Why customer engagement is key to growth in a cookie-free world

Customers' New Expectations

Today's customers no longer just compare you to your direct competitors—they compare you to the best digital experiences they encounter daily. Streaming platforms, e-commerce giants, and digital services have set the standard for what personalized and relevant communication means.

Meanwhile, a crucial change is happening in the marketing ecosystem: third-party cookies are disappearing. Businesses can no longer rely on external data sources to identify and reach the right audience. Instead, first-party data—the data customers willingly share with you—becomes vital for growth and customer engagement.

How does first-party data work in practice?

First-party data is all the information you gather about your customers through interactions in your own channels. This could include purchases, website and app visits, email responses, loyalty programs, customer service cases, or preferences that customers share. But the real value comes when this data is linked to an identified customer and used in personalized communication.

An Example:

• A visitor arrives on your website. Initially, they're anonymous.

• If they log in, fill out a form, or come via an email link (with UTM tags), you can identify them and connect the visit to a specific customer profile.

• If you have their consent to use data for marketing, you can link this identity to their email address or phone number.

• That identity can then be matched against advertising platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or Google—allowing you to reach the same individual across channels with a consistent message.

This is why first-party data is so essential. It allows you to build a comprehensive picture of the customer and communicate on an individual level, even in a cookie-free world.

A forward-looking strategy for the post-third-party cookie era.

From Customer Journey to Customer Engagement

Traditionally, marketers have worked to map out the “customer journey.” But reality is far from linear. Customers move back and forth between channels, skip steps, compare, read reviews, get tips on social media, and make decisions at their own pace.

That's why we talk about Customer Engagement rather than just customer journeys. The focus shifts from trying to control a predetermined path to engaging the customer wherever and whenever the interaction happens.

Customer Engagement relies on a few core principles:

• Real-time understanding: Seeing what the customer is doing right now and being able to act immediately.

• Trigger-based interactions: Letting the customer’s behavior guide the next step, instead of sending the same campaign to everyone. 

• Omnichannel: Meeting the customer in their chosen channel—and creating a seamless experience as they switch channels.

• 1:1 personalization: Moving beyond segments to create communication that is relevant to the individual.

This way, engagement becomes an ongoing process—not a single campaign or a linear journey.

Four Keys to Succeed with First-party Data

To truly harness first-party data, both technology and methodology are needed. Here are four areas companies need to focus on:

1. Secure consent and update the privacy policy
   To use data, you need the right consent from the customer. It’s not just about a simple “yes” in a cookie banner—you need a clear and updated privacy policy that covers the uses you intend. 
   Common mistakes include policies that are too generic or do not cover new use cases, such as combining data from different sources or using it in social media and advertising.

2. Bring all data into one place with a common ID
   Customer data is often scattered across different systems: e-commerce, CRM, email platforms, apps, stores. Without a common ID for each customer, it’s impossible to create a complete picture. Therefore, it’s crucial to gather data in a central platform and link all relevant information to a unique customer profile.

Creating a unified customer view is challenging in today's omnichannel environment.

3. Reduce duplicates and fragmented identities
   A customer can appear in your systems in several different ways—as a loyalty member, newsletter subscriber, app user, or web-registered. Without automatic mechanisms to merge these identities, you'll have a fragmented view of the customer and risk double communication. You need functionality to link customer identities, ideally in real-time, often called identity resolution or profile unification. This can be done for example in a CDP or in the customer master. Different solutions exist, and you need to identify which fits your company.

4. Ensure activation in the channels you wish to use
   It’s not enough to collect data—it must be usable. Here, Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) often become the most effective solution. A CDP enables the automatic activation of campaigns, the orchestration of customer dialogues across channels, and personalization in real-time. This is especially important if you want to use first-party data for advertising in paid media, as cookies will no longer be usable. It requires an integration between platforms like Meta and your CDP or MA (conversion API).

The ability to orchestrate all types of customer dialogues across all channels is key.

Start with a Simple Question

Customer Engagement might sound big and complex, but the first step is simple:
How much do you know about your customers today—and how are you using that knowledge?

Starting with this question can reveal gaps in consent, data management, identity merging, and activation. From there, you can build a more relevant, sustainable, and profitable customer dialogue.