One of the more interesting outcomes of the “cookiepocalypse” is the numerous companies pivoting to create first-party data, the currency that will drive the post-cookie world for advertisers. Before we get into detailing these companies, let’s first explore third-party data and the consumer. As a consumer, your offline and online activities are constantly being aggregated, stored and analyzed. Every time you search, like/share/comment on a social post, click on an ad, visit a website, or make an online or offline purchase with certain credit cards – you are being tracked, collected and profiled. Yes, this is anonymous, but you are still giving your data away and you are still being targeted by advertising. For years, the digital advertising ecosystem has been reliant on this third-party data to target their ads. Third-party data providers made money, and ad agencies and advertisers made money as well, through the performance of the advertising tied to the performance of the data. Who did not make any money from this transaction? The consumer.

Fast forward to the “cookiepocalypse.”  With the demise of third-party cookies and third-party data, a new form of creating highly targeted advertising data has emerged. In the center of the data is the consumer. And this time, the consumer is in control and can actually make money “selling” their
data –   data that they’ve made no money on for a long time. With that, we’ll share a couple of different approaches to arriving at the same win-win situation:

Invisibly: In 2020, Invisibly built a marketplace where users can share their data for dollars. They reward audiences for their consented data and use this data to target brand engagement. The mechanism is targeted surveys from brands. As a consumer, you earn actual dollars for answering surveys. So, using various signals, Invisibly serves you various surveys. As you answer these surveys, you’re giving away consented data that helps Invisibly target ads. So, say you’re in the market for a new car. You may get served an ad from Nissan. The ad can ask you various questions about car type, color, price range, etc. This data is then used to target Nissan’s ads to you and others who have answered the Nissan survey. You earn money for answering the survey and you may even end up with an offer from Nissan as they know you’re in-market. As a consumer, this extra money you earn answering relevant surveys (as you know you will be targeted by the ads), is a value exchange maybe worth engaging in. You were giving the data away previously through searching for cars and visiting auto websites, so why not earn some money while you’re at it?

Klover: Their tagline is “Fairtrade data from real people means better results for advertisers.” Klover has a different value exchange. They provide financial services people need, “transparently in exchange for data that their users proactively and deliberately share.” They then partner with marketers to provide their users with relevant ads and offers. Klover is a financial app that links to your bank account and gives you instant cash advances with no credit check and no interest. You then get spending insights based on your spending habits, with a financial dashboard that can help you manage your spending. You can also earn points by watching and engaging with ads and answering targetable questions. These points can be used to win daily sweepstakes prizes. All this data is then made actionable through partner offers on the app, or through programmatic audience-targeted media buys.

These are just two of the new technologies being dreamed up to offer consumers value while giving advertisers a way to survive the “cookiepocalypse” with relevant, fresh data.  What other creative first-party and zero-party data companies have you encountered?