• by Kym Insana , 4 hours ago

Brands are told time and time again that they own their first-party customer data, and it's one of their most valuable assets. But there is another critical data asset that brands own -- and many aren’t fully taking advantage of -- campaign data.

Campaign data is not only first-party data, it's also a brand’s property.

In an era where all brands are looking for any incremental edge they can find, campaign data offers some of the most powerful insights brands can access. They just need to ask for it.

Some advertisers reading this might be asking “Wait, I can do that?”

The answer is yes. Most buying platforms have a mechanism through which a brand can request all its campaign data, down to the log-level insights that say exactly when and where each ad ran. 

This goes beyond basic reporting and measurement. Brands that execute programmatic connected TV (CTV) buys will always get high-level reports on how many impressions were served, completion rates, the percentage of viewers who reached a certain threshold, and other performance metrics. Full campaign logs offer a deeper understanding. CTV buying platforms can give brands hashed data about the consumers who viewed their ads. 

If you’re running hundreds of thousands of impressions, that’s a lot of information. But once loaded into a CRM system, this data becomes invaluable.

Now a brand can find who watched 90% of a CTV ad and use that seed to inform campaigns on other channels like Facebook or Instagram.

The interest a consumer showed in an ad on TV becomes the fuel for reaching them via social media.

The best part is that accessing this data is free (although activating it may carry a charge from an onboarder).

Campaign data is first-party data, and brands have the right to request it from their buying partners and then use it wherever they please.

This can include porting the data over to another buying platform to find incremental reach, or sharing it with a new agency.

In fact, the ability to share log-level insights from past campaigns with a new agency is one of the fastest ways to hit the ground running. When agencies can look back on historical performance, they have a clear understanding of what works and what doesn’t. 

This is especially true for channels like Facebook. Although Facebook is frequently called a walled garden, a brand’s advertising buying seat contains a lot of valuable first-party campaign data that can shape future buying decisions across channels.

At a moment when every brand wants to maximize its budget, this is some of the best insight available.

Nearly every brand knows how to access reporting about how many people saw an ad. Knowing who saw an ad, and using that info to power new cross-channel remarketing plans, opens the door to smarter ad buying, regardless of the channel, the technology, or which agency is handling the planning and buying.