Good morning: Data, data everywhere

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Good morning, Marketers, data, data everywhere

Is this getting too complicated? We have first-party data and everyone knows what that is. We also have zero-party data which, despite the name, is a subset of first-party data. Then there’s third-party data which everyone thinks is going away, but I doubt it. Wait, what about second-party data?

People don’t talk much about second-party data because this is data that one brand (or publisher) sells to, or trades or exchanges with, another. Which feels a bit icky. But second-party data might be getting a refresh thanks to privacy-enhancing technologies that are making it possible to share the data without sharing personally identifying information. That really took off in the health sector in response to COVID where data needed to be widely and swiftly shared without compromising patient privacy. Which makes sense.

Now what about fourth-party data? Or zero-party data minus one? 

Kim Davis

Editorial Director

Shorts

What we’re reading. From tech research and advisory firm Constellation Research, here is the ESG50, fifty executives engaged in environmental, social and governance initiatives (published on Earth Day: April 22). Some familiar marketing tech and agency names on the list.

About The Author

Kim Davis is the Editorial Director of MarTech. Born in London, but a New Yorker for over two decades, Kim started covering enterprise software ten years ago. His experience encompasses SaaS for the enterprise, digital- ad data-driven urban planning, and applications of SaaS, digital technology, and data in the marketing space. He first wrote about marketing technology as editor of Haymarket’s The Hub, a dedicated marketing tech website, which subsequently became a channel on the established direct marketing brand DMN. Kim joined DMN proper in 2016, as a senior editor, becoming Executive Editor, then Editor-in-Chief a position he held until January 2020. Prior to working in tech journalism, Kim was Associate Editor at a New York Times hyper-local news site, The Local: East Village, and has previously worked as an editor of an academic publication, and as a music journalist. He has written hundreds of New York restaurant reviews for a personal blog, and has been an occasional guest contributor to Eater.