What Is Third-Party Data?

Understanding Data Types: The “Parties” Explained

Before we focus on third-party data, it helps to understand the different “parties” involved in data collection. Think of it like a conversation: who is talking directly to whom? This distinction is crucial for understanding data value and privacy implications.

First-Party Data

First-party data is information you collect directly from your own audience or customers. This happens through your own assets and interactions. It is generally considered the most valuable and reliable type of data because you know exactly where it came from and you have a direct relationship with the individual.

Examples of first-party data include:

Data from your website analytics (e.g., pages visited, time on site).
Information in your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.
Email addresses from newsletter sign-ups.
Purchase history from your WooCommerce store.
Information submitted through forms on your website.
Behavioral data from actions taken on your site or app.

Because you collect it yourself, you have more control over its accuracy and the consent process.

Second-Party Data

Second-party data is essentially someone else’s first-party data. You acquire this data directly from another company that collected it from their own audience. This often happens through a direct partnership or agreement.

For instance, a business might share (with user consent) some of its customer data with a trusted, non-competing partner whose audience is similar. The key here is trust and relevance. You need to be sure the partner collected the data ethically and that it’s relevant to your audience. Transparency with users about how their data is shared is critical.

Third-Party Data

Third-party data is data collected by entities that do not have a direct relationship with the individuals whose data they are collecting. These entities, often called data brokers or large data aggregators, gather information from numerous websites, apps, and other sources. They then compile this data into profiles or segments and make it available for purchase. You, as the buyer, did not collect this data yourself, and neither did the original source you are interacting with.

Deep Dive into Third-Party Data

Now, let’s take a closer look at third-party data. It has powered much of online advertising for years. However, its collection methods and use are facing major scrutiny and change. Knowing the ins and outs is key to navigating the current digital landscape.

How is Third-Party Data Collected?

Third-party data providers use various methods to gather information across the web. Common techniques include:

Third-Party Cookies: These are small text files placed on a user’s browser by a website other than the one the user is currently visiting. They track user activity across different sites.
Tracking Pixels: Tiny, invisible images embedded on websites or in emails. When loaded, they can record information about user behavior.
Device IDs: Unique identifiers associated with smartphones and other devices. These can track usage across different apps.
Data Aggregation: Companies compile data from diverse sources. These include public records, online surveys, loyalty card programs (sometimes linked to online profiles), and Browse activity from numerous websites and platforms. They then match and combine this data to create detailed user profiles.

What Kind of Information Does it Include?

Third-party datasets can be quite extensive. They often aim to paint a broad picture of an individual’s characteristics and online life. This can include:

Demographics: Age range, gender, general location (city or ZIP code), income bracket, education level, household size.
Browse History: Websites visited, content consumed, searches performed across various platforms.
Purchase Intent Signals: Indications that a user is looking to buy a particular product or service (e.g., visiting multiple review sites for cars).
Interests and Hobbies: Deduced from online activities, such as visiting travel sites, sports forums, or recipe blogs.
Offline Data: Sometimes, data from offline sources like public records or offline purchase data from loyalty programs is matched with online profiles to enrich them.

Who Uses Third-Party Data and Why?

Several types of businesses rely on third-party data:

Advertisers and Marketers: They use it primarily for ad targeting. The goal is to show ads to specific audience segments they believe are most likely to be interested in their products or services. They also use it for audience analytics and to understand market trends.
Data Brokers: These companies specialize in collecting, aggregating, and selling third-party data. It’s their core business model.
Publishers: Some websites use third-party data to understand their audience better and to sell ad inventory at higher prices by offering targeted segments to advertisers.

The main “why” is to achieve scale and reach in advertising campaigns that would be difficult with first-party data alone.

Common Use Cases

Here are some typical ways businesses have used third-party data:

Targeted Advertising: This is the most common use. For example, a company selling running shoes might use third-party data to show ads to people identified as having an interest in fitness and running.
Audience Enrichment: Companies sometimes use third-party data to add more demographic or interest details to their existing first-party customer profiles. This is done by matching their data with a third-party database.
Lookalike Modeling: Advertisers use the characteristics of their existing best customers (often identified using first-party data) and then seek out audiences with similar characteristics within third-party datasets to expand their reach.

The Pros and Cons of Using Third-Party Data

Third-party data has long been a staple in digital marketing. It offers certain advantages, but it also comes with significant drawbacks and growing concerns. Understanding both sides is crucial, especially as the data landscape evolves.

Advantages (Historically)

For many years, third-party data offered benefits that made it attractive to marketers:

Scale and Reach: This is its biggest perceived advantage. Third-party data providers aggregate information from countless sources. This gives advertisers access to vast datasets and the potential to reach very broad or niche audiences across the web.
Ease of Access: Marketers can relatively easily purchase third-party data segments through programmatic advertising platforms, data exchanges, and data management platforms (DMPs). This made it simple to launch targeted campaigns quickly.
Detailed Segmentation Options: Third-party data often promised very granular segmentation. Advertisers could target users based on a wide array of attributes, from demographics and interests to purchase intent and life events.

These advantages helped fuel the growth of programmatic advertising and personalized ad experiences online.

Disadvantages and Concerns

Despite its historical utility, third-party data has always had notable downsides, which are becoming more pronounced:

Accuracy Issues: The quality and accuracy of third-party data can be questionable. Since you didn’t collect it yourself, you don’t always know how old it is, how it was sourced, or if it’s based on mere assumptions rather than concrete facts. Users’ interests and circumstances change, making profiles quickly outdated.
Transparency Concerns: Users are often completely unaware that their data is being collected by these third parties, how it’s being used, or who it’s being sold to. This lack of transparency has eroded trust.
Privacy Issues: This is the biggest concern. The widespread collection and use of third-party data without clear user consent have led to significant privacy debates and regulatory actions like the GDPR in Europe and CCPA in California. These regulations impose strict rules on data collection and use.
The “Black Box” Problem: Often, marketers using third-party data don’t have full visibility into the original sources of the data or the methodologies used to create the segments. This makes it hard to verify quality or ethical sourcing.
Diminishing Effectiveness and Availability: Browsers like Safari and Firefox already block most third-party cookies by default. Google Chrome is phasing them out. Ad blockers are also widely used. These factors significantly reduce the amount and reliability of third-party data available, particularly data reliant on third-party cookies.

The Shifting Landscape: The Decline of Third-Party Cookies

One of the most significant changes in the digital advertising world is the deprecation of third-party cookies. This shift is fundamentally altering how companies track users online and target advertising. It’s a direct response to growing privacy concerns.

What are Third-Party Cookies? (A Quick Recap)

Just to reiterate, third-party cookies are tracking codes placed on a user’s device by a website domain other than the one they are currently visiting. For example, if you visit news-website.com, and an advertising network places a cookie on your browser through an ad on that site, that’s a third-party cookie. It allows the ad network to track your Browse activity across other sites that also use its services.

Why are They Being Phased Out?

The move away from third-party cookies is driven by several key factors:

Growing User Demand for Privacy: People are more aware of online tracking and increasingly uncomfortable with their data being collected and used without their explicit consent or knowledge. This has fueled a demand for greater control over personal information.
Regulatory Pressure: Governments and regulatory bodies worldwide have introduced stricter data privacy laws. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) are prime examples. These laws place limits on how personal data can be collected, processed, and shared, heavily impacting third-party tracking.
Browser Actions: Major web browsers have taken proactive steps to enhance user privacy:
- Apple’s Safari (with Intelligent Tracking Prevention – ITP) and Mozilla’s Firefox (with Enhanced Tracking Protection – ETP) have been blocking third-party cookies by default for years.
- Google Chrome, which has the largest browser market share, announced its plan to phase out support for third-party cookies. This is a major catalyst for the entire industry to adapt.

Impact on Businesses and Marketers

The decline of third-party cookies has significant consequences:

Reduced Cross-Site Tracking: The ability to follow users across different websites to build comprehensive behavior profiles will be severely limited.
Challenges for Ad Targeting and Retargeting: Many traditional ad targeting strategies and retargeting campaigns (showing ads to users who previously visited your site) relied heavily on third-party cookies. These will become less effective.
Measurement Difficulties: Attributing conversions and measuring ad campaign effectiveness across different platforms becomes more complex.
Need for New Data Strategies: Businesses and marketers must urgently find and implement alternative data strategies that respect user privacy.

What This Means for Web Creators and WooCommerce Stores

As a web creator, your clients who relied on broad third-party data for their advertising will face challenges. You have an opportunity to guide them:

Shift in Focus: Help clients understand that their reliance on broad, third-party cookie-based ad targeting needs to change.
Building First-Party Data Assets: Emphasize the growing importance of collecting and leveraging their own first-party data. For WooCommerce stores, this means maximizing the value of customer purchase data, account information, and direct interactions.
Privacy-First Approaches: Champion privacy-enhancing solutions and consent-based marketing practices.

Navigating a World with Less Third-Party Data: Strategies for the Future

The decline of third-party cookies doesn’t mean the end of effective digital marketing. Instead, it signals a shift towards more privacy-conscious and direct-relationship-focused strategies. Web creators and businesses need to adapt by prioritizing data they collect themselves and exploring new approaches.

Prioritizing First-Party Data Collection

First-party data is now more critical than ever. It’s information you collect directly from your audience with their consent. This data is higher quality, more relevant, and inherently more privacy-compliant.

How web creators can help clients build their first-party data assets:

Robust Website Analytics: Implement and refine website analytics to understand user behavior on their own site. Consider server-side tagging for better data control.
Optimized Lead Generation: Design effective forms (using tools like Elementor forms) for newsletter sign-ups, content downloads, or quote requests to capture valuable contact information.
Encourage Newsletter Subscriptions: Make it easy and appealing for users to subscribe to email lists, providing a direct communication channel.
Leverage WooCommerce Customer Data: For e-commerce clients, their WooCommerce database is a goldmine of first-party data (customer details, purchase history, preferences).
Direct Engagement Tools: This is where solutions like Send by Elementor become exceptionally valuable. It is specifically designed to help businesses and web creators collect, manage, and act upon their first-party data. For example, when a customer makes a purchase through WooCommerce or a user signs up via an Elementor form, that data can seamlessly flow into Send by Elementor. This allows for powerful segmentation (e.g., “VIP Customers,” “New Subscribers”) and automated email or SMS campaigns (like welcome series or abandoned cart reminders) based on direct interactions and owned data – all within the WordPress ecosystem.

Exploring Second-Party Data Partnerships

Consider forming strategic partnerships with other non-competing businesses that have a similar target audience. You can agree to share some of each other’s first-party data (always with full transparency and user consent). This requires trust and careful vetting of partners’ data practices.

Contextual Advertising

Contextual advertising involves placing ads based on the content of the webpage a user is currently viewing, rather than on their past Browse history. For example, an ad for hiking boots might appear on a blog post about “Top 10 Hiking Trails.” This method is inherently more privacy-friendly as it doesn’t rely on tracking individuals across sites.

Google’s Privacy Sandbox and Other Alternatives

Google is developing its Privacy Sandbox initiative, which includes technologies like the Topics API and FLEDGE (now Protected Audience API). These aim to enable interest-based advertising and retargeting in a more privacy-preserving way, without individual cross-site tracking. These are still evolving, and the industry is watching closely to see how effective and widely adopted they become. Other industry groups are also working on alternative identifiers and standards.

Zero-Party Data

This is data that customers intentionally and proactively share with a brand. It’s explicit and often provides deep insights. Examples include:

Preferences selected in an online quiz (“What’s your style?”).
Survey responses.
Information customers willingly add to their account profiles. Web creators can help clients design engaging ways to collect zero-party data.

The Role of Send by Elementor in a First-Party Data World

As the digital landscape pivots away from reliance on third-party data, tools that empower businesses to leverage their first-party data become indispensable. Send by Elementor is strategically positioned to help web creators and their clients thrive in this new environment. Its core design centers on facilitating direct communication and maximizing the value of data collected within the WordPress and WooCommerce ecosystem.

Focus on Direct Customer Relationships

At its heart, Send by Elementor is about nurturing direct connections with customers and leads. Its email and SMS marketing features provide the channels for these direct conversations. Instead of broadcasting messages to vaguely defined third-party segments, businesses can communicate with individuals who have actively engaged with their brand, creating a stronger foundation of trust and relevance.

Leveraging WordPress & WooCommerce Data Seamlessly

Send by Elementor shines in its native integration with WordPress and WooCommerce. This means:

New user registrations on a WordPress site can automatically sync to contact lists.
WooCommerce customer data – including purchase history, specific products bought, and customer lifetime value – can be used for sophisticated segmentation directly within Send by Elementor.
Contacts gathered through Elementor forms or other integrated form builders can be easily added to communication workflows. This seamless data flow ensures that valuable first-party insights are readily available for marketing efforts without complex external integrations or data syncing headaches.

Creating Personalized Experiences with First-Party Insights

With access to rich first-party data, businesses using Send by Elementor can create highly personalized customer experiences:

Targeted Campaigns: Send special offers to repeat WooCommerce customers or re-engagement campaigns to subscribers who haven’t interacted recently.
Behavior-Triggered Automations: Set up automated email or SMS flows like:
- Welcome Series: For new subscribers or customers.
- Abandoned Cart Recovery: Reminding WooCommerce shoppers about items left in their cart.
- Post-Purchase Follow-ups: Thanking customers, requesting reviews, or suggesting related products. These personalized touchpoints, driven by actual customer behavior on your site, are far more effective than generic messages based on inferred third-party data.

Empowering Web Creators to Offer Lasting Value

For web creators, Send by Elementor offers a powerful way to extend their value proposition to clients:

Future-Proof Marketing Strategies: Guide clients in building sustainable, privacy-conscious marketing practices centered on their own data.
Demonstrable ROI: Help clients implement targeted communication that demonstrably drives engagement, sales, and customer retention, with clear analytics to back it up.
Recurring Revenue Opportunities: Offer ongoing services around managing and optimizing these first-party data-driven communication strategies.

By providing an all-in-one communication toolkit that excels at leveraging first-party data within the familiar WordPress environment, Send by Elementor helps businesses adapt to the changing data landscape and build more resilient, customer-centric operations.

Conclusion: Embracing a Privacy-First Future

Third-party data, especially data collected via third-party cookies, has been a cornerstone of digital advertising for many years. However, its era of dominance is waning. Growing user demand for privacy, coupled with new regulations and browser changes, is fundamentally reshaping how businesses can collect and use customer information. The decline of third-party cookies is not a setback but an opportunity to build better, more transparent relationships with your audience.

The future clearly points towards first-party data strategies. By focusing on the information you collect directly from your customers and website visitors—with their consent—you gain more accurate insights, foster greater trust, and build more resilient marketing practices. This shift allows web creators to guide their clients toward sustainable growth, emphasizing direct engagement and value exchange. Tools designed for this new privacy-first era, which help businesses effectively manage and utilize their own data for communication, will be crucial for success in the years to come.

What is Third-Party Data?