Google recently announced a pivotal change in how we collect consumer insights, and it's safe to say that it will rock every marketer and product researcher's world.
This change is (dun dun duuun….) the end of third-party cookies as we know it.
But Google's phasing out of third-party cookies by the end of 2024 hasn't been the only shocker for organisations that rely on data.
Apple also announced in 2020 that they're upping their user's privacy settings, giving them more transparency and control over how apps use their data than ever before.
So, as the era of third-party cookies ends, how can marketers and product researchers get their vital consumer insights fix - without being fed data insights by the Google cookie monster?
It's time to bring the data party home and make first-party data collection your focus to future-proof your job and gain a deeper level of collective intelligence.
But how exactly can we make the most of first-party data collection? Well, stick around, and you'll find out in this blog as we discuss how you can cultivate deep consumer insights in a cookieless future. Let's go!
Before diving into the different ways you can collect first-party customer data, we must know what we're striving for when gathering customer insights to improve our products and services. That is, collective intelligence.
Collective intelligence is when a large group of people collaborate to share knowledge, opinions, and insights. A general consensus is usually formed through these collective efforts to aid decision-making progress.
Collective intelligence strongly contributes to a better understanding of a specific topic, issue, or question. It leads to rich customer insights that could only be achieved thanks to the general collective intelligence factor.
This kind of group intelligence offers actionable insights to brands, helping them improve the customer journey, meet customer expectations, and improve marketing strategies and products.
A recent Gartner survey tells us that almost 8/10 consumers want more control over their data and how organisations use it. And gathering consumer insights using first-party data is undoubtedly a way to hand over more control.
But that's not the only benefit of going "old school" with your consumer data collection and market research methods. Traditional first-part data collection methods like surveys, focus groups, expert panels, and group meetings also offer the following benefits:
Humanises your brand
By opening up a conversation with your customers through first-party data collection, they'll see you as an authentic brand that genuinely cares about its customers and the quality of its products and services, humanising your brand and deepening customer relationships.
The consumer research methods mentioned above are inherently more personal. Rather than taking third-party data from your consumers, this approach can boost loyalty, as customers know you care about their experience of your brand or product.
When a brand reaches out to its customers for feedback directly and takes this feedback on board when improving products and services, customers are more likely to remain loyal to your brand long-term, as they'll feel a deeper connection with it.
However, though traditional feedback methods have their place in modern market research and product research, they also come with drawbacks when establishing collective intelligence and rich consumer insights.
It can be challenging to get consumers actually to complete surveys, especially when there is no reward. Additionally, it's not always easy to extract quality qualitative data from surveys, especially since written responses don't have much context.
Expert panels can often be biased as these experts may not represent the collective views of thousands of consumers. These panels can lack diversity, exclude people, and may not result in an accurate or more profound understanding of what customers think, want, or need from your brand.
When it comes to focus groups, you risk developing bias from a "groupthink" mentality where people in the focus group influence each other. These research methods are also time-consuming and costly - often resulting in inconclusive results.
These feedback methods can allow you to see what some of your customers or target consumers think. But, in most cases, more data is needed to form a consensus.
Typically, the consumer insight gained from these methods results in half-hearted data that doesn't represent the majority or offer collective intelligence. Plus, they're tough (and expensive!) to scale to the wider population.
In an ideal cookieless world, you'd be able to ping your entire group of customers to ask for their preferences, opinions, and needs regarding your offering. They'd all respond, and there you have it; the consensus you need to make smarter decisions.
But with traditional feedback methods, how can you achieve this on a large enough scale? Well, unless you're a multi-million-pound organisation, that'd be pretty hard.
We know, how convenient of us!
People Supported Intelligence (PSi) allows you to collect and analyse voice-based data from thousands of consumers in just one day - or even one hour!
The first of its kind, PSi enables consumers to give marketers, and product researchers feedback through voice messages rather than written text, making it easier than ever to get first-party consumer insights.
Rather than listening to the opinions of a small number of consumers to inform your decisions, why not see what the consensus is among thousands? PSi makes this possible, showing you collective intelligence from consumer conversations in less than an hour!
PSi better supports your business and marketing decisions by delivering deeper qualitative data on what your consumers want, need, and think. Instead of using slow, low-engagement methods like surveys, you can make more informed decisions faster with PSi.
We all know that the written word cannot account for tone of voice or how we express ourselves as humans. With the world's first voice-based consumer insights platform, you can ask more complex questions and, in turn, hear the complexity of people's answers.
Don't want to waste time with ineffective market research and feedback methods? See why surveys, focus groups, and expert panels aren't worth the energy in most cases? Great, you've been picking up what we've been putting down.
So, if you're ready to say goodbye to third-party cookies and welcome the new way to collect first-party data; why not give PSi a try? PSi is your GDPR-compliant answer to authentic, scalable, and accurate consumer insights.
Our easy-to-use platform allows you to ask thousands of consumers a question and receive a consensus in just one hour! Want to learn more? Play our choose-your-own adventure-style collective intelligence game to see PSi in action!
Ready for your adventure? Play our game now!
