Franchises Need to Prepare for Marketing Without Third-Party Data

Google celebrated the new year by turning off cookies for 1% of Chrome users – about 30 million people. So, why is Google killing cookies?

One word: Privacy.

Google and other tech giants took a page from Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to protect online user data. The European Union passed GDPR in 2016, but there is no U.S. law (yet) that mandates doing so. California has passed the California Consumer Privacy Act, however, which applies to businesses collecting data from its residents.

Still, as consumers have become more concerned about privacy, U.S. tech leaders have been promising to do more. In 2021, for example, Apple allowed iOS users on ATT’s network to opt out of tracking while using social media platforms on their iPhones; 80% exercised that option.

Google has been promising for quite a while that it would phase out cookies. And yet, many franchise brands seem unprepared for how this will affect their advertising campaigns.

Goodbye to Third-Party Cookies

The end of cookies matters to advertisers because it will affect audience building and targeting across media-buying platforms. In the past, many media-buying platforms were able to serve relevant ads to potential customers by using audiences built with third-party data.

With the end of cookies and third-party data, advertisers will need to get creative with their own first-party data or leverage new solutions and campaigns offered by media-buying platforms.

Winning With First-Party Data

The good news is that you own the information on who visits your website, so you can have retargeting display ads follow website visitors all over the web.

That’s not your only option to gather first-party data, either. Ask yourself:

1. Is your CRM integrated with media buying platforms?
2. Is your GA4 account connected to your CRM?
3. Are you working with your social media marketing agency to set up a Meta Conversion API?

Is your CRM integrated with media buying platforms?

Your customer relationship management (CRM) system is a terrific repository of first-party data from your current customers and hot leads. It makes sense to use what you know about your current customers to create lookalike audiences for targeting on various ad platforms. For example, you might upload your customers’ email addresses to Meta and ask the platform to use its own first-party data to serve ads to users who are similar to your customers.

Is your GA4 account connected to your CRM?

Google Analytics 4 replaced Universal Analytics last summer. Because GA4 measures activity on your own website, you own that data, and you can use it to build audiences.

Are you working with your social media marketing agency to set up a Meta Conversion API?

The Meta Conversion API (or Facebook CAPI) is designed to help businesses deliver personalized advertising experiences to audiences while maintaining data privacy. 

If the answer to these questions is yes, then you have plenty of options to use first-party data to market your franchise. When set up correctly, your website and CRM can provide tons of data that will help you effectively market to your ideal customers. When they are linked to your media-buying platforms, you can use custom audiences built in analytics and your CRM for campaign targeting. 

If the answer is no, however, then you need to start making these connections or get your agency involved in helping you get set up. We helped our clients position themselves for this change more than a year ago, because – as we said earlier – Google promised it was coming, and we took them at their word.

Paid media targeting isn’t the only thing affected by the end of cookies and privacy concerns. If your CRM is set up correctly, you can also leverage your first-party data in email marketing and SMS, or text, marketing.

The end of cookies will change how you target future customers, but it’s not dire. With some planning and the use of valuable tools like your CRM and GA4, you can use your own data to continue to reach and convert potential customers using data you already have.

Understanding and reaching your target audience is more complex than ever before in the world of digital marketing. This complexity has resulted in the evolution of powerful tools like Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Google Ads, designed to provide businesses with strategic insights and expanded reach. However, the success of these tools lies not just in their individual capabilities but in their integration. Let’s explore the importance of linking GA4 to Google Ads campaigns and how it can benefit your marketing efforts.

Overview of GA4

GA4 is the latest iteration of Google Analytics. It is a comprehensive insights tool that enables businesses to understand user interactions across their websites and mobile applications. Its predecessor, Universal Analytics (UA), officially sunset on June 30 of this year and is no longer measuring data. Unlike UA, GA4 version focuses on user-centric data, tracking user interactions across various devices and employing machine learning models to fill in the gaps in data.

Overview of Google Ads

Google Ads is an advertising tool that allows franchise businesses to display their advertisements on Google’s search results page and across its advertising network. It works on a pay-per-click model, providing targeted visibility to businesses seeking to reach audiences interested in their products or services.

Linking GA4 and Google Ads

Linking these two Google products allows for enhanced understanding and improved performance. By integrating these tools, businesses can leverage their features in a more efficient and effective manner.

Benefits of Linking GA4 and Google Ads

There are several benefits associated with linking GA4 with Google Ads campaigns:

1. Enhanced Audience Understanding and Targeting: Because GA4 tracks users across websites, subdomains and apps, high-intent audiences can be created. By linking GA4 to Google Ads, these audiences can be utilized for campaigns. This allows campaign managers to understand web visitor behavior better and create highly targeted ads based on comprehensive data sets.
2. Improved Ad Conversion Tracking: Linking the two Google platforms allows GA4 conversions to be imported into Google Ads and used as goals for campaign optimization.
3. Ability to Map Customer Journey: GA4 allows businesses to track the entire customer journey, from the first ad interaction to the final conversion. This allows for better ad and conversion optimization.
4. Optimized Marketing Budgets and ROI: Armed with comprehensive and cross-platform data, businesses can better allocate their marketing budgets, boosting their return on investment (ROI).

Creating GA4 web properties and linking to Google Ads is an essential strategy for franchise businesses looking to maximize their digital marketing efforts. It enables them to understand their audiences better, improve their ad performance, and optimize their marketing budgets, leading to greater business success. With the digital marketing landscape becoming increasingly competitive, such integration is not just a nice-to-have, but a must-have.

Today’s digital advertising landscape offers franchise brands plenty of platforms where they can analyze, monitor and optimize their marketing campaigns. With so many options, it can become difficult to choose the best one. Although customer relationship management tools (CRMs) are used primarily as sales tools and to store customer data, CRMs are often overlooked as a place to host media-buying campaigns.

CRMs, however, are among the best tools to maximize media-buying campaigns. CRM software can monitor spending and KPIs and help to optimize campaign performance, providing real-time insights on how marketing strategies are truly performing with a brand’s target audience.  

In this blog, we will explore how franchise brands can track their media-buying campaigns using a CRM platform and leverage the capabilities of a CRM to enhance advertising strategies. 

To track media campaigns in a CRM, follow these steps:

1. Choose the right CRM.
2. Integrate media-buying campaigns within the CRM.
3. Automate campaigns.
4. Publish and modify campaigns and manage spending.
5. Gain insights and optimize campaigns.

Choose the Right CRM

Not all CRM systems are created equal. While some CRMs are efficient in hosting contact information, others are more robust, allowing you to integrate multiple media-buying platforms such as Google, Meta, TikTok, Pinterest and LinkedIn. Other CRMs let you choose one, two or none.

If you want to use your CRM to track marketing campaigns in real time, being selective will be key. Researching CRMs provides a great opportunity to identify other platforms such as call tracking and analytics tools. It’s important to choose a CRM that allows you to monitor campaign performance based on the platforms that matter most to your franchise business.

Integrate Media-Buying Campaigns Within the CRM

The integration step is fundamental to getting started. Most CRMs offer free, how-to guides to help you set up everything properly. This step determines what data is being shared from marketing channels to the CRM. You will need collaboration and buy-in from your IT department, marketing and any other stakeholders prior to the integration taking place to ensure alignment and access to the required account information. When all platforms have been integrated into the CRM, that’s the perfect time to get everything organized and set KPIs within the CRM to enable campaign measurement.

Automate Campaigns

One of the best features CRMs offer marketers is the ability to automate campaigns. This can include workflows that start with ads, lead to landing pages and end with lead nurturing via personalized email marketing campaigns.

These marketing automations can include emails that support other campaigns or sales teams by providing prospects with the appropriate information they need at the right time. Automation of emails and other sales tools can be leveraged by sales teams to communicate with their leads in an easy, personalized format. This allows sales teams to spend time on higher quality leads rather than those who aren’t ready to convert, making the relationship management process more efficient.

The data collected by the CRM tracks customers so you can make more data-driven decisions based on customer interactions. Campaign data can be shared with other platforms to optimize tactics and acquire new customers who are similar to high-quality prospects.

Publish and Modify Campaigns and Manage Spending

A great tool within more robust CRMs is the ability to publish and modify campaigns and manage campaign spending. They can also publish additional content like social media posts.

This feature is helpful for organizations of all sizes. Whether a team has a small or large budget, it’s important to track where funds are being spent and if they are resulting in conversions. This feature can also support collaboration among teams to track those campaigns and optimize as needed to reach KPIs.

Gain Insights and Optimize Campaigns

One key benefit of a CRM is providing access to insights and being able to optimize campaigns accordingly. CRMs make it easy to track marketing attribution of campaigns. Calls, ads, in-person events and more can be tracked within a CRM after the CRM is set up correctly.

For example, if a Google campaign is performing better than one on Meta, that can be viewed and monitored via the CRM. This allows marketers to shift budgets, if needed, to get a higher return on investment. Tracking campaign performance is crucial to make data-driven and cost-effective decisions.

The CRM technology available to franchise businesses makes it easier to track media-buying campaigns. You do need a skilled team to set up your CRM, but after setup is completed, a CRM can provide value to various teams, the bottom line and the business.

The rise of first-party data use is changing the face of restaurant marketing. 

While the restaurant industry has relied on its face-to-face connection with customers, the use of this data can allow brands in a wide variety of franchises to gain valuable feedback, build loyalty and cater specifically to what customers want. More importantly, if used properly, it will build a relationship that will keep them coming back. 

If you’ve ever done any online shopping, you will inevitably see purchase recommendations tailored to your needs based on previous purchases. Think Amazon, YouTube or Spotify. 

While these are some retail and entertainment examples, the use of first-party data is no different for any franchise company. Even if you haven’t yet invested in software to gather your data, you might already have access to some of it. 

Where to Begin? 

If you want to know how restaurants effectively use first-party data, begin by asking yourself where your customers share their information with you. After that, begin thinking about how you can use that to connect with them. 

Customer data in the industry is vital to knowing your audience. Without it, you’re flying blind in the face of customers who have become more comfortable with the digital world and demanding more of it from the brands they use. If you’re still using third-party apps for ordering, you’re likely throwing that valuable information in the trash. 

First Party Data Importance in the Real World 

So why is first-party data so important? For starters, you own it and have immediate access to the data. This information comes from your customers who are already engaged. That means they really, really like you. 

Goodcents, a Curious Jane client, recently launched an app to update its rewards program, which will help the brand collect first-party data to better serve their customers and give them what they want. 

Goodcents wants to personalize the marketing that targets its customers. Within a few months, the franchise also plans to make that data available to its owners, allowing them to market specifically to the customers they know for events that might happen only at a specific location, center around certain events or cater to local audiences. 

Rebecca Murray, the company’s vice president of marketing, says this new app will help to take the guesswork out of marketing and provide more appropriate coupons and marketing materials to customers. After all, what’s the point in sending kids meal coupons to customers who don’t have children? 

“Our franchise owners know our guests’ faces when they come in the front door; we should also know their preferences so that we can engage more fully with them,” Murray says. 

Keeping it Simple 

Collecting this data goes beyond websites and apps, which might seem daunting. You don’t need a sprawling IT division to begin the rollout of first-party data marketing materials. 

First-party data can also be gleaned through email promotions, text message marketing and alternative loyalty programs. Through these channels, you can target different types of customers without the worry of promotion overlap, studies have shown. 

Rewards and loyalty programs are considered strong drivers for restaurant app usage, largely due to their use of first-party data. But it isn’t limited to restaurants alone. Loyalty programs throughout franchising are a great way to cater to your most important customers and foster brand loyalty. Since Google announced its plans to drop the use of cookies in late 2024, brands are looking for new ways to cultivate innovative customer-first strategies. By creating a more positive and personal experience using these platforms, brands can expect customer loyalty in return.

A changing of the digital data guard happened this summer when Google officially retired Universal Analytics and switched to Google Analytics 4. This isn’t merely a flick of the switch to a new and improved data analytics program for marketers. It’s an entirely new system that isn’t fully compatible with the franchise analytic’s ways of the past.

“Google’s main reason for switching from Universal Analytics to GA4 is largely due to user behavior and privacy standards,” says Tammy Wright, Curious Jane’s senior director of digital and web. “Google Analytics has always been a powerful tool for how franchise companies interact with their customers, and GA4 will continue that in a very different way.”

Why Google Forced the Change

Since it was first introduced in 2005, Google Analytics has proven itself to be the industry standard for companies that want to know more about their customers and how to target them. Its most recent iteration, Universal Analytics, was rolled out in 2012 and has been the standard since.

This new change in data collection positions companies for the future of marketing and advertising campaigns, better insight into your buyer’s journey that includes data from both website and apps. It also reflects increased privacy concerns among customers.

Continued data breaches caused by relaxed online security measures and bad actors with technical computing skills have led to a growing public distrust of sharing private information with marketers. That led to legislation in Europe and California to protect consumer data, and the switch to GA4 is part of the new alignment to comply with privacy laws around the world.

“Prioritizing trust and security in these unprecedented times of global chaos is fundamental to the strategic role of data and analytics to realize new sources of value,” according to Gartner’s Top Trends in Data and Analytics, 2022.

What to Do?

If you haven’t set up a GA4 property for your franchise, you’re behind the curve at this point, but not all hope is lost. However, you need to start using GA4 now.

“By setting up a GA4 property now, you can begin collecting data and building history for comparison,” Wright says. “Some data is better than none. The point being, you want to have established data that you can compare year over year figures. The sooner you set that up, the sooner you can begin your data collection.”

Comparing the Data of Your Franchise Analytics

Before you set up your new property, you should know that not all of the data between Universal Analytics and GA4 is comparable.

“Some data from UA can be comparable to GA4 so you can have year-over-year comparisons, but it won’t be in every category,” Wright says. “Your 2022 data will be useful because it will give you something to compare and determine if you’ve made improvements.

“Take this time to begin learning how GA4 works, how you need to set it up and what things you want to track,” Wright continues. “Connect to Google Ads. Get tags on your site to make sure the data begins to come in. As companies become less reliant on third-party data, the information you collect on your site will be all that more valuable.”

Google also provides some helpful guidance on its website.

“You will be able to do some incredible things to develop some key audience targeting,” Wright says. “If you don’t already know, working in analytics can be complex and takes time to learn, if you haven’t already been doing this. But this is the time to get familiar with how GA4 is structured and set up for users. The type of data that it can collect off your site is valuable and you need to be using that.”

Don’t wait until the spring to do your digital cleaning. Cleaning up your customer relationship management software can get your year off on the right step and not bogged down with irrelevant and useless customer data that can impact your franchise’s bottom line.

A franchise’s CRM is a vital component of its sales and marketing programs. A CRM houses vital data and manages your franchise’s relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. For it to be effective, it must deliver the right message to the customer at the right time.

But if the data you are using is outdated or corrupt, which is a common occurrence and to be expected, you’re in trouble. Bad data will eventually impact your sales team’s ability to find new customers and follow up with existing ones to retarget them.

An estimated 30% of data becomes outdated each year. That happens as customers change email addresses, phone numbers and other personal information during the course of their life. Now is the time to make the change to clean up your databases and establish a process moving forward that will ensure your CRM stays up to date for your sales and marketing teams who rely on the information.

Inaccurate Data

Inaccurate data translates to information in your CRM that has errors, whether that entails outdated information, misspelled names or incorrect contact information. Whatever the case, this bad information needs to be flagged and cleaned up before it begins to impact the customer experience.

IBM estimates inaccurate data costs the U.S. economy about $3.1 trillion each year and Experian reports bad data has a direct impact on 88% of companies.

So now that you know what makes the data inaccurate, how do you move forward to clean it up and make sure it doesn’t get there again?

CRM data cleaning is an ongoing process that needs to happen on a regular basis, not a one-time project. By breaking down the process into several steps, you and your team can better manage what tasks need completing.

Fix Formatting and Remove Duplicates

The delete button can be your friend as you find unnecessary and redundant information lurking within your franchise’s CRM database. Incomplete names, email addresses and other important customer information can really throw a stick in your marketing spokes. They are tricky to find, especially when manual entry is involved. But make no mistake, these small errors can cost companies money.

Consolidate Information Fields

Review the information you are collecting from your customers. Are there redundant fields that you can eliminate or consolidate with other areas? Are the right contacts being made? Are follow-ups necessary? Does a customer need retargeting? Streamlining your data will help you achieve your goals in the long run and make maintaining your data a lot simpler. By doing this, your customers will be targeted with the right information for your various campaigns.

Conduct an Audit of Information

As you complete your data cleanup, run an audit of your information to see what patterns may emerge and if you need to add additional fields that can better help your marketing and sales decisions.

Set Up Ground Rules

The heavy use of CRM data means it needs to be managed like any other marketing technology tool. A process should be established that verifies the data being loaded into it and removes the old data in the process. Finding inconsistencies, errors and duplicated information weakens your CRM’s effectiveness and should be maintained accordingly. A CRM’s metrics drive decisions in a data-centric organization and maintenance of that needs to have a priority placed on it that reflects that importance. Take this time at the beginning of 2023 to assess what your company’s goals should be going forward in maintaining this important piece of your marketing and sales tool.

After the Cambridge Analytica fallout in March, the #deletefacebook hashtag ran its course, Mark Zuckerberg answered to Congress and Facebook tightened its privacy settings. What does this mean for franchise advertisers? How does it affect Facebook’s advertising potential?

Truth is, you’re not the only franchise examining next steps after a data breach this great, and especially for a platform so widely used. But, should this concern you as an advertiser? The answer is “no.”

Facebook will continue to be a great advertising platform for your franchise business. Let’s address some of those hesitations and put your mind at ease.

Facebook took steps to further secure its users.

The data breach affected thousands of Facebook users, and the social media giant didn’t waste time in tightening its security and reducing developer access to user information.

In an interview with The New York Times, Zuckerberg explained that his company would do a “full investigation of every app that got access to a large amount of information.” Furthermore, any app with suspicious activity would undergo a full forensic audit.

Facebook has realized it cannot depend solely on artificial intelligence to police and protect user information. By the end of this year, Facebook will double the number of people dedicated to securing user privacy.

Facebook’s ad model isn’t going anywhere.

Facebook is popular among advertisers because of its free consumer access and extremely low advertising rates. The ease of access allows the social media platform to build a community and “bring the entire world closer together.” Like many social platforms, Facebook depends on ad revenue to fund operations. They will continue to work toward a balance between providing a free platform and desirable advertising opportunities.

Because Facebook wants to be valuable to advertisers, it allows hypertargeting in a unique way. This targeting will be more precise as they continue to refine their systems.

Facebook’s advertising potential was not impacted by breach.

Even while the Cambridge Analytica data breach was unfolding publicly, Facebook continued to gain new users. In fact, Facebook added 48 million daily active users in the first quarter of 2018.

Getting your message in front of large, targeted audience will help grow your franchise brand and attract more customers.

There aren’t many alternatives.

Franchisors will be hard pressed to find any other platform that reaches targeted demographics as easily and affordably as Facebook.

Facebook provides measurable metrics that franchisors can immediately act upon. A variety of ad options, including video, is another selling point. Plus, the Facebook pixel allows you to track site visitors and what they do while visiting your site.

Facebook is a powerful tool, and that power wasn’t diminished by the data breach. Facebook still delivers ads to a diverse, global audience, and advertiser hesitancy doesn’t change the ROI.

This blog was written by Curious Jane and previously published on the blog of the International Franchise Association.

Franchise owners are inundated with data these days, and analyzing it all to see where conversions are produced can be incredibly overwhelming and often confusing. So let’s dive into what conversion means in a business and how franchises use it to determine progress.

About 80 percent of marketers are spending more time working with data, a recent Callcredit Information Group survey found. But more than 70 percent regularly feel data overload and aren’t fully utilizing the valuable data they have. That’s because about one-third of marketers don’t feel equipped to perform proper analysis.

There are many conversion data points to examine, but identifying which points are most relevant depends on your company’s goals. Once you define those goals, you can prioritize your approach.

Choosing Conversions Wisely

Many conversion metrics can be used to measure success, from website sales, newsletter sign-ups and subscriptions to cost per conversion, cost per click, view-through rate and more. Choosing what is a conversion can completely change what conversion means in a business.

Success depends on focusing on the metric most relevant to achieving your company’s goals. Focus on one at a time, then reprioritize metrics on the basis of what’s driving the best results, thus ensuring higher ROI for marketing spend.

If your company’s goal, for example, is to increase traffic to its site, clicks and click-through rate are the most relevant metrics. If the goal is to increase newsletter sign-ups, then cost per conversion, overall conversions and click-through rates will be most valuable. For a branding goal, key metrics are reach, frequency and impressions.

Revealing ROI

Regardless of a company’s goals, sometimes leaders might want to see specific conversions, such as those that showcase ROI. If you’re not already tracking them, consider adding some of these conversions to your next presentation.

Open rate is one of the top conversions to showcase return on investment. Your business is likely doing some type of email marketing, but what are you doing to make sure consumers actually read your emails and click through to your website? Businesses that send frequent targeted emails see the highest open and click-through rates.

Redemption rates also will reveal whether campaigns are producing ROI. If your business is targeting a specific audience, determine whether consumers are following through on the call to action. Did they use a coupon, for example? Was there an offer attached to a special phone number or landing page, and if so, what were the results?

Finally, be sure to measure against the spend of marketing and business results. If your business aimed to grow by a specific number of customers, did you reach that goal? If not, what happened? Remember: Establishing a baseline and comparing numbers are the only ways to measure marketing ROI. It’s imperative to consider the sales numbers for a few months before and after a new marketing campaign launch to see its full impact.

Commonly Misinterpreted Metrics

It’s impossible to talk about metrics without mentioning those that just aren’t what marketers think they are. Some metrics can be especially misleading, and the results can be easily misinterpreted.

First, measuring cost per conversion doesn’t make or break a marketing campaign. This is what your client is worth to your business in relation to the products sold. If you’re paying more to gain a new customer than the sale is worth, you haven’t gained a return on your investment. A lower cost per conversion in relation to the customer value means a positive ROI.

The conversion rate tells a business how many people who clicked went on to complete the desired action, such as purchasing a product, signing up for an email list or free consultation, or filling out another type of form. Strong conversion rates mean your campaign is profiting, resulting in a positive ROI.

The CTR Misconception

One final misconception is click-through rate. A high click-through rate is not indicative of a successful campaign. You should take a strategic approach to targeting to include new audiences. Consider this: Online display ads have been around for decades, and some of the first ads had CTRs of 44 percent. Over the years, however, CTR has declined dramatically and was about 0.1 percent in 2012. Instead of clicks and impressions, marketers are now paying for performance and realizing that conversions aren’t always tied to clicks.

There are a lot of conversions to consider in the marketing world, and it can be overwhelming to analyze them all and pinpoint which will help you reach your goals and produce a return on your investment. But once you understand which metrics work best for your company’s goals, the rewards are plentiful.