You’ve probably heard this a lot lately:
“Third-party cookies are going.”
“You need to prioritise first-party data.”
“Tracking is changing.”
And if you run paid media, it can feel slightly vague. So let’s strip it back.
What is first party data?
In PPC, first-party data is simply:
Information your business collects directly from its own customers and feeds back into ad platforms to improve performance.
That’s it. It’s not bought data or mysterious platform data. It’s your own customer’s information that you can utilise to benefit your marketing efforts.
Examples include:
- Email addresses from lead forms
- Purchase data from your website
- Revenue values
- CRM lead status (qualified, closed, lost)
- Repeat purchase behaviour
If your business collected it directly, it’s first-party data.
Why does this suddenly matter?
Because tracking isn’t as clean as it used to be.
When users decline cookies:
- You can’t track them in the same way.
- Retargeting audiences shrink.
- Conversion paths break.
- Platforms use modelling to fill the gaps.
PPC is still valuable and it hasn’t stopped working, but now platforms have less clear information to optimise against and first-party data gives them better signals.
The simplest way to think about it
Ad platforms are machines that learn and they optimise based on the data you give them.
If you only tell Google Ads: “A form was submitted.”
It will optimise for more form submissions.
But if you upload CRM data and say: “These 50 leads turned into real revenue.”
Now the algorithm understands what success actually looks like. First-party data is basically feedback, and better feedback improves performance.
What does this look like in real PPC terms?
Here are three simple use cases.
1. Retargeting beyond cookies
Old way: You retarget website visitors based on cookies.
Problem: If they decline consent, they disappear from your audience.
With first-party data: You can upload customer lists (emails) and retarget that way instead.
You can also create audiences like:
- People who bought 30 days ago
- People who haven’t purchased in 60 days
- High-value customers only
That’s more strategic than “visited page = show ad”.
2. Better lookalike audiences
Instead of building lookalikes from:
- All website visitors
- All leads (good and bad)
You can build them from:
- Repeat buyers
- High-value customers
- Closed-won deals
Now you’re telling the platform: “Find me more people like our best customers.”
That improves prospecting quality.
3. Teaching the algorithm what a good lead is
This is the big one for B2B. Google can see that someone filled out a form.
It cannot see whether:
- They were qualified
- They booked a meeting
- They became revenue
Unless you upload that information.
Once you feed back offline conversions, Google starts optimising for better leads, not just more leads. That’s where first-party data becomes powerful.
Is first party data new?
No, it’s always been around. What’s changed is how important it is.
As third-party tracking becomes less reliable, the data you own becomes more valuable.
You’re reducing guesswork, improving signal quality, and giving platforms clearer instructions.
Do you need to overhaul everything?
Probably not, in our experience, most businesses already collect first-party data. They just don’t use it properly in PPC.
Start simple:
- Connect your CRM to Google Ads.
- Enable Enhanced Conversions.
- Set up Conversion API for Meta.
- Upload customer lists.
- Feed revenue data back where possible.
You don’t need perfection, you just need better inputs.
The bottom line
First-party data in PPC isn’t complicated. It’s just using your own customer information to help ad platforms optimise more intelligently.
In a world where tracking is less certain, the businesses that win aren’t the ones with more data. They’re the ones using their own data better.
February 26, 2026
