Data depreciation is accelerating the use of zero-party data— data that a customer shares directly with a firm—by brands and email teams, judging by The Data Depreciation Challenge and the Promise of Zero-Party Data, a study by Forrester. 

Ninety percent of firms say they will be capturing zero-party data within the year. 

But it’s a slow process for some. Of the firms polled, 82% now have access to zero-party data, but 42% admit they don’t know how to effectively utilize it. However, 42% have access to it and are successfully using it. And 15% have limited access.

Brands use zero-party data for these purposes: 

Deriving customer insights and customer intelligence — 45%

Tracking customer journeys across channels and touchpoints — 45% 

Knowing who our customers are (e.g., being able to identify anonymous site visitors) — 43%.

Creating personalized experiences or messages — 43% 

Remarketing to existing customers — 35% 

Cross-selling/up-selling — 35%

Acquiring new customers — 32%

In addition, ,85% say zero-party data is critical to creative personalized experiences for customers. Moreover, 97% agree that personalized digital experiences are key to their marketing programs.

Data depreciation is a growing problem. It makes the following activities very challenging, somewhat so or simply challenging:  

• Acquiring customer data — 72% 
• Cross-selling/up-selling — 71%
• Tracking customer journeys across channels and touchpoints — 70%
• Creating personalized experiences or messages — 70%
• Deriving customer insights and customer intelligence — 69%
• Acquiring new customers — 69%
• Acquiring new customers — 69%
• Retaining existing customers — 69%
• Retaining existing customers — 66% 

Knowing who our customers are (e.g., being able to identify anonymous site visitors)—66%

The top eight challenges to acquiring zero-party data are:

• We’re unsure how accurate zero-party data is (i.e., we don’t believe customers will tell us what they want or who they are — 36%
• There is a potential liability due to new privacy regulations — 36% 
• We’re unsure how zero-party data fits into our broader data strategy — 34%
• We’re unsure how to ask consumers for zero-party data — 33%
• We’re unsure which third-party technologies can help with implementation — 33% 
• We’re concerned that customers will not share zero-party data — 32%
• We’re unsure what data points we should ask customers for — 28%
• We don’t know how to use zero-party data — 27%

Forrester defines zero-party data as “data that a customer intentionally and voluntarily shares with a brand, usually in exchange for a benefit, such as an exclusive offer or reward.” 

This can include preference center data, purchase intentions, personal context, and how the individual wants the brand to recognize them. 

Forrester surveyed 200 digital marketing decision makers.

Credit: Media Post