First-Party Data

Providing engaging tools that also solve for first-party data is Grow’s main goal. Learn more about why collecting first-party data is important for you and your business!

First, the basics: 

• First-party data is publisher owned information that can be provided to advertisers about readers, rather than relying on third-party data via cookies.
• Authenticated Traffic is when a reader logs in to your site. It is a part of first-party data, but it's not the entire picture. 

Why does First-Party Data Matter to You?

Currently, advertisers rely on third party cookies to understand how to correctly target and spend on your audience. With an increasing focus on privacy, the end of third party cookies is in sight. This will be a huge shift in how the advertising industry works. Advertisers will have to rely on first-party data (instead of third party cookies) to accurately determine where they'll be buying.

If you currently are running ads, or are looking to place ads on your website in the future, first-party data will be important to give advertisers relevant information about your readers.

So the next question is - how does Grow play a part in First-Party Data? 

The short answer is that supported ad providers are able to use the first-party data that Grow collects to help provide targeted signals to their buyers. More accurate data for advertisers means more revenue for you.

Now that we've covered the basics, let's dive a little deeper -

First-Party Data

A publisher can collect first-party data in a number of ways, such as requiring readers to log in and create a profile, gathering information via surveys, or even providing information based on contextual signals such as the pages a reader has been browsing.

First-party data can be a lot of things, but the key point is that the publisher is collecting and providing data to advertisers, rather than the advertisers bringing their own.

Authenticated Traffic

Authenticated traffic is traffic that you’ve verified. When a reader logs in, you’ve verified who that reader is, therefore the traffic is authenticated.

This by itself is not first-party data, however it can be the start of first-party data.

Once a reader logs in, you can:

• Ask them to share or bookmark
• Have them subscribe to your newsletter
• Encourage them to create a profile or fill out a survey
• Assign them to interest groups based on articles they read

This information you build becomes valuable first-party data over time.

How does Grow Help Me?

Grow helps you build true first-party data. Because first-party data requires scale to be successful, one Grow login for users will apply to all websites using Grow, meaning we can scale together.

Grow’s constantly improving feature set like Subscribe and Favorites is designed and tested to build returning authenticated traffic.