There's a new chicken in town: Using zero party data as a measure of consumer trust.

You do not need me to tell you that privacy is a hot topic. Third party cookies, ad blocking, Apple’s upcoming Mail Privacy Protection… the list goes on.

It’s undeniable that things are changing and the bottom line is that marketers won’t be able to do things in the same way as we have before. Where once third-party data was at the top of the pecking order, there’s a new chicken in town and that is zero party data.

As we continue to navigate the changing privacy laws and the various settings being put into place by technology companies, zero party data; by which I mean the information that consumers share with brands willingly about their preferences, will become increasingly important.

Over the past few months, as a business we’ve talked a lot about the value exchange and as we’ve unpicked what this really means and how it can be leveraged to create personalised customer journeys at scale, it has become abundantly clear that the value exchange is the beating heart of digital marketing. And zero party data is now the life blood.

The crux of zero party data is obviously the willingness of people to share their data and the number of people that are happy to do this is diminishing.

In 2014 according to a report by Deloitte eight out of 10 people (79 per cent of people asked) were happy to share their data with companies on the proviso that it would improve their experience. By 2018, post GDPR, this figure had dropped to just over half (51 per cent) outlined a report by Acxiom and two years on, in the midst of the pandemic this figure had fallen to a smidgen over a third of people (38 per cent).

So why is this?

Arguably, as technology advances enabling marketing to become more relevant this figure should be in ascendance. But the opposite is true.

Undoubtedly, this is due to consumer awareness about data, privacy and their rights. Increased transparency meant greater scrutiny and understanding. However, this should be celebrated rather than commiserated. That’s 38 per cent of people who are actively willing to have relationships with brands and if brands get this right, as more customers see the value exchange in action, the number of people willing to share their data will increase.

The value exchange has the potential to go viral but only if organisations start nurturing the zero-party customers they have and creating exceptional customer journeys for them using the data that has been shared for this very purpose. And moving forward, the way that marketers can measure the effectiveness of this is quite simply using zero party data as a measure of trust. The more customers that are happy to share their data, the more trusted the organisation, leading to more engagement and ultimately more sales. A virtuous cycle.

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Written by:

Richard Calvert

Founding Partner at The Thread Team