In brief…
- While Google touted its third-party cookie replacement, FLoC (federated learning of cohorts) or “privacy sandbox”, it is yet another issue to contend with, with new potential privacy problems to grapple with.
- Rather than rely on heavy-duty analytics like Google, consider privacy-friendly and lightweight analytics such as Plausible, or Simple Analytics, or Matomo (formerly known as Piwik).
- Nothing beats a face-to-face interaction whether in the East or the West.
The keyword is: FIRST, or first-party data. Do you own your data and platform?
While Google touted its third-party cookie replacement, FLoC (federated learning of cohorts) or “privacy sandbox”, it is yet another issue to contend with, with new potential privacy problems to grapple with.
So, what should you, a CMO, consider moving forward? And mind you, don’t delay as the inevitable cookieless world is coming. Martech has an op-ed, but allow us to clarify and extend it further.
1) OWN your data
For all those who ran around chasing after social media platform after platform, I have got news for you. Go back to basics (as I always advocated). Your own website is your key content platform, and you own it. Use that to gain and nurture data. That is first-party data. Build your website for the following:
- Content first (don’t game keywords for SEO)
- Lightweight and fast (don’t go design and image heavy)
- Security always (don’t just design, build it for cybersecurity)
2) PRIVACY first
Rather than rely on heavy-duty analytics like Google, consider privacy-friendly and lightweight analytics such as Plausible, or Simple Analytics, or Matomo (formerly known as Piwik).
3) INTERACTIVE engagement
Still holding true, conduct surveys, quizzes, games, feedback sessions, with your customers. Entice with rewards – they work. Feedback is a great way to improve your offerings and gain allies. However, do note that some participants could be gaming such interactions simply for rewards, and they skew your analytics and you lose out real participants. So, set up mechanisms to prevent such “gaming” participants from joining.
4) PHYSICAL activity
Nothing beats a face-to-face interaction whether in the East or the West. Relationships are best formed with real people meeting real people. We won’t form relationships with systems, platforms, devices, chatbots, or AI. So plan real physical events, conferences, roadshows, etc, where you can interact with real customers and gain real data and insights.
If you are serious about your marketing, talk to us.
Dr Seamus Phan – Global C-suite Publicist & Strategist (Biochemist, Cybersecurity & Webdev pioneer, Author, Journalist) with 37 years of professional field experience.