personalized, more in line with what they want, and more successful at converting them and keeping them as customers.

How are you making the most of your data when it matters most?