Mastering First-Party Data: A New Era of Marketing for Small Businesses

You may have heard that the use of third-party cookies is being phased out by browsers and regulators, which will affect how you can track and target your customers online. But don’t worry, there is a way to prepare for this change and still reach your customers effectively: using your own first-party data.

First-party data is the information that your customers share with you directly, such as their email, phone number, purchase history, or preferences. This data is valuable because it reflects your customers’ real interests and behaviors, and it can help you create personalized and relevant marketing campaigns.

But how can you use your first-party data in Google Ads? That’s where Google Ads Data Manager comes in. Google Ads Data Manager is a new feature that simplifies the way you connect and use your first-party data with Google Ads solutions. It puts all your data management controls in one place, enabling you to drive incremental revenue and better outcomes for your business.

With Google Ads Data Manager, you can:

• Measure conversions more accurately: You can use enhanced conversions to measure customer actions that happen offline or on different devices, such as phone calls, store visits, or app installs. Enhanced conversions use your first-party data to match conversions to ad clicks or views, giving you a more complete picture of your campaign performance.
• Reach more customers with relevant ads: You can use Customer Match to upload your first-party data and create audiences based on your customers’ characteristics or actions. Customer Match helps you reach your existing customers or find new ones who are similar to them across Google’s properties, such as Search, YouTube, Gmail, and Display Network.
• Get insights from your data to optimize your campaigns: You can use Google Analytics 4 to analyze your first-party data and understand how your customers interact with your website or app. Google Analytics 4 helps you measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, identify the best channels and strategies for your business, and optimize your return on ad spend.

Google Ads Data Manager makes it easy for you to connect your first-party data sources with Google Ads solutions². You can connect data sources such as customer relationship management (CRM) systems, customer data platforms (CDPs), cloud-based enterprise data storage systems, or marketing technologies⁵. For example, you can connect Salesforce Data Cloud to activate audiences across Google’s Ads ecosystem based on unified data and insights from Salesforce.

Google Ads Data Manager is rolling out and will become generally available in Google Ads in early 2024. If you want to get ready for a future without cookies and make the most of your first-party data, we recommend you to try it out and see how it can help you improve your marketing performance and data management.

If you have any questions or feedback, please let us know.