Zero-party data is crucial to the survival of today’s eCommerce businesses – those that don’t use it can’t keep up with the competition. It used to be that companies would use third and second-party data to gather information about customers, but now privacy concerns are shifting the landscape of data collection.
Zero-party data allows you to collect data that customers are willing to give you. Whether through activity on your website, quizzes, or details from their account, this information helps you collect and control specialized, relevant data. When done well, zero-party data helps you make better business decisions and create better marketing campaigns while the customer feels heard and respected.
Why you need a zero-party data tech stack
So, how do you effectively collect zero-party data? By creating a tech stack that supports this personalized data throughout. Pursuing a specialized tech stack may sound a bit extreme, but here is why it can be a strong choice for your company:
Personalized campaigns
Customers are much more likely to buy from your brand again if they are directed to exactly what they need. Personalization can massively boost the customer experience. No one likes digging through a site for what they want. With detailed zero-party data, you can quickly recommend products to a specific customer through email or directly on your site, helping them find what they need (or what they didn’t know they needed) immediately.
Better manage all your data
When you use your own data, you have the flexibility to store, analyze, and manage data in whatever way is going to work best with your tech stack. If you also have control over precisely what tech stack you want to use to collect this data, you can focus on the most vital areas for your company. Buying third-party data means that you often have piles of data to sift through and manage to get down to what you need, costing your team time when they could be seeing focused on retention strategies or growing the business.
Accurate inventory management
Zero-party data can help you better anticipate your specific inventory needs while allowing you to track current levels. Knowing your customers more directly can help you truly understand how to manage your inventory best and stock your store more efficiently.
Reduce reliance on third-party data
Third-party data is only getting less and less accessible for companies. The faster you move away from it, the more prepared your company will be as data privacy changes continue to evolve. Collecting your own data is the best way to future-proof your D2C brand.
The zero-party data tech stack designed to help you grow
To successfully collect zero-party data, you need the right tools for the job. From post-purchase feedback tools to onsite data capture, these tools help you gather information and leverage it to grow your business.
Octane AI – Onsite Data capture
First and foremost, you need a way to collect your onsite data. Customers love telling you about themselves if you give them the opportunity. Octane AI helps you quickly collect data from website visitors and use that data to improve the customer experience.
How Octane AI helps with zero-party data
Octane AI helps facilitate interactive zero-party data collection through onsite quizzes or pop-ups that help you better understand your buyers. Then, after collecting the data, Octane helps recommend the right product based on the answers to those quizzes. The app also gives you this robust data to easily segment your marketing campaigns and workflows based on their responses.
How Octane AI works with your zero-party tech stack
Collecting zero-party data is the first step in your journey. Octane AI collects the onsite data necessary for the rest of your tech stack to work while also engaging customers to your brand through fun, interactive data gathering methods (Quizzes and Interactive Pop-ups). Due to their robust integration library, data can be sent to multiple apps to create personalized email campaigns.
One popular use case is to send data to Klaviyo which allows brands to create automated email flows that recommend similar products to customers based on their responses.
Typeform – Surveys throughout your funnel
Onsite zero-party data collection is a great way to start collecting data from your buyers. Still, another method you can also utilize is through surveys and forms that you weave throughout your funnel. Typeform is an excellent tool for helping create and disseminate these surveys!
How Typeform helps with zero-party data
Typeform allows you to create engaging surveys and forms to help you collect specific data from customers throughout their lifecycle. With easy-to-use templates and built-in photo libraries, you can help get your questions answered without boring your buyer. Typeform also uses conditional logic, letting you ask the appropriate follow-up questions, keeping things conversational.
How Typeform works with your zero-party tech stack
While onside data is crucial for creating the perfect zero-party tech stack, implementing surveys and forms can help you gather more specific data at appropriate parts of the customer journey. Think of onsite as a more passive method of collecting data while surveys are a more reactive and measured approach.
Answers from Typeform can be sent to other apps to create personalized campaigns. For example, customers who provide negative feedback can be filtered into specific Klaviyo email groups with campaigns designed to win them back. Or your customer service team can use their data to reach out and attempt to alleviate their concerns.
Enquire – Post Purchase Feedback
For the last step in your tech stack for collecting zero-party data, you will want to ensure that you have follow-up questions after a customer makes a purchase. Gathering data at this critical stage can help you learn a lot about how they found you and how to improve your experience.
How Enquire helps with zero-party data
Enquire is a Shopify app that helps you create painless post-purchase surveys that help with things like marketing attribution, conversion rate optimization, segmentation, and customer research. Integrating directly with your Shopify store, this program is a seamless way to gather more data about how your customer discovered your brand, how their experience was, and what products they would love to see you offer.
How Enquire works with your zero-party tech stack
Post-purchase feedback is the final place to gather key zero-party data that can help complete your view on your customers. You can then use this information in conjunction with Typeform and Octane AI to start truly getting a complete picture of your customer’s needs.
Postscript – SMS (Conversation with customers)
To start using your zero-party data in your marketing campaigns, you need a tool that can leverage the data to create hyper-targeted campaigns. Postscript is that tool for automated SMS conversations with your customers.
How Postscript helps with zero-party data
Postscript takes your collected zero-party Shopify data to help you create automated text marketing that can help engage your customers with the information you have gathered. Through conversational conversions, bring customers back by directly contacting them about answers they have given in quizzes, surveys, and post-purchase feedback.
But Postscript also helps to collect zero-party data. Customers can respond with keywords and you can store that data in Postscript. It’s possible for brands to send simple survey questions through text. That data can be turned into Segments, which can be synced with Klaviyo and other platforms to enable more personalized campaigns.
How Postscript works with your zero-party tech stack
Postscript helps use your zero-party data to segment and send conversational marketing messages to your buyers. Integrating directly with many of the applications on this list, including Klaviyo, Okendo, and Gorgias, Postscript helps create seamless and informed SMS marketing and segmentation.
Klaviyo – Email (Conversation with customers)
Like SMS, segmented email-follow ups are crucial to bringing customers back to your store. Klaviyo is the perfect tool for this, especially since it directly integrates with almost every application on this list! If we had to pick one tool that’s “central” to your zero-party tech stack, Klaviyo is our #1 pick.
How Klaviyo helps with zero-party data
Klaviyo directly takes your zero-party data and uses it to help you retain customers and drive sales. Through features such as customer profile creation, marketing automation, and easy-to-use email templates, Klaviyo is the central hub for your zero-party data.
How Klaviyo works with your zero-party tech stack
Integrating with almost every other application on this list means that Klaviyo can help gather all of that data and use it to create marketing campaigns that are personalized. If you’ve ever dreamed of offering Amazon-like levels of personalization across your channels, Klaviyo helps you get there. It is a great way to get a big-picture of your ideal customers and segments then action your marketing strategy across channels.
Yotpo – Loyalty
Yotpo helps you improve your customer experience and keep them returning to your store through loyalty rewards. Targeted referral marketing and tips can help grow your brand’s standing with your buyers and create repeat shoppers.
How Yotpo helps with zero-party data
Yotpo’s powerful loyalty features make it easy for brands to retain customers by offering them customized loyalty rewards so they’re less likely to jump to other brands. You can segment your customers based on data like their reward point balance, and other related data to help gain more insight into their shopping habits.
How Yotpo works with your zero-party tech stack
By creating an integrated rewards system that can help you reward the customers coming back to your store through your targeted marketing efforts, Yotpo is a great addition to your stack. You can use reviews and UGC to send out attention-grabbing emails about your loyalty program and SMS messages or automate new email flows based on customers’ loyalty scores.
Okendo – UGC and Reviews
Are you looking to grow your brand through word of mouth? Okendo is a great way to create amazing UGC through reviews, specifically through images.
How Okendo helps with zero-party data
UGC is huge, and Okendo helps encourage customers to share content through surveys and images. Creating an image-based model for reviews and feedback means free marketing for you while your community and brand grow!
How Okendo works with your zero-party tech stack
Okendo can be used to help enhance your emails through social proof and can also help provide unique segmentation information for your customers. Okendo can easily integrate with applications like Klaviyo and Postcsript to send automated review requests, share zero-party data, and create more loyalty opportunities among your segments.
Gorgias – Customer Communication
Lastly, building positive customer relationships can be difficult without the right tools. Gorgias helps turn your customer service into so much more, including a way to drive sales and gather zero-party data.
How Gorgias helps with zero-party data
Gorgias has automated workflows that help increase conversion rates through a personalized shopping experience. Efficiently respond to customers asking product questions to drive more sales and create positive experiences. Of course, Gorgias also functions as a customer service center for issues or problems that may occur. Instead of viewing customer service as a cost center, Gorgias turns customer support into a high-performance sales channel.
How Gorgias works with your zero-party tech stack
Gorgias is a powerful addition to a zero-party tech stack, integrating with all the applications on this list to help your team have as much customer data at their fingertips when they are directly interacting with customers. Similar to Klaviyo, Gorgias is a central tool for your team when interacting with customers. With the massive amounts of data available to them, your support team can give customers the best experience possible. With Gorgias’ powerful automation features, you can automate replies to common questions to make your team even more efficient.
Conclusion
Creating a zero-party tech stack helps your company prepare for a more privacy-minded future. Using these suggestions to get you started, consider what features are most crucial to your company and what you may be able to cut. Gaining your own data through zero-party methods ensures that you can stay a step ahead of your competition and become more resilient to changes in data collection laws while also launching and scaling your Shopify store.