MediaLift

  By: Ray Chelstowski Today consumers are demanding more personalization from the companies they do business with, and many brands are responding. Businesses like Amazon and Netflix have seen explosive international growth and deep loyalty by building truly personalized customer experiences. They understand their customers, both individually and as a whole and don’t use a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, they are constantly finding ways to personalize the experience even down to each individual customer. Brad Weston, the former CEO of Petco famously said “It’s all about personalization and customization. Retail brands are going to have to do more than just sell products. You must create an environment where consumers want to do things outside of just purchasing a product. Engage them in the brand in a more holistic way.” Companies like Petco that are excelling at personalization are relentless about it, proactively looking for opportunities to better understand their base –...

For most major brands, cookies (small text files stored on the browser) have been the primary tool used to gather rich data on who their customers are and what kind of special offers they would most like to receive. But consumers have grown concerned about who collects this data, how their behavior is tracked, and what companies are doing with the information. This has prompted Google Chrome to announce that they will end support of third-party cookies altogether next year.    This end to the cookie era has many brands scrambling for a way to maintain the kind of personalization that customers demand – especially those who participate in loyalty programs. At Kognitiv, we believe the solution is Zero-Party data. What is Zero Party Data? Unlike third-party data, which is passively collected from cookies, zero-party data refers to information that is intentionally and proactively shared directly by individual consumers. This can be shared in several ways. Polls, quizzes, sweepsta...