Chris Brinkworth: There's a very big difference between a creepy experience versus that. Do you know what? That's actually a really good reminder. There's a geek alert button, right? There's the if new legislation comes out tomorrow saying if you haven't got consent attached to this, you can't use it after this date here, there's a whole lot of sunk cost that you've got there and you've got to throw it out.
[Voiceover]: Welcome to Add to cart, Australia's leading e commerce podcast that express delivers all you need to know in the fast moving world of online retail. Every week, Nathan Voice from E Suite and an e commerce industry expert will share the news, research and insights that you need to know to keep you at the top of your game and of course, keep your customers Adding to Cart.
Nathan Bush: Hello and welcome to Add to Cart. My name is Nathan Bush, host of Add to Cart and director at e commerce talent agency E Suite. This week on Add to Cart, we are talking dark patterns, clean rooms and salt and hash. Sounds like a serial killer's weekend if you're confused. Well, we are talking about data. Who it belongs to, who wants it and how valuable it is. Understanding data and the implications of how it is handled can be bewildering for many businesses. Luckily, my guest here today will help make sense of it all. Chris Brinkworth is a media and marketing technology executive and the founding director of Civic Data. They are a consultancy launched earlier this year to offer solid advice on how Australian enterprises can prepare for what many predict will be significant changes to data protection regulations. In our chat, Chris discusses the move from cookie based targeting to cohort planning. He explains the importance of permission and reveals the data protection rabbit hole he went down during a recent episode on the dating app Tinder. I promise you there is some really
Nathan Bush: valuable stuff in here.
Nathan Bush: So thanks to our partners Shopify plus and Signet. Here's our conversation with Chris Brinkworth from Civic Data.
Nathan Bush: Chris, welcome to Add to cart.
Chris Brinkworth: Thank you.
Nathan Bush: Now, we have covered a lot around Covid over the last 12 months and I feel like everyone's got a bit of COVID fatigue, even though we're still living through it. The area that we haven't spent a lot of time on is data and the world of data has changed so much in the last 12 months. Now you work with a lot of clients both in the retail space and outside of the retail space. What's your feeling on how they're feeling right now about the world of data?
Chris Brinkworth: Look, the answer is who is the person to judge when it comes to data. So I think anyone that is not focused just a little bit on data, then they're being a bit silly. But I've always had this theory that having just a little bit of data that you can then get some kind of insight out of is better than having a stack load of the same thing that you can't get any insight out of. Or there's just too much to go through. If you were to consider what data is or data, if you were to think about how data is used, you could look at it in different ways. So data is used obviously from a targeting perspective. Data is used from a measurement perspective as well. But you've also got data in regards to sales numbers, stock and inventory, delivery times, costs of delivery. So each of those themselves have their own importance as well. So putting on a retailer's lens, and forgive me because I touch all sides, so publishers, advertisers, retailers, auto companies, et cetera. But from a retail perspective, I think that one of the key things that I don't believe everyone's got a grip on is the difference between data that you can still collect through cookie based technology versus data that you can apply to your targeting parameters and then also data that you can use for media mix modeling and cohort planning, which is not something that's attached to cookies and technology. I hope that's not got too deep into it, but they're the things that I find really interesting. So I don't believe that many, many people have really got to grasp yet that the world is moving from a cookie based targeting and measurement perspective through to what will become cohort planning activity.
Nathan Bush: All right, let's come back to that because I think that's a really interesting point. But I like to go back to the part where you said that a little bit of good data is better than a whole fire hose of a lot of data that you can't do anything with. And now I'm using data and data intertwined. So we'll go wherever. From your perspective, when it comes to customer and marketing data, what is the most critical pieces that you see make the biggest impact in businesses?
Chris Brinkworth: So if I've heard you correctly, and please repeat it back if I haven't, when it comes to customer. Did you say customer and marketing data, what are the most important pieces? I would say the most important piece number one is permission and the trust attached to that permission. Now, I have spent the past two years very much focused on the impact of GDPR in Europe and what's happened with ccpa. What's happening in New York State, Virginia, obviously in America, just for the listeners who may not know, in America there's no federal legislation when it comes to privacy. It's all state by state. And then in Europe, obviously you've got the GDPR of which some of you may have read recently that the UK are now fighting against the consent banner in regards to Europe and the gdpr, just to make it even more complicated. But I've spent this time looking at what happened over there because it's very clear that coming soon in Australia, and everyone's been waiting with bated breath for the past two to three months on what was supposed to happen here from a draft legislation perspective to the change to the Privacy act here, which will become known as our own version of a GDPR or CCPA or whatever you want it to to be. So I knew that would happen. And I also knew that as cookies disappear and my background being around pretty much setting cookies and tracking and measurement and targeting, what are the technologies that will help to replace this? What other tools that will help to replace this? So, coming back to your question, looking at everything else we'll talk about today, I think it all comes back to this. If you don't have consent, there's a few things that will happen. The first is you will not be trusted by that consumer. And I think we've all done it where we go to a website and we're like, hang on, what are you going to do with this? I'm a bit confused. I really want what you're offering me at the moment, whether it's information that I immediately need because I've got some kind of weird rash on me that I need to discover the answer to, or I'm trying to research a product that I want to buy because I'm near the store right now. So you will give up that data for the urgency, immediacy. But there's always that question of, well, what am I agreeing to? And then there's that, how come you're now emailing me? How come you're not now texting me? How did you know where I am from a location perspective? So if you don't have that trust from the consumer, then the experience that consumer has on your website, in your store, or wherever you're reaching them. I mean, the whole remarketing thing, there's a very big difference between a creepy experience versus that. Do you know what? That's actually a really good reminder. That's the experience I wanted. And because I gave you permission to remind me of that experience, then I'm happy to get it. But because I didn't know I'd given you that permission, it's a bit of an off putting thing. So. So that's one part of it. The other part is if you don't have that consent attached to whatever you're collecting in regards to datadata, and you're putting that same data that you're collecting into a bucket of data you've been collecting for 10, 15 years, but have no way at a granular level to differentiate that with consent, and that does not have consent. If new legislation comes out tomorrow saying if you haven't got consent attached to this, you can't use it after this date here, there's a whole lot of sunk cost that you've got there and you've got to throw it out.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, you're throwing out a whole asset.
Chris Brinkworth: Exactly. That's exactly right. So I think that if I was to. I've actually not thought about that before, but I think that to me would be the most important thing because with consent comes trust. With trust, obviously the lifetime value of that customer, they're not only going to be sticking with you, they're going to be recommending you as well. It's like the guy who tells you he can't really fix your plumbing for you because he's not an expert but he knows someone who's good, you'll go back to him when you want him to do your carpentry because you know he's a carpenter.
Nathan Bush: Yep, absolutely. So when you talk about getting that consent, are we talking about forms with tick boxes to say yes, I consent? Are we talking about buttons at the bottom of web pages to say yes, I what does consent look like?
Chris Brinkworth: So in the eyes of the law at the moment, talk to a lawyer, not me. But I think it's important to understand a difference between implied consent versus being very explicit about what you're actually getting. Right. So I'll use an example that, yeah, hell it, you know, I'll do it. So I was on Tinder a few months ago before lockdown, and one of the things they came up with as a suggestion for me was would you like to ensure everyone in your contact list don't match with you and me being the guy I am, obviously I love this stuff. So I'm like, sure, but I'm going to read the terms and conditions on this one. And so it says, would you like to do it in terms of our, you know, in line with our terms and conditions? So I then clicked on the terms and conditions and then the terms and conditions basically were. It was an extra layer that then sold me more on the benefit of matching. So they then tried to convince me not to go any further on reading. And then there's another tiny link in the middle of that that I found that I go into that one and I've got to dive three or four deep to find out exactly what they're going to do with this data. Now, that is what's known as a dark pattern or dark design. So that, that from a consent perspective, it's assuming that I've read the terms and conditions and I've consented to that. It's very different to the bit where it said, do you mind if we do this, this and this with you with bullets? We won't do anything more or less, we've updated our terms and conditions. I hate that when it says we've updated our terms and conditions and then you have to go in and read what those are and you're not going to find it. Why not? If you're doing that, just win over the trust. Say, these are the things that we've changed. Just so you know, we're being very open and transparent about it. So I think when it comes to consent, you could get away with a hell of a lot, right? So you could literally set up a website and say you agreed to the terms and conditions, but in there you could bury it, saying, we're going to come on. Come onto your property at 2 in the morning, knock on your door and you agree to it.
Nathan Bush: Do you ever work out so hard and so much that you just crash? Yeah, I really feel your pain. But what's worse than a post workout crash? A website crash, especially during Black Friday. This was the experience of the team at Muscle Nation before they re platformed over to Shopify Plus. Before Shopify plus, their website would crash with 80 visitors. Fast forward to 2019 Black Friday on Shopify and they sold over 70,000 units in the first hour of Black Friday and sold $4 million worth of stock over the entire sales period. That's some serious flexing going on. To read more of Muscle Nation's story and to see other case studies, visit the customer section on shopify.com auplus.
Nathan Bush: From a technical point of view, if we've got retailers who are using fairly basic but pretty good tools like Klaviyo or Mailchimp to store customer details and do a lot of their marketing, I'm assuming it can get pretty complicated over time. If you're changing conditions and what people have opted into and what they haven't opted into. How do you keep track of that?
Chris Brinkworth: Good question. And it's a really important one for both large and small businesses. So there's a very famous case, well, for some of us, geeky famous. But there was a case in Australia where a large financial institution got a very large fine, and that was because of something you may have heard of called shadow technology. So shadow technology being you've got a cio, a CTO of a business, and they're in charge of all of the technical licenses and what the rules are in the business. But then you've got these very, very smart, eager people in a business who have decided to go and connect certain accounts that they've got to a tool that might help them save some time. So if you want to go and run Microsoft BI, as it were. Right. So 360 BI. Now, I can't remember what it's called, but basically you're agreeing to shove data from an Excel spreadsheet into the cloud. You're sending something into mailchimp and you've organized these different columns. But if you've not had a chat with people internally about what you're allowed to send out to a different business and what you are, that's problem number one. So shadow technology there is a really interesting area to look into alongside the dark patterns, but there's a real challenge around the meta and discovery, the metadata and discovery attached to data you're collecting. So I was having a conversation a while back around how you'll have a mailchimp and look, mailchimp, this is me just giving an example of mailchimp is an example. But a lot of these technologies and marketing, cloud stacks, everything else, they've got a great brand name on them. But then what you've got to consider is they're made up of different components, just like your own stack, right? So you've got your own version of an E commerce platform, you've got some kind of hacks around it with WordPress and these different widgets and everything else, but you still call it the name of your retail store. Right? But the same is true of some of these tools. So you will have different elements of the data you give to that provider or vendor. They will be storing data across aws, they'll be storing across Microsoft Azure, and you've got these different elements, so the data you provide to them will be stored elsewhere. Now, how do you discover where that data sits? Unless you've done a Great job of meta tagging that data to then do a quick search, catalog discovery of where it is. That comes back to that point earlier on about the consent. If you get a tick box consent and they say, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm down with that, I consent. But that goes into the bucket of people who haven't consented. If you cannot discover and pull that out, then all of those people that did consent, yes, wasted.
Nathan Bush: So what advice would you have to any retailers who have just heard you talk about that then and about the legislation that is soon to come in and looking at their database and going, oh, shit, I don't know who's consented to what. I've got a bit of a mess here. How would you suggest they get on the front foot around consent?
Chris Brinkworth: I'm going to give a secret here just for you, Nathan.
Nathan Bush: Thank you.
Chris Brinkworth: One of the things I would advise everyone does is go to, obviously when you finish listening to this podcast, just make a note of it. But I would go and search Google Images for gdpr, email memes. And one of the things that I found fascinating, and some of you may have seen it as well if you're from Europe, but some of you may have seen it when GDPR was coming to a point when it was actually going to come into effect. So you've got maybe two months before due date when everyone's got to be compliant. Those who were not prepared and it was like three or four months actually leading up, started panicking and they had to get permission and they had to get consent to keep a relationship going with that person. And they also had to provide the opportunity that person to discover information that's known about them and the ability for them to delete it. So everyone in Europe started getting emails from everyone that had them on their database. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Emails in a day. People they've not heard of from in three, four years. We'd love to keep a relationship with you. Click here to opt in. So the secret I'm giving to everyone here is do it now. Because even though we don't know what's going to happen, start getting that permission ASAP with your database that you've got. Because you're going to start sending an email the same time every other corporation in Australia sends an email if they're not prepared, people who get in first obviously be doing a lot better.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, and I'm assuming that with that volume, even without that volume, a lot of those emails get ignored because customers, do they really care about this? Like, do I care if their liquor store is sending them an email back consent, it's like that's your problem, you sort it out.
Chris Brinkworth: Correct.
Nathan Bush: How many times can you go back to a customer and ask for consent before you've got to wipe them off the communications list?
Chris Brinkworth: That's exactly it. Good point. So that's what I would suggest. So I would definitely. I think that's one area to get ahead of it from a consent perspective. I would just go research what happened overseas. That's point number one. Although I don't know what. No one knows what the legislation is going to be. The rumors are that it's going to be very much aligned with gdpr, but no one actually knows. There are some. There are, and I'll send it to you after this as follow up for you. There are some kind of Senate hearing notes here and there that is being discussed and I'll send you that. But at the moment I'm sure they've got more important things to deal with such as Covid and vaccinations.
Nathan Bush: We'll put those in the show notes. Now, we've had a lot of talk about cookies and first party and third party data. To start with, can you give us non data people who aren't in it every day, a quick differentiation between first party and third party cookies?
Chris Brinkworth: Yes, I can and I'm going to add to it as well. So there are four states of data to consider starting at zero. So zero party data is you, Nathan or me, Chris or Bob, who's listening to the podcast, or Mary. Now you own your email address. It's you, right? You own that. Now you choose to give consent to a retailer to use that data. But because of regulations and consent, you can choose to take that consent away. So you're consenting that your data can be used by someone that you're giving consent to.
Nathan Bush: Okay, so I'm the owner.
Chris Brinkworth: You're the owner of that, right? You're the owner of that. Now you can also consent to answer a survey based on an email that retailer sent to you. But again, that data is being stored about you and you're consenting to that data to be used. That's zero party data. Now there's a subset of that. So first party data. If I have sold you a item, I know that you're interested in that item. So I as a retailer now own the knowledge that you own that item. You know it as well. But I know that this is the type of product you've acquired and I know what you may be interested in from an upsell perspective.
Nathan Bush: Yep.
Chris Brinkworth: I also know, however, through that zero party data that you've given me, what I should be offering you in the future. But technically I'm kind of licensing that from you in a way.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, but it's a direct relationship.
Chris Brinkworth: Absolutely. But no consumer really wants to control their own data. Now the theory is eventually all of the data about us will be stored on a device and we choose who gets access to that at some point and all the decisioning will be done from there. But that's a long way off. So, long story short, zero party data is what you consent someone to have. First party data is what you as a retailer own about that. Now if we go back to what I mentioned at the start around, data can be anything. So data can also be stock levels, how much it costs to ship this many kilograms to here. Now, a retailer may have done all that research and they're the ones that own that IP and knowledge of that, so they know exactly what they can charge for that product, what discount they can give and everything else. Now that's first party data and that obviously adds value to the business. If you can apply that data in some way for targeting. That's using first party data to help you with targeting. Gotcha. But it's still yours. No one else gets that unless you let them have access to it.
Nathan Bush: And when you talk about targeting, you're talking about splitting your email lists, it's about giving different messages to people who land on your site.
Chris Brinkworth: Correct? Correct, Correct. Now let's move on to. So that's zero party and first party. Let's move on to second party.
Nathan Bush: It doesn't get much of a mention anyway, does it?
Chris Brinkworth: No, it doesn't. But it's actually one of the most important things that retailers can actually think about for now. And that's because as we'll talk about third party in a second, as third party data becomes harder to come by, then you need to start forming partnerships with people who have first party data that they'll let you look at. So second party data is pretty much partnership data. You can't go buy it, you don't have the consent to buy it from them, but you can certainly get a look at it based on terms and conditions and regulations that you set up and all sorts of contracts. But the ability to wash what you have in regards to first party data. So let's say you were super cheap auto, weren't you, Nathan?
Nathan Bush: Is that where you were before?
Chris Brinkworth: Right, so super cheap auto, if you were to wash your database and what you know, but in a compliant way. So you can't actually identify at a personal level who these people are. If you were to go and say of your, of your database, car manufacturer number two, then I would love to find out which of these VIN numbers are at the moment looking to sell because I can then show them an ad, make my car look super clean using this polish from God knows what company. But that's using the data from one company to the other. So that second party data and is
Nathan Bush: that the power that marketplaces like the Amazons and the ebay's but also the payment providers like the Afterpays and Klarna who have started using their platforms for advertising, are they leveraging second party data as revenue streams?
Chris Brinkworth: Some.
Nathan Bush: Some.
Chris Brinkworth: Let's look at it a different way. I would say that actually let's come back to that second party because there's a reason for that. So the important thing to understand about second party is you don't own it, someone else owns it, but it's another enterprise business or corporation or someone that has that and the responsibility for that.
Nathan Bush: It's the data rental economy.
Chris Brinkworth: Correct. But even the rental side is where we need to start talking about third party. Because if you were to look at, look at some of the deals that you may have seen. I'm only going now based on trade press. Right. If you look in the trade press, people have done deals with flybys. So flybys will allow you to take that targeting and push it into. I think it's who did I see channel 7 or channel 10 allow you to target these particular people on the CCTV network of seven. Now flybys aren't giving seven that data to own because that's the asset that flybys have, but they are letting you use it. But technically what you're doing is using third party data because you're paying to use that. Really second party is working with partners of yours where you have this kind of agreement between you, you're both going
Nathan Bush: to benefit from it and the customers on the. Sorry. On the second party data, customers need to know about the agreement or do they just need to know in the terms that you met that the party may share it with specific organizations?
Chris Brinkworth: What do you want to know as a consumer?
Nathan Bush: Oh goodness. That I tick the box and I'm safe.
Chris Brinkworth: So I think it all comes down to that trust. If I'm researching treatment for cancer, Nathan, and someone has shared that knowledge with another company that then start sending me notes and emails and everything else I'm Going to be pretty unhappy about that. So it all comes down to really that kind of. You've got to think of the boundaries of it and how it's used. A really good example of this though, I think would be just complementary synergistic products. If you know that certain people are selling certain products and you've got a product that would fit with that as well, then you both talk together about sharing insights with each other. And this is another area that your listeners should look up called clean rooms. Data clean rooms. So a data clean room is another name for what Google have, which is called Ads Data Hub. So we're going to start talking in a minute about third party data and cookies. Now it used to be that you could target people on a one on one basis using cookies, but because of all the legislation changes, Google will no longer allow you to actually target someone on a one on one basis. They will only allow you to target someone in 50 people or more or 50 devices or more. So you can never break down that kind of insight and identify one person as to who they are.
Nathan Bush: And is that across all Google products?
Chris Brinkworth: That's across all Google products, correct. Look, from a targeting perspective and a research perspective, yes, that's so Ads Data Hub is their planning tool to allow you to do that and they call it a clean room. Amazon have their own platform called Amazon Marketing Cloud and that's the same thing across all of their prime. Everything you can imagine that's there that you can go look up and you can start to say, okay, what kind of cohorts of groups of people are there? So you're no longer doing it on a one on one basis. But if you were to take what you know about your cohorts, so groups of people, and you've got your own name for them internally as a retailer and everyone has this right, everyone's got their Personas or their names. So I'm a car wax buyer or a whatever. Now if you were to take that, you segment your email list or your mobile number list or whatever it is that you've got and you create this cohort of people, if you were to then take that data and in a private environment where you've actually hidden the email address, but it's been tokenized so you have a way to match this up, you then push that into Google and Google will then say, okay, based on what we know about these people, these are the similar cohorts that you want to go target. However, if you were to then go get someone else's data and push that in as well, you're going to get even more insights. So that's where it becomes really useful if you were to start planning your cohorts with parties who you've got access to their data, but in a compliant way. So Amazon have their tool, which is Amazon Marketing Cloud. Google have Ads Data Hub. Then you've also got another tool which Facebook are bringing out and you'll have to ask them. But last time I heard it was still in alpha, but it was. It's called Facebook Advanced analytics. And that's their planning tool, their cohort planning tool. And I believe that they are 100 or more, I think, rather than 50 or more. And again, that's to get to that point where they're not enabling anyone to identify them and that's to keep them legit.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Chris Brinkworth: So that's. That's that. Now there's also private tools that are coming out. So there's one called Habu Habu Data Cloud, H A B U. And I believe that was set up by the same guys who launched Crux.
Nathan Bush: And so can I just ask you one question? You mentioned there around putting the cohorts in and tokenizing them. What do you mean by tokenizing them?
Chris Brinkworth: So there's a geek alert button. Right. There's a. So tokenizing would be. There's some really interesting terms in privacy and anyone in security would have heard of this. So you consult and hash information. So you kind of put lots of squiggles and other ways to make sure that you can't really tell who this email address is. So the token would be. Okay, Nathan, can't remember what your email address is. Is it 12 above?
Nathan Bush: What's this nathanaducat.com Add to cart.com Right.
Chris Brinkworth: So nathanadcart.com we can identify you because of that. Right. Now, how do we now say nathanadcart.com to you is actually known as/1, 2, 4, 7, squiggle, whatever. And then it's only that hashed data that goes into the other system and vice versa. Gotcha. Generally, it's using something called differential privacy, if you really want to get into it. Fascinating. But it's basically a way to ensure that you can never really unscramble it and work out who that person is. But it all comes together nicely in the middle so you can find a way to explore that data between each other without putting anyone at risk. And it's used a lot in the health industry.
Nathan Bush: Yep. And does that happen automatically with the platforms like the Amazons? And the Facebook do they automatically tokenize on your behalf?
Chris Brinkworth: That's correct. So if you were to upload into ads Data hub, they're going to do that based on that data? Correct.
Nathan Bush: Is there anything worse than warm beer?
Nathan Bush: Yes.
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Nathan Bush: your swing of third party data.
Chris Brinkworth: I wouldn't say it's swing. The third party data is the data we all know and love that's been going on for generations. It's basically brokers can take your data, sell it to someone else. Very simple. But I will say one of the if there's any notes people are taking from this, one of them to take down would be the difference between a third party cookie and third party data. And it's really important to understand the difference. So cookies and data, they are interchangeable, but cookies when they're blocked are very different to data itself. Third party cookies first of all are technologies or bits of code that everyone knows and loves that are thrown into a website to track someone coming from a separate from a separate server. So a third party cookie is coming from this is someone else's server.com and it's not coming from myretailstore.com first party cookie is being delivered from myretailstore.com yeah. So when we start talking about first party cookies and third party cookies. Cookies are ways to collect data, track, analyze, et cetera. Browsers from Firefox to Microsoft Edge to Safari have all been changing the way they process cookies and deliver tags into the page. So myretailstore.com, which is first party. If I'm loading up a cookie from myretailstore.com as first party safari anything, Apple will always let that pretty much load up, no problems and let that be read. And only myretailstore.com could read that particular tag. However, if some server over here.com au is throwing a tag into that page, then Safari won't let that load by default because that's third party, it's being blocked. And that's a really important differentiator to understand because if that tag is not loading up, it's not collecting data and if it's being blocked, you're not getting a reporting that you think you should be getting reporting.
Nathan Bush: Yes.
Chris Brinkworth: So one way to consider that is to go break down your reports by operating system and by browser and start to look at the differences there. And you'll see if you've not heard of these changes, you'll start to see the big difference and big change in, in these particular browser types.
Nathan Bush: And how do those browsers know what might be a authentic or useful third party tool like a Google Analytics tag or things that the retailer actually wants on the site versus something like a news site tag or something along those lines?
Chris Brinkworth: You have to ask those browsers.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Chris Brinkworth: So you've got, it's kind of like asking Google what's their algorithm. So you've got. I don't want to go go too far. I've done a lot of articles on this, Nathan, so and I will say as one plug, if you go find us on Civic data on LinkedIn, all of these articles we post, if you follow us on Civic data on LinkedIn. Now, there's one terminology that's important to understand and that is the Intelligent Tracking Prevention, also known as ITP ITP 2. So that is Apple's methodology of finding ways to block tags. So they're trying to circumnavigate their decision to enforce privacy when it comes to cookies. So there are some people who believe that if they use myretailstore.com to collect data, but then they're going to find a way to pass that data to other servers over here in the cloud.comau then Apple themselves will start to see that that's a workaround and they will penalize you. So they are spending a lot of money on finding those people who are trying to find workarounds, circumnavigate, et cetera. That's one consideration there.
Nathan Bush: So we've obviously seen that we've got publishers and big networks and technology providers that can set the rules on cookies overnight and change the rules overnight. Are cookies the future for retailers who are looking to deliver personalized communication to their customers?
Chris Brinkworth: The only people really who are using. So cookies will never go away, Cookies will always be required and cookies themselves are stored on a user's device. That's an important thing to understand, which is why you can always delete them from your device. Now a cookie is Not a person. So you can have one cookie on your phone and that sees your phone as one device and you can have a cookie over on your laptop. Now you might be seen as two separate people rather than one person using two devices. If you haven't found a way to stitch that together in the data layer. Now cookies will still have their use. They're needed for logged in states and ensuring people are logged in, making sure that what was in the cart just now is still in the cart when they go back in about two hours time. One thing that will happen however, is your access to those first party cookies to create that personalization that you were talking about is changing. There's like, I think it's a seven day window now as one example, when it used to be a lot longer. So that ability to personalize the experience for that user when they come back, if they come back after eight days, then you're going to look at them as someone brand new, unless they log in as one example there. But pretty much unless someone has turned on cookies again, third party cookies within Firefox and within Safari, which I very much doubt people want to do, then you can't use third party cookies to target and create personalized experiences anymore. So that means you need to go out and find ways to enrich the first party data that you have. So when they do come and they log in or sign in as a returning customer, then you can append what you know about them to say, this is Nathan, he's logged in, here's everything he's bought previously. And our second party friend has let us know that these are the type of VIN numbers or whatever it is as well.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Chris Brinkworth: So let's start showing that information from a personalization perspective.
Nathan Bush: Gotcha.
Chris Brinkworth: But also we've managed to go out and acquire some third party data from a. I don't know. I don't know if afterpay is one of those or not. You mentioned it before. But how do we go out and find third party data that we want to append to that email address? Right. So there are now marketplaces where you can go buy this data, such as if you go look at Narrative IO, they've basically made it very simple for anyone to go and choose what they would like to buy and append and you can go wash your list against it. And it's all consented third party data that you can then push to wherever you want to use it, such as your dmp, your CDP, or directly into Facebook campaigns.
Nathan Bush: As a consumer, can you go into Narrative IO and have a look at what's stored on you.
Chris Brinkworth: No, that would be based on the people who have got the consent to sell their data through that marketplace. Now, there are ways you can go look that stuff up, but there's also lots of terrible examples of companies out there that shouldn't be selling that data. Look, I think your question about cookies. Cookies are disappearing. They're not going to disappear in entirety, but the use of third party cookies from this is another server somewhere else to collect data is disappearing. But third party data is not disappearing. Third party data is where you just go buy it, shove it into your system. You've got the rights to use it, but again, you want to check the consent attached to that as well. So that's zero party data. First party, second party and third party. We've covered.
Nathan Bush: I feel enlightened.
Chris Brinkworth: Brilliant.
Nathan Bush: That was awesome. I know we only scraped the surface of this world and how deep it goes. So I appreciate that you were able to make it really relevant for us in, you know, in retail and at that level where we're hearing a lot of these buzzwords and a lot of this conversation. But sometimes when you don't understand the most basic definitions and how it works, a lot of it goes over your head. But as soon as you grapple those concepts, the consequences become a lot, a lot more obvious. Now, you've set up Civic Data as your agency and is there any specific problem that you're going out to solve at the moment for your clients with Civic Data?
Chris Brinkworth: Yes, so, and I just want to just clarify one thing. So it's an advisory rather than agency. So we're not an agent. We don't go by media. Now, we advise at the executive level. Our focus is on the, the ASX S&P 200 large enterprise businesses who understand that they need to get all their data aligned and understand where that data is being used, but also need to understand how to create an asset class out of their data. Because once you've got that asset class, you can then go use it in any way you would like to, so long as it plays with the consent and it plays with the regulations and so on. So Civic Data was set up from that respect, but it's also been set up to coming back to your own background. Nathan, you would have friends in the industry that you've known for. How long have you been doing this? 50 years?
Nathan Bush: Yeah, about that.
Chris Brinkworth: But if you were in charge, if you went back to a large retailer, right, and you are now in charge of their marketing spend you would go to your, your contact who's now started as independent agency. Hello, Bob. We've known each other for ages, you look after my media spend. So that's how it's always worked. But the challenge is now you've got all of these independent agencies out there and independent web shops, development shops, who've got these great relationships with retailers and they've always kept that solid relationship. But the skills that are acquired now, unfortunately you can't afford to hire the staff that you need to keep up to date, you can't afford to educate. So that relationship between the retailer and the friend agency that's always been there is at risk because you need to solve your problem as a retailer and there's a big holding company over here or a big advisory firm over here who is saying, come on, we'll do that for you, mate. You don't need those little guys anymore. So we've also set up civic data to work with all of those other agencies to be their go to on data strategy, on auditing, looking at what technologies are running on their website. So I'll give you an example. There was a website we reviewed on behalf of a partner the other week and it was incredible what we found. And all of your. And I think I saw here something around. Is there something you want us to offer people? Was that correct? Was there something there?
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Chris Brinkworth: So look, there is a. We've just finished creating a methodology where we can scan your website for you and we will be able to show you what technologies, but not technology, but what third party tags are currently leaking personally identifiable information across your website. And we'll let you know what those are. Can also see how many different third party tags are still collecting data on your website. You may not even remember putting there. So when you were at Supercheap Auto, you may have put some technologies in that seemed great, but they're no longer needed. But someone forgot that and they're still there because you're gone. Now when you do your consent and all of your privacy and terms and conditions and you forget that that tag's there and it's collecting data about you, then there might be a problem. That's one of the areas. But coming back to that, we did the report, the audit and there were four separate Google Analytics accounts running on that one website. Four separate Google Analytics accounts. Only one of those was actually loading when you add to cart. Excuse the plug, but when you add to cart, you could check which one was loading, but there were four now four. And this isn't four different types of four different deployments. It's four accounts of deployment. So that means that there's either four agencies who have access to that or two agencies or three agencies that have been forgotten about. Who is looking at that? Right?
Nathan Bush: Oh, we see it all the time. It's usually a mess because you have. Exactly to your point, you've got a lot of people coming in and out, a lot of agencies coming in and out and no one's cleaning up as they leave.
Chris Brinkworth: Yeah, that's exactly it. But the great thing is once you pull all that stuff together from a. Once you know what technologies are collecting data on your site, you could start to really tidy up the data layer as well. Once you've tidy up the data layer and the naming conventions of what everything is called, you can also start to really play with pivoting them together. So as an example, anyone who's using a hot jar or a crazy egg or whatever, it is the ability to understand how a user arrives at the site, where they came from, what channel it was, what ad they'd seen, and now stitch that with how they behave. You can then go find those people as cohorts, like we mentioned earlier on, on Google, on Facebook to find those same people. But set up your UTM to say people from this cohort planned campaign when they arrive at our site based on UTM only, not on cookie. Let's personalize the page based on what we've seen on hotjar or other to increase that conversion as well. But you can only do that if you've really tied all of those things together and you've got the data layer set up properly as well. That's what we're doing is helping other agencies advise. We don't go in, we don't plan media, buy media or anything like that. It's literally go in, tidy it up. We are focused on the clean room stuff I mentioned.
Nathan Bush: Yep.
Chris Brinkworth: But I must say, mate, of all your. Of all of your clients. Sorry, not clients, but all of the listeners, if they were to be very honest with themselves about where they're spending their money on media, 80% of it's going to be on Facebook and Google. Yeah, right. Facebook and Google. So really, if you look at all the data Google sit on, that's first party data to Google and all the data Facebook sit on, that's first party data to Facebook. So you could do a really good job of planning using that first party data that Google have and using that first party data that Facebook has.
Nathan Bush: I also think even though that's the case right now. Most retailers that I'm speaking to are trying to pull back that spend, especially from Facebook and Instagram, and do more with it on a one to one direct basis. So it kind of brings it back to your point earlier on is that we've got to make sure that we are set up for the right consent so that when we need to really pull the trigger on that direct one to one communication, we've got permission to do that.
Chris Brinkworth: Yes. I would also put in there that if you look at Facebook, the mobile side, we've not touched on, not touched on the app and the ATT app tracking transparency as well. And the new version of iOS 15 which looks like, I don't know if you've seen all the Alerts everywhere on LinkedIn where Apple will definitely, I don't know if this, when this goes live, but it will happen by then. IOS 15 is definitely coming. So iOS 15 will have most likely private relay turned on by default. So private relay is their way of shaking up the IP address. So where we would be able to understand, I don't mean we, I'm talking about retailers. Retailers would try and understand where people are, who they are based on IP address. When cookies disappear, everyone starts talking about fingerprinting using IP address. When that IP address disappears as well, there's no way to target properly. So one thing I'd suggest that all of the retailers do, Facebook did put out some information which was quite a good how to around the attribution windows for iOS. And if no one's gone to look at that, I would definitely read that and go into depth around that. There's plenty of articles out there by all the people that charge you money for courses and everything else. But that's one thing to look at on the Google side, a lot of people don't know that you can go in and plan some really interesting YouTube campaigns and other campaigns based on data without the need for your own first party data as well. So there's ways to go and do that. I think it just comes back to good old media mix modeling and cohort planning. That's really what it comes down to.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Now Chris, there's one question I've been dying to ask you this whole conversation but we never come back to it. Did you ever get matched with anyone you knew on Tinder?
Chris Brinkworth: I didn't. Even worse, I don't know how it happened. I ended up matching with people in God knows where around the world and I just gave up. I just gave up. I'M not gonna lie, Nathan. It was just, especially with lockdown, but it was just pointless. But look to that point, actually that's interesting around targeting parameters and international. So one thing that's quite interesting, I've also learned around IP address. I don't know if anyone's got Google, Google at home. You know when you ask your speaker, hey, Google, I did this the other day as a test because I wondered what it would say. I'm using a second tier provider for my Internet, right? So they're wholesaling, someone's wholesaling to them. Now that means that the IP address thinks I'm in different locations half the time. So I actually asked Google, I said, hey Google, what's my location? And it was fascinating when you asked Google what your location is because it would say, well, based on your IP address, we determine that you're in. I think I was in Mount Druitt or somewhere else. I'm not, I'm not in Mount Druitt, but that's where they was. But then it goes, if you want to find out other ways we know where you are, go look at this and go look at that. But when you're thinking about targeting on a regional basis, that becomes really interesting. So when you start talking about, okay, I know the zip code or postcode of this particular person and I want to target by postcode, I'm in Ashfield. But if Google thinks that I'm actually in Mount Druitt, is that advert being relevant or not? I think that's another area around tidying up all the data and really starting to understand where, if you've got the postcode, finding another partner to just verify that with from an IP address perspective. Get three or four people say, well, these are the IP range I've got for them. Why have you got that? Yeah, and then that for targeting. So I'm glad we got onto that from my Lithuanian Tinder matches to talk about Google.
Nathan Bush: Chris, thank you so much for everything that you've shared today. We really appreciate it. It's been awesome.
Chris Brinkworth: Yeah, no worries about any time. And I'm always, look, I am always happy anyone wants to drop me a line, no matter how small the business is. If there's a question, always happy to answer it. Very happy to do that.
Nathan Bush: Beauty. What's the best way to get in touch with you?
Chris Brinkworth: Just find me on LinkedIn. Chris Brinkworth. I think there's only, well, there's three or four of them, but I'm the only one that comes up in Australia. As far as I know, so it's very easy. Chris Brinkworth Civic Data Good stuff.
Nathan Bush: Thanks Chris.
Chris Brinkworth: No worries. Thanks Matt.
Nathan Bush: What a bloody weird and a wonderful chat. I love when I get to speak with category experts to really geek out and just ask the dumb questions that I've been wanting to ask for a long time. Here are my three actionable takeaways from this conversation with Chris Brinkworth. Number one Are you crystal clear on what your customers have consented to? That is do you know what data each of your customers each of your customers have agreed for you to access and use and what they've opted into? Is there a clear record of this consent? Now if you don't have consent or a record of consent, get a project in place to get explicit opt in consent before any laws in Australia similar to GDPR before they're created here in Australia. By doing it now you will avoid the spam crowd that Chris talked about when it became comes mandatory. Number two we know first and third party data. It's talked about a lot, but can you leverage second party data? That's data that is owned by someone else but you have an agreement to use to enhance your own data. Anyone with strong partnerships should be considering this. Just make sure your customers have consented and it is secure. Number three Log into Google Analytics and look at traffic by browser. Double check to see if there's been any major changes in traffic or data collected between the browsers. There's been lots of cookie policy changes between browsers which may be impacting your reporting numbers. This will be the place where you can see if that's taken effect. Unfortunately, there was one area that we never got to solve and that is whether it is data or data. For the record, I'm going Data to finish up, I have three resources for you. Firstly, if you're a first time listener of Add to CART and you want to stay up to date with new episodes, head over to addtocart.com and you can sign up for our weekly newsletter. We'll let you know every time a new episode drops, as well as giving you my three tips, takeaways from each episode and a link to the transcripts so you can know that this is an episode that you want to dive straight into. Secondly, if you want a weekly roundup of the best e commerce case studies tools and research, sign up to the Hi5 Friday newsletter which is delivered to inboxes at 8am every Friday morning. I read all the e commerce news and send you the bits that I think you can take action from sign up at 12 high 12h I g h.com au high 5 and the last thing if you are looking to explore your next e commerce opportunity, head over to esweettalent.com au we are a dedicated e commerce talent agency connecting the best e commerce talent with the fastest growing brands. Check it out Song Sign up to the email and get in touch with me if you want to discuss your next move. Until next time, thanks for listening and keep those customers adding to cars.
