The ABCs of Building Thriving Online Communities

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Whether you’re a marketer, media brand, or digital publisher, there’s a paradigm shift occurring in the way we think about audience engagement. With growing concerns around data privacy and the inevitable algorithm changes that impact organic reach, the old cadence of relying solely on social media is being supplanted by a more robust, sustainable strategy: cultivating vibrant online communities outside the uncertain walls of social platforms. This in-depth discourse is a strategic roadmap for you to understand the intricate nuances and compelling benefits of online communities.

Jump aboard as we analyze the intentions behind this seismic shunt of digital strategy, and expose the first steps you need to take to achieve long-term engagement, fortify customer loyalty, and enhance your brand’s online presence in an era where connection and trust are the ultimate currency.

What is an online community?

An online community is a specific digital space that brings together people who share interests, goals, problems, or other concerns. The desire to build an online community is one of the key drivers for the growth of the Internet and related technologies.

A (Very) Short History of Online Communities

Online communities have existed for decades, long before social media and smartphones. The following examples show how different communities have gathered together using digital technologies.

  • Early Scientific Online Communities

The earliest online communities brought together scientists, engineers, and researchers to share ideas. ARPANET (active from 1969 to 1989) brought together scientific researchers in the United States.  In Europe, Tim Berners-Lee invented the modern web while working at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) in 1989 to support a global community of scientific researchers. These early types of community (and the technologies they created) paved the way for later technologies.

  • Bulletin Board System (BBS)

The arrival of BBS technology opened the door for many more people to participate in online communities. The first BBS was launched in 1978, and these communities grew in popularity until the early 1990s. These communities typically relied on dial-up modem technology and telephone lines.

  • Usenet

Launched in 1980, Usenet had millions of users interacting across thousands of discussion groups at its height. Usenet remains active for discussions, and it has some filesharing capabilities.

  • Internet Service Provider Online Communities

Compuserve and America Online (AOL) offered community chat rooms and other spaces for online engagement. At its height, Compuserve had thousands of moderated discussion groups.

  • Publisher Based Communities

A variety of publishers have created online communities. For example, Salon purchased The WELL (an early online community) 1999. Other publishers took a different approach to online communities by allowing comments on their articles and other media.

  • Blogs

In the 2000s, new technologies like WordPress and Blogger made creating and running blogs easier. Blogs included social and community features like comments, blog rolls (i.e., links to related blogs and websites), and guest posts (i.e., contributions from others besides the blog owner).

  • Social Media

Online communities are a key driver for the success of today’s social media platforms. For example, Facebook found early success by focusing on specific communities at US colleges. Other social platforms, like Discord, have succeeded by making it easier for people to connect through shared interests.

What Do Successful Online Communities Have In Common?

Every online community has different dynamics, levels of participation, and goals. Despite those variations, a few common characteristics underpin most successful online communities. We’ll expand on each of these concepts throughout this ebook.

A Specific Focus

To attract an audience, an online community usually does best when it is focused. Generally, a focus (i.e., NCAA basketball) is better than a broad focus (i.e., sports).

Content

In many cases, content provides the spark for discussion and interaction in a community. The content may be contributed by professionals (i.e., journalists) or engaged community members. High-quality content, especially when publicly available, attracts new community members and starts new discussions.

Community Leaders

Online communities, like any community, face threats and challenges. It is easier to respond to these challenges when a community has strong leadership. There are various types of community leaders, such as the founder(s) of an online community, volunteer moderators (often called “mods”), and professional community moderators. Community leaders are essential in starting discussions, responding to inappropriate actions, and guiding the community.

Online Community Technology

An online community, such as a technology platform, needs a specific place to operate. Social media websites are popular since they are designed to be easy to use, but creating a thriving online community right on your website is also possible. By bringing online communities to your website, you gain a much deeper understanding of your audience.

Arena Community represents a significant leap forward in audience engagement and interaction. With its comprehensive feature set, such as Arena’s Live Blog and Live Chat, and user-centric design, it offers an unparalleled experience for both users and brands alike. 

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Strategies To Build Safer Online Communities

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Bringing together a large group of people online who share common interests is critical to starting a community. However, achieving true community success in the long term requires more. Specifically, online community managers and community moderation tools play an essential role.

What Is Online Community Moderation?

Online communities are like gardens. They thrive when well taken care of, including removing weeds and receiving the key ingredients to grow, like sunlight, water, and nutrients.

Online community moderation is the art and science of guiding a community to align with specific values. Many communities have a list of formal rules. For example, Reddit community rules often discourage self-promotion. Other online communities – particularly those aimed at younger people – have rules discouraging inappropriate language (e.g., profanity).

There are two broad categories of online community moderation: software and manual. Software-based moderation (included in Arena Live Chat) is an excellent way to filter profanity and other objectionable words. Manual moderation has a role to play in other scenarios. For instance, you might be hosting a celebrity for a Q&A event and want to keep questions on-topic — both manual and software moderation can help you run a successful event.

Ways To Streamline Community Moderation

You can use a few strategies to make online community moderation easier.

Community Rules

Posting a community code of conduct or rules is an effective way to set expectations when new people join. If you host live community online events, it is wise to repeat rules that apply to those interactions so that everybody is on the same page. For example, the r/science community – which has 31 million members – on Reddit enforces multiple rules, including:

  • Must be peer-reviewed research
  • No abusive or offensive comments
  • Non-professional personal anecdotes will be removed
  • No medical advice
  • Comments dismissing established findings and fields of science must provide evidence

Manage Access To The Community

As communities grow larger, it becomes more difficult to maintain standards. Therefore, you should curate your community deliberately. For instance, a publisher can offer several online communities. One community – open to all registered users – may have limited moderation. In contrast, the same publisher might also have a second online community limited to paying subscribers.

For example, a publisher that offers “subscriber only” content and community limits access to people with an active subscription. By the way, a single organization can host multiple communities, including an open community where anybody can join and a more exclusive community for paying members.

Recruit and Retain Volunteer Moderators

Scaling up to a larger community with tens of thousands or more members is tough if you have a single moderator. Fortunately, you can recruit volunteer moderators (often called “mods”) to help maintain community standards. Usually, extending an invitation to a community moderator is best based on the person’s track record. For example, a person who encourages positive dialogue and gently reminds others of the community rules might be a good candidate for a volunteer moderator.

To retain your community moderators, offer them exclusive benefits. For example, content moderators might be invited to ask the first question when you have question-and-answer events. Publishers can also reward moderators with gifts like apparel or subscription discounts.

Build Safe Online Communities with Arena

Although social media can be a good place to start, bringing your online communities can bring numerous advantages for your brand. You can engage with your customers through Live Chat, Live Blog, and other Customer Engagement ideas. Arena is easy to integrate, perfect for conversations, community chat, as well as ratings and reviews.

Arena Community represents a significant leap forward in audience engagement and interaction. With its comprehensive feature set and user-centric design, Arena Community counts with moderation features that guarantee your virtual community stays safe and enjoyable for your audience.

How To Create A Social Media-Like Experience

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Engaging audiences and keeping them on your website has become increasingly challenging. Social media platforms, however, have mastered the art of user engagement by creating immersive, social media-like experiences that captivate their audience. The good news? You can leverage these same strategies to boost user engagement on your site.

Explore our exclusive infographic to learn how!
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Increase Publishing Revenue with First-Party Data

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First-party data is the future for publishers because the most popular browsers – Google Chrome and Apple Safari – no longer support third-party cookies.

Wait, What Is First-Party Data?

Before you can boost revenue with first-party data, getting your team on the same page is important. First-party data is information that a publisher directly obtains from a reader, subscriber, or member of an audience. The following first-party data examples show what this includes:

  • Online Event Participation: If a publisher offers live digital events, you can gather first-party data from those events. For example, you can gather information about clicks and chat comments during a live event.
  • Customer Data: When a person buys a subscription to a publication, a publisher gains more data about them, including their location, news preferences, and media preferences. In most cases, data from paying subscribers is the most valuable variety of first-party data.
  • Email Marketing Analytics: Publishers that send out emails to their subscribers quietly gather data with every open and click. Since this data is connected to specific email users, email analytics data is a fantastic resource.
  • Website Analytics: Good news – you’re probably already using this form of first-party data. Many publishers are already collecting data points like clicks, page views, and time on site through their website analytics platform.

Want the full story on cookieless future? See our post: The Future of Cookies In Marketing Strategy.

What The End of Third-Party Cookies Means For Your Advertisers

To improve your alignment with advertisers, put yourself in their shoes. Advertisers have built successful business models based on third-party cookies for nearly two decades. Then, a series of data privacy scandals, new laws, and changes to popular web browsers brought about the end of third-party cookies.

The old way of delivering highly relevant personalized advertising based on third-party cookies no longer works. Yet, the need to deliver effective online advertising isn’t going away.

For publishers, the shift to first-party data is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. Brands need a reliable way to reach their audiences while ensuring brand safety. Unlike social media platforms, which continue to struggle with toxic content of various kinds, publishers have an advantage thanks to their focus on high editorial standards.

First-party data is the future, and advertisers need data to reach their growth goals. Let’s find out how publishers can drive top-line revenue growth with first-party data.

Increase Publishing Revenue With These 5 First-Party Data Levers

First-party data drives revenue growth most effectively when you continuously gather data from your audience. That level of first-party data gathering is a team sport! Earn buy-in from management and colleagues by connecting the dots between improved first-party data and revenue growth.

Revenue Growth Lever 1: Increase Value for Advertisers

Winning advertiser dollars for your publication is easier when you have robust first-party data. You can offer advertisers a wider variety of segmentation options based on how the audience engages with your content.

For example, an advertiser might want to appeal to new parents. With first-party data, you can filter your audience for people interacting with content related to families, fertility, and related topics. That segment is far more likely to convert for the advertiser than a generic segment based on age and gender.

Revenue Growth Lever 2: Drive Digital Audience Growth

A publisher with a steadily growing, engaged online audience can thrive even when the online world shifts.

First-party data directly supports audience growth because you can make data-driven editorial decisions. For example, you’ll better understand which content and experiences your audience wants. Further, you can test and optimize word of mouth and sharing campaigns to grow your audience. In other words, your editorial strategy will hit more home runs over time by leveraging first-party data.

A growing digital audience means more website users and pageviews, which translates into more ad revenue!

Revenue Growth Lever 3: Get More Paying Subscribers

Many customers are willing to pay for access to premium digital content. Just look at the number of paying subscribers that streaming services have. Netflix had over 200 million paying subscribers as of 2023. It’s not just digital streamers that are succeeding. The New York Times has over 9 million paying digital subscribers as of 2023. There’s no doubt: customers are willing to pay for access to quality content

First-party data is your secret weapon in growing your number of paid digital subscribers. How? Analyze the first-party data generated by your paying subscribers. For example, analyze new customers’ behaviors in their first 30 days. A large percentage of your paying subscribers make a habit of reading their favorite columnists each week. In that case, emphasizing premium access to your columnists can be a winning angle to emphasize in your ads.‍

First-party data also helps you launch more targeted appeals to different audience segments based on their engagement with your publication. For example, you can create sports-oriented subscription ads for one audience segment and political news ads for a different segment.

Revenue Growth Lever 4: Boost Ecommerce Revenue

Selling subscriptions isn’t the only way for publishers to generate revenue. Media companies have offered merchandise (e.g., apparel, notebooks, books by your staff) for years. Digital products, like audio/video recordings and NFTs (non-fungible tokens), represent another opportunity to sell.

First-party data lifts ecommerce sales in several ways:

You can make better decisions about which products to create and promote by looking at audience behavior. For example, your super fans and heavy users are the most passionate about your publication. Promoting branded products like prints, posters, and apparel to your passionate audience segment is more likely to succeed than a general appeal.

Second, first-party data supports more effective segmentation and personalization when developing product ideas. Before committing to manufacturing products, you can gather first-party data about audience preferences. This can be as simple as emailing your subscribers to ask them to join a waitlist for a new product. If you see a significant amount of sign-ups for the waitlist, that first-party data suggests it is worth going ahead to create a product.

Revenue Growth Level 5: Increase Customer Loyalty

Subscriber churn is a problem for many problems. McKinsey research found that “nearly 40 percent of e-commerce subscribers have canceled their subscriptions.” This customer churn tendency will also apply to a publisher’s subscription!

When quitting a subscription feels like clicking a button on a website, it’s no wonder that people leave their subscriptions. There is another way!

When you offer community events and connections to your subscribers, canceling means saying goodbye to friends!

Community – the network of relationships formed around your content and events – is an essential intangible asset. When your audience sees your publication as a community hub, they’re less likely to switch to alternatives. Over time, such increased loyalty translates to higher renewal rates and fewer cancellations.

First Party Growth: A Quick Start Guide For Publishers

In three moves, you can organize first-party data and use it to fuel growth.

1. Get To Know Your First-Party Data

Most publishers already have some form of first-party data in their systems. The challenge is that this data is spread across multiple teams and apps. To assemble this data, look at website analytics, mobile device analytics (e.g., mobile web and mobile apps if applicable), and email marketing analytics. Ensure you check in with your peers in sales, marketing, analytics, and subscriptions to identify your first-party data.

Once you have identified your first-party data resources, you can build a “single source of truth” for subscribers. This means organizing your data to track a subscriber’s activities across multiple devices, channels, and experiences.

2. Assign Budget & Resources To First Party Campaigns & Testing

To gain the benefits of first-party data, committing to acting on it is essential. This could be as simple as setting a goal of creating at least two tests per month based on first-party data. Whether you start small or invest deeply in data,

3. Use Engagement Technology To Grow Website Engagement

Most publishers are already gathering website analytics and email data. While valuable, those sources of first-party data are more common. Therefore, building an advantage based on that data is more complicated.

Adding Arena Live Chat and Live Blog to your website gives your audience new ways to engage. Instead of looking at pageviews, you can look at chat interactions and logs. You’ll grow audience loyalty and get more data by offering more online community experiences that resonate with your audience.

How To Get More First-Party Data With Arena

The end of third-party cookies will change the world of online advertising and publishing. That change creates a new opportunity for publishers to grow their audiences and attract advertisers.

The essential ingredient is growing your online audience and continuously gathering first-party data. Learn more about Arena’s solutions for publishers.

The Death of Third-Party Cookies

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Google Chrome, the world’s most popular browser, no longer supports third-party cookies. This change has been in the works for years and arrived in January 2024. The change means publishers and advertisers can no longer rely on third-party cookies. 

What Are Third-Party Cookies?

Let’s recap exactly what’s changing this year so that you can put this change into context. Third-party cookies have been popular because they make it easier to track individual users across the Internet. For example, a brand can see that a person visited three different basketball websites, so promoting a basketball product to them is worth the effort. In addition, third-party cookies also make it simple for brands to advertise products to customers after they view them. 

How Apple and Google Ended The 3rd Party Cookies

Third-party cookies have driven significant revenues, but that approach will no longer produce significant returns. Why? Apple blocked third-party cookies for all users in 2020. That’s important because Apple’s Safari browser is the world’s second most popular web browser.

As of Jan 4, 2024, third-party cookies will be blocked for 99% of Chrome users. By the end of 2024, Google plans to eliminate support for third-party cookies entirely. 

As a result, over 80% of all web users will no longer have access to third-party cookies by the end of the year. It’s likely that the remaining significant browsers – Edge, Firefox, and Opera – will end support over time to remain competitive.

Combining business strategy and regulatory requirements drives the drive to eliminate third-party cookies. Since 2021, Apple’s privacy commitment has led to multiple technical changes that protect user privacy. Google’s 2024 elimination of third-party cookies makes it competitive with Apple from a privacy perspective.

Two critical regulatory changes also drive the drive to enhance privacy changes. Implementing the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe has changed online marketing. Publishers, advertisers, and other organizations must comply or face the consequences. In 2023, Meta Platforms was fined €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion US) for non-compliance. In addition, Amazon, Google, British Airways, and Vodafone have all been fined for non-compliance. 

In California, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) of 2018 has increased expectations for privacy protections. Coming into effect in 2020, the law applies to many companies, including publishers. The California government has found that multiple industries, including retailers, fitness companies, medical devices, and healthcare, have failed to follow the law. California is the largest state by population – 39 million or 11.7% of the US – so the state’s policy has far-reaching impacts on customer expectations.

If you don’t adapt to the new world, you’ll lose advertiser interest, audience trust, and critical audience insights. 

How To Adapt and Thrive Without Third-Party Cookies

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The end of third-party cookies means the 2010s approach to online advertising has to change. A vital part of the solution lies in developing a first-party relationship. First-party data means that your website directly connects with an end user. By gathering first-party data on your audience, you’ll be able to understand your audience preferences better. 

Want a deep dive into first-party data? Check out our post: What is First-Party Data?

The more first-party data you gather from your audience, the more you can grow revenue as a publisher. First, rich first-party data makes a publisher more valuable to advertisers because you can improve targeting and relevance. Second, robust first-party data helps publishers understand their audience better, making it easier to sell subscriptions and develop editorial content.

Two Ways To Get More Third-Party Data From Your Audience

There are two methods of obtaining more first-party data from your audience: technical and marketing. Both approaches have their merits.

The technical approach is focused on ensuring that you gather consent. It’s very popular – just look at how many websites have data privacy popups! These prompts ask the end user to consent to share data with you. It is a foundational practice to gather first-party data.

While it is a good starting point, asking for permission isn’t enough to engage audiences. Consumers are becoming more and more sensitive about sharing information. To earn their trust, it is crucial to make it worthwhile for end users to give consent. That’s where the marketing approach comes into play.

The marketing approach to first-party data recognizes that publishers and brands are asking for something valuable – consumer data. To earn that value, consumers need to be reassured that they will receive something valuable in exchange for their data.

So, what exactly can you offer your audience to convince them to provide consent and data? After all, first-party data only becomes valuable when you gather data over a prolonged period of time. Earning trust and engagement from your audience depends on their current relationship with a publisher. For simplicity, consider your audience into two categories: logged-in users and paid subscribers.

Appealing To Logged Users

Anonymous website users provide very little first-party data. You’ll find basic analytics data like pages visited and browsers used. This kind of data is minimal. One of the best ways to get better first-party data is to encourage users to create a free user account and log in to your website.

Reserving some content and experiences for logged-in users alone is one of the simplest ways to encourage users to log in. At the end of this post, you’ll get a few ideas to make logging in as a registered user more compelling to your audience.

Keeping Paid Subscribers Engaged 

Your paying subscribers tend to trust your brand the most. By definition, you have much richer data on these users because they have paid for access. However, a one-time purchase generates little first-party data.

The solution is to give your paying subscribers reasons to log into your website regularly. Offering special events and guest columnists are some of the ways you can keep your paying subscribers engaged. 

What if you are already doing everything you can to keep subscribers excited and not seeing the results you want? You just need to offer a fresh experience to your subscribers, and that’s where Arena can help.

How Arena Helps Publishers Succeed Without Third-Party Cookies

When you offer a compelling live experience on your website, gathering first-party data from your audience gets easy. Picture this: your top sports columnists offer live conversations during March Madness, the Super Bowl, and other events. Your audience will eagerly look forward to participating in those events!

Arena makes it fast and easy to create online experiences. You can install Arena Live Chat in minutes and set up a live chat session. Invite your columnists (or special guests!) to start the conversation, and your audience will get involved. A live chat experience keeps your audience engaged on your website for longer, making it easier to gather first-party data. 

Keeping your audience engaged on your website means you will gather a steady stream of first-party data and deepen your relationship with your audience. Keep up these efforts, and you’ll hardly notice the end of third-party cookies. Instead, you’ll have rich first-party data to excite advertisers and better connect with your audience.

Maximizing Audience Engagement After the End of Third-Party Cookies: 7 Key Strategies

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In 2024, third-party cookies are no longer supported, thanks to Google and Apple removing them from their browsers. With this significant shift, it’s crucial to act quickly and adapt your strategies to maintain strong audience engagement in the new digital landscape.

Some Important Terms To Know

There are a few key terms you should know to navigate. The following definitions will help you to understand what’s changing.

  • Cookies: files that store information about a user and their online behavior. This information enables both personalized experiences on websites (i.e., that you prefer to see basketball scores instead of baseball scores) and personalized advertising.
  • Third-party cookies. Third-party cookies are produced by a website other than the user is visiting. For example, visit an online shoe store website and then a news website. You might see an ad for shoes on the news website the next day. That type of marketing is made possible by third-party cookies.
  • First-party data. First-party data is information your company has directly collected from your audience. For an in-depth introduction, see our post What is First Party Data Anyway?

Gathering first-party data is a priority for several reasons. First, gathering a significant amount of first-party data means you’re less reliant on the major social media companies. Second, your efforts to gather first-party data will also help you focus more on keeping your audience engaged.

Preparing Your First-Party Data Foundation

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For publishers and brands new to first-party data, it is vital to create the proper foundation. Once you have these elements in place, you’ll find it much easier to accelerate your growth.

1) Align First-Party Data To Your Growth Goals

Simply gathering massive data about your audience will not accomplish anything for your business. This data collection effort needs to support your goals. With that alignment, winning buy-in for first-party data will be easier.

To build alignment, ask your team the following questions:

  • How will a more deeply engaged audience (i.e., people spending more time on your website, week in and week out) support our goals?
  • What is our reliance on third parties for growth like Facebook and other platforms? If you are uncomfortable with the answer, first-party data can help!

2) Create An Inventory of Your First-Party Data Assets

The next foundation step is to identify your first-party data assets. In many cases, you’ll be pleasantly surprised that you have significant data already. For example, consider the following examples to get your inventory started:

  • Email List. Your email list is one of the best examples of a first-party provider. There’s no intermediary standing between you and your audience with email.
  • Registered Website Users. Many websites require users to log in to personalize their experience and get other benefits. Find out if you have this type of first-party data!
  • Customer List. Publishers may define this list as a subscriber list. Ideally, your customer data goes far beyond a listing of names. You should be able to perform analytics on the data, such as identifying the people who buy the most.

3) Identify First Party Growth Ideas

The final preparation step is to brainstorm a few first-party growth ideas. It helps to frame this question as a value exchange. Ask yourself what valuable content and experiences you can offer your audience in exchange for their data.

Your historical data can offer clues to point you in the right direction. For instance, look at your website analytics (e.g., Google Analytics) and social media accounts to see what topics and themes resonate with your target audience. When reviewing these analytics, aim to develop a list of at least ten topics. You’ll use this list in the next step.

4) Identify What Kind of First Party Data You Want To Gather

There are many kinds of first-party data, so focusing your efforts on them is essential. It is generally best to focus on growing engaged website visitors and email subscribers as a starting point. If you have larger audiences and resources, gathering additional forms of first-party data may be achievable.

Launch Your First-Party Data Collection Efforts

To gather first-party data, you must convince your audience to trade their time, attention, and data for something of value. One of the best options is to offer a live community experience. These experiences help to deepen audience engagement at the same time.

5) Equip Your Team To Run Live Experiences

Offering a live experience to your audience is tough unless your team has the right tools and training. Fortunately, getting the right tools in place is easy. You can install Arena on your website in less than 10 minutes.

As you plan training sessions, look for team members with experience organizing conferences and live events. Many of those event skills will translate to the digital sphere. Once you gather a few people, it’s time to plan and launch an internal event. For example, you might host a live event for employees only to discuss the year’s priorities.

For the best results, assign one person to act as the moderator and another to act as technical support. You’ll quickly get a feel for how Arena Live Chat works. For example, you can use moderation tools to keep the discussion focused.

6) Host A Community Discussion With A Special Guest

Once you complete a practice session with an internal audience, it’s time to plan and launch a live chat experience for your audience. Refer to the list of topic ideas you generated in the “Identify First Party Growth Ideas” ideas. For example, you might host a live chat event before a significant voting day if you cover political news.

Including a special guest like a columnist, academic, or influencer in your live chat event is smart because they can help you promote the event. For example, you might invite a sports medicine doctor to join an event focused on helping older people succeed in fitness while minimizing injuries.

Offering an event like this will help you gather first-party data because the live chat session will happen on your website.

7) Put Your First-Party Data To Work

You’ve done all the preparation work to offer compelling experiences to your audience. If everything has come together, you will now have more first-party data! So, what’s next?

The next step depends on your business model. An online publisher can use their new first-party data insights to engage advertisers. Other brands can use first-party data to improve the relevance of their online advertising efforts. For example, you can improve the relevance of your advertising by sending a targeted message to your most engaged audience members.

Get Arena On Your Website Today

Getting started with Arena is fast and easy. There’s no software for your audience to download, and Arena is designed for speed! Book a demo to see how Arena can help you to grow!

What Is First-Party Data?

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Google Chrome, used by over 60% of the world, has killed third-party cookies as of January 2024. So, what’s next for publishers? First-party data is the future.

First-party data is the new, better way to fuel personalized online experiences for your audience and customers. First-party data has been around for a while, but 2024 is the year first-party data rises to the top of your marketing to-do list.

What Is First-Party Data?

To fully understand first-party data, it’s helpful to define it along with a few other commonly used terms. Mastering these concepts makes it easier to plan and collaborate with others.

First-Party Data

First-party data is information a publisher or brand obtains directly from its audience and customers. Some examples of first-party data include a user’s location (inferred based on their IP address), their browser, and which emails they open.

In addition, customer data, such as products purchased and customer addresses, also count as first-party data. First-party data obtained directly from paying customers is one of the most valuable kinds of first-party data!

Since first-party data can take various forms, how do we determine if a given data point counts as first-party data? Ask yourself: did our organization collect this data directly from our audience without any intermediary? If yes, you have first-party data.

Zero-Party Data

This term refers to data that a customer proactively shares with a company. For example, an e-commerce business might run an online poll asking customers to vote on designs for an upcoming product. Customers volunteering data like suggestions, product preferences, and more is also a great sign that you have cultivated a highly engaged customer base.

Second-Party Data

While less commonly used than first-party and zero-party data, you may come across second-party data concerns if you use partnerships.

Second-party data is simply another organization’s first-party data. For example, a news publisher might run a cross-promotion with the local NBA team before the season starts. The data used in this type of promotion may count as second-party data. For example, the two organizations might agree to send messages to their email lists to promote a special pre-season “what to expect this season” live event.

Second-party data and partnerships are powerful ways to grow! There are some considerations to keep in mind with this type of data. You need to check if your privacy policy and your partner’s privacy policy permit this collaboration. In addition, it is wise to be upfront about who you partner with and why. This kind of transparency makes second-party data campaigns more successful.

Third-Party Data

Before 2024, third-party data (especially third-party cookies) was a powerful way to grow online. These cookies allowed publishers and brands to track user behavior across multiple websites, which made it easy to personalize their offerings. Third-party cookies made it easy for advertisers to display highly relevant and personalized ads to users across the Internet.

Third-party cookies are dead today, so it is time to adapt to the first-party data world.

Why Prioritize First-Party Data: 3 Key Reasons

Thriving in a first-party data online environment requires publishers and advertisers to change their focus, methods, and approach. Keep these changes in mind to help you align your team on the new normal.

1) Third-Party Cookies Are Gone!

Google and Apple, which account for over 80% of the world’s web browsers, have ended support for third-party cookies. This is a significant challenge because third-party cookies have fueled many interest-based advertising campaigns.

Publishers can gain an advantage over their competitors by embracing first-party data. When you can offer advertisers detailed information directly gathered from your audience, it’s far easier for your advertisers to grow.

2) First-Party Data Offers A Superior ROI ‍

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Google research has found that using first-party data in marketing campaigns leads to a “2.9X revenue uplift.” That’s just the start of the benefits.

Using first-party data in your campaigns also helps you cut costs by up to 1.5X. As a result, publishers can help cost-conscious advertisers stretch their ad budgets further.

3) Focusing on First-Party Data Strengthens Your Business Model

When a business depends on third parties to grow, that model carries a significant risk. What if those third parties change or decide that they don’t like your publication?

This is a real issue that many publishers have already experienced with social media. Many of the social platforms initially offered fantastic, free organic reach. Over time, organic reach has fallen on Facebook and other platforms.

Building deeper relationships with your audience – vital for long-term first-party data success – offers an alternative. When you have a direct relationship, no other company can step in and prevent you from accessing your audience. Even as technology changes, you’ll have direct access to your customers.

Step-by-Step Guide to Kickstarting Your First-Party Data Strategy

By now, you’ve seen the value of focusing on first-party data. Use these steps to integrate first-party data collection and use into your business.

1. Unlock Hidden Value: Inventory Your Existing First-Party Data Assets

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The excellent news is that almost every publisher with an online presence is already collecting first-party data. Whew, there’s no need to start from scratch!

In this step, list your most significant first-party data assets. We’ll focus on digital first-party assets that tie back to your website.

  • Website. Website visitors constantly share first-party data with you based on the pages they visit, click links, and fill out web forms. Your web analytics platform (e.g., Google Analytics) is your best friend for getting started with this data type.
  • Email. Studying how your audience interacts with your email content is one of the best ways to build your understanding of your audience’s preferences over time. There are over 250 million email users in the US, so email is alive and well.
  • Mobile Apps. Whether you use them to deliver videos, articles, podcasts, or other content, mobile apps can help gather first-party data.

2. Incorporate First-Party Data Into Campaigns And Tests

Collecting first-party data from your audience is only potential value. For this data to grow your business, you need to integrate it into your marketing and publishing. For example, you may allocate a portion of your marketing budget to test new campaign ideas based on first-party data.

3. Integrate Your First-Party Data Sources

Many companies gather bits and pieces of first-party data across their organization. The marketing team may have great insight into how people use the website and email. At the same time, the sales team owns the CRM and customer conversations. For first-party data to deliver maximum value, combining all your customer data and looking for ways to use it fully is vital.

4. Enhance The Data Value Proposition For Your Audience

First-party data collection and use depends on your audience’s trust. Earning that trust starts with offering a solid value exchange. Determine what your audience will get from sharing their data with you. For example, do they get access to exclusive online experiences (more on this later)?

Keeping trust for the long term also requires protecting your audience’s data as required by law, regulations, and your company’s privacy policy.

5. Offer Unique Experiences To Your Audience

Exciting digital experiences are some of the best ways to keep your audience engaged. When they are engaged on your website for long periods, it becomes easier to gather first-party data. This is where Arena helps publishers to thrive!

Building Sustainable Audience Engagement with First-Party Data

Digital community experiences offer a powerful way to build trust and gather first-party data simultaneously. Here are some ways to use Arena Live Chat and Live Blog to create more engaging experiences for your audience.

Grow Your Reputation For Breaking News Coverage

When a significant news event matters to your audience, offering the latest details is almost irresistible. Imagine your audience is full of basketball enthusiasts who want to know how their favorite teams and players are doing. With Arena Live Blog, you can offer play-by-play coverage of games, game statistics, and pre-game coverage.

As you build a reputation for offering up-to-the-minute information for your audience, they will keep coming back for more. The best part is that your audience will naturally want to know about your live blog coverage. In other words, you have an enthusiastic YES when you ask permission to stay in touch (and gather first-party data).

Offer Unique Connections & Content With Chat

Transform your website into a community hub with Arena Live Chat, which takes just a few minutes to install. Once you have a live chat installed, you can offer a variety of chat experiences to your audience, depending on your goal.

  • Want to maximize your audience growth? Offer public chat experiences where anybody can join.
  • Want to go deeper with your current audience? Provide invite-only live chat events.
  • Interested in growing a new revenue source? Offering paid online experiences with special guests. You can also create this kind of exclusive live chat experience with Arena.

Regardless of how big or small your live events are, Arena Live Chat makes it easy to keep the experience brand-safe through moderation. Our automated profanity filter keeps inappropriate language away. Your staff can also use manual moderation to foster a positive experience.

Publishers: Get More First-Party Data With Arena

Giving your audience a good reason to keep returning to your website is vital to any effort to gather first-party data. Request a demo to see how Arena can help you to grow!

Strategies To Add E-Commerce Revenue In Publishing

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Publishing companies historically had just two ways to earn revenue: advertising and subscriptions. If you have already optimized these revenue models to a high level, you need another way to boost the bottom line. Ecommerce is the most significant opportunity publishers have today to increase revenue.

Two primary strategies to add e-commerce revenue to a publishing company are direct sales and affiliate marketing. Both have their place, so let’s consider the advantages and disadvantages of both models.

The Traditional E-commerce Revenue Model For Publishers

The established model to add e-commerce revenue to a publishing company lies in selling products, services, and experiences directly related to the publication. To bring this strategy to life, look at the following examples.

  • WIRED. Wired has an online merch store selling totes, apparel, water bottles, and other products with Wired branding.
  • The New Yorker. The magazine’s online shop offers playing cards, umbrellas, t-shirts, and baby clothing.

Advantages

  • Deepen engagement with your best fans.

As defined in Kevin Kelly’s famous essay 1000 True Fans, true fans are hungry to expand their engagement with your brand. For example, consider the passion of New York Times crossword enthusiasts. Many subscribers take pride in solving the puzzles over the week. They enjoy the challenge! It’s a fair bet that a considerable portion of this segment will be interested in directly related crossword products like tote bags, crossword books, and artwork.

  • Product creation is relatively easy.

Creating a new product is sometimes seen as risky. Fortunately, the traditional e-commerce approach simplifies product creation. For instance, some publishers simply put their logo on a t-shirt and sell that offering. The time delay from a product idea to selling a product could be weeks or months, depending on the complexity of the product.

Disadvantages

  • Management overhead to oversee e-commerce operations.

Publishers may not have significant experience or expertise in the art of managing e-commerce operations. This disadvantage matters because the organization may hire additional staff to oversee e-commerce sales. Outsourcing fulfillment does not eliminate this risk either – the publisher still needs to oversee the vendor to ensure quality standards are met.

  • Profit margins are only slightly better than publishing.

Depending on your pricing strategy, achieving significant profit margins with e-commerce may take time and effort. Take branded apparel as an example. According to NYU Stern School of Business research, the gross margin for publishing and newspapers is 46.55%. In comparison, online retail sales (i.e., e-commerce) have a gross margin of 42.78%. It may still be worthwhile to pursue traditional e-commerce, but setting realistic expectations for your profits is essential.

The New High-Profit E-commerce Revenue Model In Publishing

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Creating products, shipping them out to customers, and optimizing e-commerce revenue operations can be taxing for a publisher. Fortunately, there is another way to earn more revenue based on your editorial strengths. Affiliate marketing – earning a commission by recommending products – is a powerful way to win.

Wirecutter, acquired by the New York Times in 2016, is one of the best-known examples of this model. Wirecutter wins by focusing on quality and carefully evaluating products in detail. Wirecutter guides cover various products like televisions, hair dryers, treadmills, and kitchen appliances.

To succeed in affiliate marketing, reviewing many products and covering the latest trends is essential. Meeting audience demand for up-to-date product recommendations is easier when you follow a set methodology like Wirecutter.

Specifically, most reviews include an overall best product recommendation and specific recommendations for different use cases. For example, the best multiroom wireless speaker system review includes three recommendations: best overall, a budget pick, and an upgrade.

It’s not Wirecutter, either. Whenever you see a product reviewed online, there is a good chance that the publisher is set up to earn a commission on purchases. The affiliate marketing industry generated over $10 billion in 2022, up from $5 billion in 2014 (source).

To decide if affiliate marketing is a good fit for your publication, consider the following advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages

  • Build on your editorial strengths.

Affiliate marketing is an excellent fit for publishers that already review products for their audience. For example, your publication might publish an annual gift guide before the holiday season. That kind of editorial content is an excellent fit for affiliate marketing.

Unlike traditional e-commerce, there is no need to create products. Depending on your published content, you can set up affiliate links and earn commissions in a matter of days. There are no products to test and no shipping logistics to oversee. All customer service responsibilities are handled by the company that sells the product.

  • Potential for high margins.

Affiliate marketing is a high-profit margin offering since there is no fulfillment and minimal customer service. It may require some editorial investment to create and market product recommendations, but there are ways to optimize this point.

Disadvantages

  • Need to identify suitable products for affiliate commissions.

The commissions you can earn by recommending a product vary. For example, the average affiliate commission paid by Amazon ranges from 1% to 5+% depending on the product category.

Many publishers are attracted to Amazon’s affiliate program due to its popularity. However, you may be able to negotiate with other companies to earn higher commissions. If your publication has a significant amount of traffic (and therefore potential buyers), you may be able to obtain a better commission.

  • Need to manage audience expectations.

When a publisher is compensated for recommending products, your audience may wonder if your recommendations can be trusted. Some skeptical audience members may question if your recommendations are grounded in concrete facts and analysis.

Mitigating this concern requires transparency, such as explaining how your editorial staff reviews products. For example, you might use a balanced scorecard to rate products on several dimensions (e.g., durability, customization, design quality). When your audience can follow your thought process and how you recommend products, you can reinforce trust.

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Finding products to recommend at scale is one of the most time-intensive aspects of affiliate marketing. Fortunately, there is technology that can ease the burden.

For example, you have a review page discussing five different TVs. The formal review may cover most of your audience, but some people may have additional questions. Use an AI-powered chatbot to ask 1-on-1 questions to your audience and recommend products specific to their needs.

8 Must-Have AI Tools For Shopify Stores

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Running a successful Shopify store takes a lot of work: product creation, shipping, marketing, security, and more. The good news is that AI tools have arrived to make life easier for Shopify store owners. Take one of these AI apps for a test drive and see if it meets your needs.

The Top 8 Must-Have AI Tools For Shopify

1) CreatorKit

  • Free Trial Available: there is a free plan available (subject to usage and feature limitations)
  • Notable Features and Integrations: Shopify integration, background creation, and removal.

Presenting your products with the right photos and videos is essential to lifting conversions. CreatorKit is an AI-powered tool that makes it easier to create photos and videos. The app, released in 2021, also includes multiple templates to create images faster.

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While focused on Shopify, CreatorKit images suit social media platforms like TikTok. Paid plans include real-time chat support for customers, while the free plan offers email-only support.

2) Octane AI: Advanced Quiz Maker

  • Free Trial Available: A free trial and three pricing plans are available. The higher tier plans allow you to customize CSS, product display and offer insights based on product reviews.
  • Notable Features and Integrations: The app integrates with Shopify, Klaviyo, and Zapier.

Launched in 2018, Octane AI is one of the older AI solutions on the Shopify platform. The app is designed to recommend products by using quizzes. The app can offer more specific product suggestions by asking prospects a series of questions. In addition to increasing purchases, users report that Octane AI increases email opt-ins.

3) ChatGPT

  • Free Trial Available: there is a free version and a paid version available.
  • Notable Features and Integrations: ChatGPT is a general-purpose AI tool capable of answering questions, solving math problems, creating some programming code, and other functions.

ChatGPT, offered by OpenAI, was the first generative AI to see widespread use. While not explicitly created for Shopify, it can be a helpful tool for those willing to invest some time in experimentation.

For example, you can describe the features of your product (e.g., red shirt, large size, cotton, made in the USA, etc) and ask ChatGPT to create an engaging description. After a few back-and-forth iterations, you are more likely to get a helpful response. Experiment with providing additional context, such as “most of our customers are single women aged 18-25 who live in metropolitan areas in the United States,” to see if that provides greater context.

The true power of ChatGPT for Shopify unlocks when you pay for the paid plan (i.e., ChatGPT Plus). The paid plan is notably more powerful because it was trained on a more extensive data set. In addition, you get access to new features faster, like the ability to collaborate with others in a Chat GPT session. Currently, Chat GPT is focused on text chat and cannot be used to interact directly with your customers.

4) Arena Commerce AI

  • Free Trial Available: Yes, you can start using it for free
  • Notable Features and Integrations: Arena Commerce AI integrates with Shopify and WooCommerce.

Arena Commerce AI works on any website. Through a chat interface, the AI suggests products to your customers based on their interactions. For example, a clothing ecommerce website could use it to recommend accessories to complement a complete outfit.

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Arena’s AI is customizable in several ways to provide a better experience. You can choose the size of responses – a great feature to remember with mobile users. Also, you can select the ‘temperature’ – meaning how strict (or creative!) you want the AI to be in its interactions.

5) Yodel ChatGPT Product Description

  • Free Trial Available: There is a free plan available with a limited number of tokens per month.
  • Notable Features and Integrations: increase your SEO traffic by using the app to create meta descriptions. The app also offers bulk features to create and edit many variations quickly.

Do you like the ChatGPT concept but want a solution that is more focused on Shopify? Yodel is an AI-powered copywriting assistant focused on product descriptions. In contrast to the open-ended nature of Chat GPT, Yodel has a narrow focus on helping you create product descriptions.

Like other generative AI tools, there is a learning curve to master Yodel. Reviewers report that it took them some time to experiment to produce useful results. It is also wise to create backups of your descriptions before using the app if you encounter unexpected problems.

6) InCharge

  • Free Trial Available: there is a free trial available.
  • Notable Features and Integrations: the app integrates with Shopify and significant online advertising platforms (Amazon, Facebook, Google, Snapchat and TikTok)

Much of the excitement in AI is focused on generative AI – using AI to create text, images, and other media. InCharge shows us that there is another way to use AI to grow your Shopify business: leveraging analytics.

Since the introduction of Apple iOS 14 in 2020, online marketing has been getting difficult. Without the tried and true way of tracking results, how are you supposed to decide which ads and marketing strategies to invest in? InCharge’s analytics technology uses AI to help Shopify stores increase their return on advertising spend (ROAS). The InCharge approach to analytics is special because it combines first-party data (What is first-party data?) and data from multiple platforms.

7) Translation Lab

  • Free Trial Available: Translation Lab has a free plan.
  • Notable Features and Integrations: The app’s supported languages include English, Danish, Dutch, Spanish, Swedish, French, Japanese, and Portuguese.

Opening your store to buyers in other countries (or who use different languages) was tremendous work. Translation Lab is about to make that easier! Launched in 2019, the app is based on Google’s neural machine translation technology. In addition to language translation, the app offers multi-currency support.

Machine translation is a helpful way to get a first draft. However, verifying the quality of translations before using them on your website is also wise. Otherwise, you might make mistakes and hurt your brand’s reputation.

8) Squirai AI SEO

  • Free Trial Available: the app is free as of December 2023.
  • Notable Features and Integrations: the ability to scan your website to detect images that lack an ALT text description.

Achieving success in Shopify SEO requires paying attention to countless details. One lesser-known way to improve your SEO results involves your images. For the best results, all of the images you use on your store should have ALT text – a short written description of the image. Writing and updating all of these image descriptions required a tremendous amount of work.

Squirai AI SEO is an AI resource focused on image processing and text creation. Put this app into action, and you’ll quickly be able to generate ALT text for all of your images.

Keep Your Audience Engaged With Arena

Growing your Shopify business is far easier when your customers keep returning to your website and staying engaged for long periods. Reach out to Arena today to discuss how you can use live chat, live blog, and other solutions to keep your audience engaged and growing so you can sell more products.

Revolutionizing E-Commerce with AI: Introducing Arena’s Commerce AI

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In an increasingly noisy and competitive digital marketplace, quickly converting conversations into sales is crucial for brands and online retailers. To do this, brands must provide a superior customer experience, tailoring each interaction to the unique tastes and preferences of every customer. Arena’s Commerce AI is the answer to this challenge. It goes beyond mere engagement, driving them to make their desired purchase swiftly.

This serves both consumers and brands by accelerating the buyer’s journey for consumers and allowing brands to precisely meet individual consumer needs.

Finally, a chat-to-cart solution based on conversations

Taking user engagement to the next level, Arena’s Commerce AI delivers a personalized, concierge-like experience for every website visitor. Arena’s solution does this by marrying the power of AI with existing content on websites, files, and text and creating hyper-personalized product recommendations that take into account each user’s distinct needs and preferences.

This seamless transition from chat to cart ensures that users don’t just research products, but end up buying them.

A product expert trained by your content

Arena’s Commerce AI is an AI chat assistant that can be added to any commerce webpage. It is trained directly using website content and databases defined by the website owner, so it can have intelligent conversations with every visitor. With Commerce AI, you can help customers find exactly what they need and even suggest great recommendations to boost sales.

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Commerce AI was designed for publishers and e-commerce brands to capitalize on every customer conversation. Whether it’s increasing revenue through product recommendations or affiliate links, Arena’s new AI chat helps each individual web visitor with their own unique needs.

Check out some examples.

Commerce AI for publishers

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Digital news publishers sought to diversify their revenue streams. One relevant source of new revenue is the creation of product recommendation pages, through which publishers can leverage their credibility to monetize affiliate links.

With Commerce AI, the publisher can guide the reader in a conversational shopping experience, understanding the needs and wants and multiplying their product recommendations, increasing the chance to monetize affiliate links.

Commerce AI for e-commerce

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Online retailers can also trust Commerce AI to be their conversational guides to offering a better shopping experience. It goes beyond being just an inventory expander: Commerce AI understands and talks back to the shopper as a subject expert, giving out relevant recommendations in the context of the shopping occasion.

Commerce AI already offers Shopify and WooCommerce integrations, and fast-tracking implementation for these platforms’ retailers. Other platforms can also add Commerce AI to their online stores by adding the embed code to their HTML code.

Drive the conversation into transactions

Today, with the release of Commerce AI, Arena is not just facilitating dialogues; it is revolutionizing the way brands monetize them. The future of e-commerce isn’t just cart additions – it’s in the unique conversations leading up to them.

This innovation will empower brands to connect deeply with their audiences, establishing a level of trust that transforms casual visitors into loyal customers.

Add Commerce AI to your webstore in seconds

Try Commerce AI directly from Arena’s Dashboard. New accounts have a 14-day free trial period, and no credit card is needed.

Just follow the onboarding instructions, which will request URLs from your website so that your Commerce AI chat is trained with your content.

Then, all you have to do is personalize some of the information you’d want it to display, like greetings and a chat name, generate the embed code, and add it to your page code.

Try Commerce AI 

Request a Demo

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