Study explores most commonly used data, data provider selection and data strategy planning

Digital data pioneer Datonics has released industry intelligence about the use of third-party data in the programmatic ecosystem. Its Programmatic Audience Targeting Survey, which gathered input from more than 400 media strategists, planners and buyers, reveals that third-party data remains an integral part of digital marketing strategy and execution. The study explores the types of data used, factors in selecting a data provider, and data strategy planning initiatives.

Third-party data is used in the majority of digital marketing campaigns with 53% of respondents citing use of third-party data in campaigns from an average of 11.9 data providers. Respondents also ranked the importance of various factors when selecting data.

“Third-party data remains extremely valuable to brands because of its unique ability to address various factors that other types of data such as zero, first and second-party data can’t due to scale limitations,” said Michael Benedek, CEO, Datonics. “Our study demonstrates the continued demand for third-party data in the digital marketing and programmatic ecosystems for the special value it brings. It is still the data that marketers are relying on to help them reach new audiences and acquire customers.”

Datonics’ survey also explored data strategy planning that advertisers are doing in light of technological evolutions such as the deprecation of third-party cookies and loss of signal identifiers, as well as new privacy regulations. The survey found that the majority of media strategists, planners and buyers, 69% of respondents, are fairly concerned or more about an industry change when it comes to data strategy.

“The digital marketing industry is among the fastest evolving business sectors out there. We are used to change and being agile,” said Benedek. “With new technologies such as data clean rooms, identifiers and other data sources, marketers are looking to scale their audiences in new ways with third-party data.”

Datonics data is built on 300+ million monthly users covering 90% of North America, aggregated from a network of online websites and best-in-class specialty data partners, including 1,300 segments of search, intent, life-stage, behavioral, B2B, demographic, point-of-interest and past purchase segments. Datonics also offers an unlimited number of custom segments that can be built from keywords or location visits.