While Google has since pushed its cookieless deadline back to 2024, that date is fast approaching, which means hoteliers must have their cookieless strategy in place today.

To stay competitive this year and beyond, hoteliers must find new ways to collect and activate data. When used together, the three pillars of data–hashed emails, first-party data, and historical booking data–create a solid foundation for hoteliers to target the right audiences with the right message at the right time to drive direct bookings. In a recent report, Sojern, for example, explored the impact of one of these pillars: first-party data. After surveying hoteliers from around the world, the results were clear: first-party data is having an enormous impact and enabling hotel marketers to prepare for success in a cookieless world.

First-party data in a nutshell

First-party data isn’t new, but as third-party cookies go away it’s more important than ever. So what is it and what does a strategy look like? All first-party data is collected directly from consenting guests. This includes everything from their contact information, stay history, demographic information such as birth date, and any other information that comes from their engagement with the hotel website and social media accounts, as well as interactions at the front desk or during their stay.

What’s more, first-party data combines a guest’s online and offline experience so hoteliers can understand their behaviour and better target those guests to deliver permission-based personalised experiences. For example, if a guest consistently asks for a newspaper during every stay, hotel staff can anticipate this and place one in the guest’s room upon check-in.

A first-party data collection strategy is how hoteliers use and integrate the first-party data they collect. From predicting guest behaviour to targeting to deleting guest data, it’s crucial to remember that any first-party data strategy must adhere to any privacy regulations in the country where the hotel guest resides.

How other hoteliers are using first-party data

Hoteliers around the world are already using first-party data to create better, more tailored experiences for their guests. Our recent survey revealed just how important first-party data is to a successful marketing strategy: 59% of hoteliers surveyed have implemented a first-party data strategy. Of the 41% who haven’t yet implemented a strategy, 75% want to. That’s because hotel marketers believe that they can use first-party data to maximise campaign performance (73%), build stronger customer relationships (67%), maximise overall revenue growth (67%), and even increase brand value (64%).

Courtesy of Bizcommunity – read full article here.