First-Party Data: An Imperative for Travel Marketers and Travel Brands
For years, the travel industry has been using cookies to track website visitors, improve the user experience, and collect data that helps target ads to the right audiences. The demise of third-party digital consumer trackers (such as cookies) has forced brands to establish alternative ways to reach consumers and find more reliable, direct-from-consumer insights than cookies provide.
Here's how the travel industry must deal with the end of this source of data.
Travel Brands Must Shift from Third-Party to First-Party Data
The time has come for travel brands to prioritize the collection and utilization of first-party data.
First-party data refers to information collected directly from consumers through their interactions with a company's website, app, or other digital properties. This data is incredibly valuable as it supports personalized digital marketing efforts and drives higher levels of customer engagement.
Collecting first-party data may be challenging for companies that have been dependent upon third-party resources for their marketing. However, there are plenty of methods that have worked in the past and continue to work for brands of all stripes.
Here are a few of the methods travel companies can use to collect first-party data:
Account Creation
Encourage website visitors to create accounts on your website, thereby allowing you to collect data about their preferences, activities, and travel history. You’ll also obtain location data, enabling you to tailor your offerings for specific accounts.
Subscription Services
Offer valuable content or exclusive offers through a subscription service, such as a newsletter or loyalty program, to gather more information from your customers. Basic subscriptions like newsletters can provide you with contact data, but loyalty programs produce a wealth of data to help you better understand your customers.
Online Surveys
Conduct online surveys or feedback forms to gather insights about customer preferences and opinions regarding your products or services. These can be useful tools for analyzing specific products or service offerings, but they could also give you information about what customers want from your brand.
Social Media
Monitor and analyze your social media interactions to collect data regarding your followers' interests and behaviors. This data can be challenging to analyze, but identifying social media trends could provide you with important insights into your customers’ preferences.
In-App Metrics
Evaluate in-app user behavior to understand how customers are interacting with your app and which features they find most valuable. This data is often critical to crafting new product and service offerings, and it can give you a more transparent view of your customers and their behaviors.
Why First-Party Data Is Valuable for Travel Companies
Third-party data serves as a useful turnkey resource for travel brands, but it is ultimately in control of third parties like social media companies and advertising platforms. That means it must be accessed via purchasing agreements and it can only be used for specific purposes.
First-party data is generally more time-consuming to gather, but it offers numerous benefits for travel companies, including the following:
Enhanced Personalization
By leveraging first-party data, you can offer tailored travel packages, personalized recommendations, and special offers based on individual preferences and behaviors, thereby enhancing the overall customer experience.
Increased Privacy Compliance
Relying on first-party data allows travel companies to more effectively comply with new and evolving data privacy regulations, such as GDPR and CCPA. By reducing reliance upon third-party data sources, brands can avoid potential legal issues and improve consumer trust.
Improved Ad and Marketing Targeting
Utilizing first-party data ensures that your advertising efforts are reaching the right audience, reducing ad waste, and increasing the likelihood of conversion. First-party data is also critical for general marketing efforts, including persona creation and customer journey mapping.
Learn More at the Digital Travel Summit
First-party data is now imperative for travel brands. Considering many brands’ pursuit of digital transformation, first-party data is perhaps their most important resource.
By shifting away from third-party data and focusing on innovative methods to collect first-party data, travel brands can gain valuable insights into consumer preferences, enhance customer experience, and ultimately, drive success and growth in an increasingly competitive market.
If you’re interested in learning more about how you can collect and use first-party data, don’t miss the Digital Travel Summit, the conference destination for digital travel leaders.
The next Summit will be held on September 12th through 13th at the Westin Hilton Head Island Resort & Spa, South Carolina. Download the agenda today to learn more.