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A guide to how we define first, second, and third-party data points

First-party data

First-party data is the data you collect directly from users on your site. When talking about first-party data we are mainly referring to on-site browsing behavior such as what type of content they are browsing, dwell time, scroll depth, link clicks, and logged-in status to name a few. This data is you

First-party data does not include any browsing activity that does not occur on your owned and operated sites as this would require cross-site tracking, which relies on third-party data

If you are colleInformationcting declared demographic data from your users, this would also be considered first-party data.

Example: A user in the UK visits your site on a mobile device and reads three articles about sport, spending 2 minutes on each article and scrolling all the way to the end of the article. These are all data points that are collected first-party and do not rely on third-party cookies.

Example 2: When a user creates an account on your site, they have the option to share their age and gender. As it is shared directly between the user and you, it is considered first-party data and does not require the use of third-party data

Second-party data

In the context of Permutive, Second party data includes any data that is shared directly with you but not necessarily collected with Permutive. This could be data collected by an advertising partner and sent to your Permutive instance, or could be data you have collected from users on your site using another tool besides Permutive.

Example 1: You have won an RFP to run a campaign for a major fashion brand. They want to target users on your site who have interacted with one of their campaigns in the past. They will be able to send this audience to Permutive for retargeting.

Example 2: You have a dataset of podcast subscribers that lives in a subscription management system. You can send this audience to Permutive for targeting these users on your site.

Third-party data

Third-party data is collected by entities, such as providers like Eyeota, Bombora and Experian, who do not have a direct relationship with the users. They use a third-party cookie, which are no longer accepted by certain browsers, to follow users across the whole web and collect all sorts of data on them, including purchase and browsing history.

Example: Demographic data that has not been declared by your users such as house hold income, age, and gender