Earned Data is the currency for building long-term, trust-based relationships between consumers and brands. It is data that can only be collected directly from customers and employees, and goes far beyond clickstream and other ”traditional”, less transparent data sources. Earned Data is shared directly with an organization through a consumer-defined value exchange. This makes it a rich, actionable and fully consented data set that creates strategic differentiation for brands.
We’re seeing a rapid shift away from third-party data appends, the demise of cookies and cross-domain tracking, and the continued onset of privacy legislation, like GDPR and CCPA. Organizations need to think differently about how they capture and utilize consumer data, especially as today’s consumers know the real value of their personal data. At 3radical, we believe the most valuable customer data collection comes from a mutually beneficial value exchange between brand and consumer, with a clear understanding of how this Earned Data will be used.
This playbook demystifies the concept of Earned Data and will help you form a deeper understanding of the opportunity it brings for audience data collection. It’s a starting point to better understand Earned Data’s positive impact on brands and consumers.
Earned Data provides a fuller picture of your consumers because it incorporates explicitly permissioned and provided data, not implied and inferred data. It amplifies behavioral and interaction data with descriptive data (attitudes, characteristics, identification) and attitudinal data (preferences, propensities, affinities). This information only comes directly from customer and employee data collection. It is adaptive, progressive, always-on, and individual-level information.
Is “zero” just another number that doesn’t truly define the holy grail of data – earned, permissioned, and personal data? There are certainly similarities between zero-party data and Earned Data, but there are important distinctions and significant advantages that fully consented, permission-based, Earned Data brings to the table.