Third Party Data

Third-party data is information about users that is collected and managed by an external organisation that has no direct relationship with the user. Companies can purchase this data or obtain it through partnerships with external data providers or other third parties. Third-party data is often used to enrich first-party data and gain deeper insights into target audiences.

An example is a retailer using audience segments from an external data provider to target advertisements at consumers with specific interests, such as sports, travel or sustainable products.

By combining first-party data with third-party data, companies can segment their audiences more effectively, make marketing campaigns more relevant and reach new potential customers. Due to stricter privacy regulations and the declining reliability of third-party cookies, which are blocked by default in some browsers and increasingly disabled by users in others, the use of third-party data has changed significantly in recent years. Increasingly, organisations rely on privacy-friendly alternatives such as data clean rooms, retail media platforms and publisher data marketplaces.