Three key strategies for CMO’s to unlock customer insights in 2025
Unlocking customer insights is a tedious process that requires a cohesive strategy and buy-in across multiple teams and channels. We have heard a lot about the cookieless world, Customer Data Platforms (CDPs), and third-party versus zero- and first-party data. What does all of this mean when brands are challenged with delivering ROI while meeting constant roadblocks, and gaining intelligence on their customers without creating more roadblocks to engagement? This article offers ways to gather more intelligence on your customers and considerations to keep in mind.
Before we jump into the article let’s define some of the terms, we will be using in this article. First-Party Data is consent based data collected directly from the customer through interactions like in-app behavior or pages viewed, whereas Zero-Party data is information a customer voluntarily shares with a brand proactively through preference centres or answering questions, Progressive profiling is a dynamic data collection strategy that allows marketers to gradually build a comprehensive customer profile over time by requesting small, incremental pieces of information during customer interactions. Instead of overwhelming users with lengthy forms or invasive data requests upfront, CIAM stands for Customer Identity and Access Management (manages the login experience for e-commerce or logging into online banking), CDP stands for Customer Data Platform (typically used to centralize first- and zero-party data to be activated across an omni-channel personalization deployment), Cookieless World is a term used to describe the deprecation of third party cookies in Google and Apple web based properties.
The login box is more than just usernames and passwords
The login box, or customer identity and access management, can be the unexpected hero in a cookieless world.
According to Salman Ladha, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Okta, “A cookieless world prompts modern marketers to move from a model where they’re inferring customer preferences to one where they’re asking about them. This is the essence of zero-party data, which is information consumers willingly share with a business to enhance their own experience with a brand — emphasis on ‘willingly.’”
Capturing zero-party data has its risks and challenges. McKinsey states that it is clear that collecting your own data drives higher conversions when compared to third-party data. While progressive profiling is not a new data collection strategy, it is not leveraged during the login experience. By leveraging a modern CIAM (Customer Identity and Access Management) platform to build your customers’ profiles and enabling customers to consent to specific uses of their data, your brand can develop holistic customer profiles while building trust with your customers.
Centralize data for omnichannel personalization
To deliver seamless customer experiences, CMOs must centralize data across all touchpoints. According to Gartner’s 2024 report, Top Trends in Marketing Analytics, brands that unify customer data using advanced CDPs achieve 25 per cent higher customer satisfaction and 20 per cent more effective personalization. This consolidation ensures a holistic customer view, enabling marketers to deliver relevant, timely content across channels. But you must follow a progressive path to omnichannel personalization. See the image below from Gartner’s CMO Quarterly Journal for Q4 2024, adapted from Esquire Bank:
Integrate a modern CIAM solution with your CDP
Personalization relies on quality data from trusted sources with known customers. Companies will struggle with data quality for many reasons. To provide clarity, Alex Jones, Field CTO, Okta, wrote a fantastic article outlining the marriage between CIAM and the CDP and why it matters. A synopsis is below:
“Most marketers are happy to oblige, but delivering personalized experiences and crafting high-performing campaigns requires information — and many traditional data sources are disappearing”.
- “Legislation is giving consumers additional rights regarding how their personal data is acquired, tracked and used (the CCPA, GDPR, PIPEDA, and more).”
- “Third-party cookies used for cross-brand profiling at scale are disappearing.”
- “In addition to government regulation, technology companies have also introduced anti-tracking measures — notably Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT).”
- “Companies have also started pushing back against browser fingerprinting — a way of uniquely identifying an individual without the need to use a tracking cookie — with both Apple and Mozilla including anti-fingerprinting measures enabled by default.”
By leveraging the integration between a modern CIAM and the CDP, brands are able to collect data with customer consent from known channels without relying on third-party sources. The real power of the two platforms integrating with each other is seen through the ability to acquire, manage and leverage data with known customers giving consent to avoid privacy law concerns and meet the expectations of their clients. Additionally, the only data that should be utilized by the CDP should be consent-based to ensure that you are compliant with local privacy laws and can address any customer inquiries in a timely fashion.
By centralizing data, expanding insights from known customers (consent-driven data), and making login experiences frictionless, CMOs can drive growth through hyperpersonalization at scale in an omnichannel world. The cookieless world is pushing brands to find new ways to collect data with real customers to turn anonymous customers into holistic profiles.
Conclusion
In a world where privacy laws tighten and traditional tracking mechanisms fade, the brands that thrive will be those that embrace consent-driven strategies and deliver personalized experiences leveraging more zero- and first-party data together. The cookieless future isn’t a roadblock—it’s a call to innovate, connect and elevate the customer experience. By leveraging the login box as a gateway to zero-party data, centralizing customer data for seamless omnichannel personalization, and integrating modern CIAM and CDP solutions, marketers can unlock a treasure trove of insights that drive ROI and customer loyalty.
Sources:
- Gartner, CMO Quarterly – Fourth Quarter 2024: Building the Marketing Function of Tomorrow,” Page 24, Anja Naski (Editor)
- Gartner, Top Trends in Marketing Analytics, 2024
- Okta, Marketing in a Post Cookie World, Salman Ladha (Senior Product Marketing Manager at Okta)
- Okta, CDP and CIAM: A match made in cookieless marketing heaven, Alex Jones (Field CTO at Okta)
- McKinsey, The value of getting personalization right—or wrong—is multiplying, Nidhi Arora (Consultant, McKinsey)
