Two thirds of business-to-consumer (B2C)
marketers are hampered by data challenges, and almost as many feel dissatisfied with the quality of their data.
But B2C marketers are getting better at leveraging information to build customer audiences, judging by 2024 Audience Building: New Research from the B2C Perspective, a study from Porch Group Media, conducted by Ascend2.
For instance, 65% make significant use of first-party data to build their customer audiences, while 29% utilize it to some degree and 65% deploy zero-party data — data willingly shared with the company through surveys or other means.
However, 67% use third-party data, which is not considered optimal, although only 25% utilize it to a significant degree.
At the same time, 53% say they now have strategies in place to reduce their reliance on third-party cookies.
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There are many challenges to building effective customer audiences, including:
There are also hurdles to achieving audience segmentation:
But it's worth the trouble. For instance, the respondents have realized these benefits from using first-party data to build their audiences:
Marketers see these elements as essential to building effective customer audiences:
Of the various data sources, brands use these to build their target audiences:
Brands with the most effective data strategies are much more likely to use eight data sources to build target audiences, the study says.
Ascend2 surveyed 353 professionals working in B2C or D2C (direct-to-consumer) organizations in February.
Of these, 35% are from firms with $25 million-$ 99.99 million in annual revenue, 33% in companies with $100 million to $499.99 million in revenue and 32% in those with over $500 million.