First-party data

Also called owned data

First-party data is information you collected directly from your own audience, as opposed to data bought or inferred by a third party.

The distinction became commercially significant as browsers restricted third-party tracking. Data you collected yourself, with consent, keeps working when the tracking that everyone else relied on stops.

For a creator it is a short list: email addresses, purchase history, booking history, and whatever people told you directly. That is less than an advertising platform holds, but it is yours, portable, and not subject to another company's policy change.

Consent and purpose limitation apply. Data collected for one stated reason cannot be freely repurposed for another under GDPR.

In practice

Knowing which subscribers bought which product lets you exclude them from a launch email — something no third-party tool can tell you about your own audience.

Common mistake

Collecting data with no plan to use it. Unused personal data is a liability with a retention obligation and no benefit.

First-party data

In practice

Common mistake

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