First-Party vs. Zero-Party Data: What Marketers Need to Know

As enterprises scale AI initiatives, they face a critical challenge: ensuring the data powering their models is clean, auditable and consented. AI built on anything less risks regulatory exposure, reputational damage and performance shortfalls.

At Permission, we believe the future of AI rests on trusted data foundations. That’s why we’re proud to launch Permission-as-a-Service (PaaS), a new enterprise solution that embeds our consent architecture for AI directly into your platforms.

Why Enterprises need Consented Human Data for AI

In today’s AI landscape:

• Models are only as good as the data behind them. Yet, countless enterprises still rely on scraped or synthetic datasets lacking full provenance or consent.
  
  
• Regulatory scrutiny is increasing. Frameworks such as the EU AI Act and evolving data-protection regimes demand verifiable consent and usage rights. Brookings

• Trust and performance go hand-in-hand: human-verified data improves accuracy, relevance and model robustness. SalesIntel

Enterprises need a consent layer for AI - one that ensures human-verified, usage-rights backed, audit-capable data streams.

How Permission-as-a-Service delivers an Enterprise Consent layer

With PaaS, your organization can:

• Source fresh, intent-rich human data via the Permission Agent: high-signal human input designed for AI training.
  
  
• Activate your existing datasets by overlaying expanded consent and usage rights, unlocking new AI use cases while remaining compliant.
  
  
• Access provenance records and audit trails that support GDPR, the EU AI Act and other frameworks, enabling you to prove your data lineage and rights.
  
  
• Leverage blockchain-based consent records that create immutable, tamper-proof evidence of data origin and processing rights.
  
  
• Reward contributors via the ASK token, establishing a transparent value exchange between individuals and organizations.

As our CEO, Charlie Silver, puts it:

“Enterprises know that clean, permissioned data is the foundation of AI … and they can’t risk building on anything less. Permission-as-a-Service helps organizations both capture fresh human input and tap into the hidden value of their existing datasets, while compensating individuals for the use of that data. It’s the path forward to responsible AI at scale.”

A Foundation for Responsible AI at Scale

In launching PaaS, we’re advancing our broader mission: data as an individual’s asset. We’ve already introduced the Permission Agent, a browser-companion that enables individuals to control and monetize their data while supplying high-signal, permission-first inputs to AI systems.

Together, the Permission Agent and PaaS form the backbone of a new, ethical data economy: one where consent travels with the data, usage rights are clear, and individuals and organizations both benefit.

Ready to build compliant, high-performance AI?

If you’re an enterprise looking to elevate your AI foundation with consented, auditable human data, we’d love to help.

Explore how Permission-as-a-Service can deliver performance, compliance and trust at scale.

‍Partnership Combines Web3 Innovation and Affiliate Marketing Expertise to Drive Consumer Engagement and Trust with Brands

La Jolla, CA – January 2025– Permission, the pioneer in Web3 advertising technology, has partnered with Impact.com, the world’s leading partnership management platform, to redefine affiliate marketing with crypto-powered rewards. This collaboration marks a breakthrough moment in the marketing ecosystem, enabling brands like Walmart, Target, and Adidas—already thriving within Impact’s ecosystem—to supercharge consumer engagement with ASK tokens while prioritizing privacy and transparency.

By joining Impact.com’s extensive network of over 1,000 technology partners, Permission empowers advertisers to seamlessly integrate Web3 rewards into their affiliate campaigns. Through this partnership, brands can reward users for their time, attention, and engagement—shifting the paradigm from passive impressions to active participation, all while respecting global privacy standards like GDPR and CCPA. This is on top of Permisson’s 350,000+ userbase and over $45 million rewards that have already been paid out.

Key Highlights of the Partnership:

• For Advertisers: Effortlessly integrate Permission’s ASK Rewards through Impact.com to drive conversions and loyalty.
• For Consumers: Earn ASK tokens for engaging with affiliate campaigns, gaining a direct stake in the brands they love.
• For Brands: Access real-time insights into user behavior while building transparent, trust-driven relationships with audiences.

“Impact.com’s network unlocks unprecedented opportunities for Permission to bridge Web2 and Web3 marketing strategies at scale,” said Charlie Silver, CEO of Permission. “Our collaboration enables brands to create real, measurable value for users while redefining affiliate marketing in an era where privacy and engagement are paramount.”

Why This Matters for Marketers:

• Boosted ROI: Crypto rewards foster greater engagement, increasing conversions and brand advocacy.
• Sustainable Relationships: Incentivized campaigns build long-term loyalty through meaningful user interactions.
• Future-Proof Privacy: Permission’s opt-in model ensures compliance with evolving global privacy regulations.

As digital marketing shifts toward consumer empowerment, Permission and Impact.com’s partnership signals the rise of a fair, transparent, and value-driven economy where users, brands, and advertisers all win.

About Permission

Permission is a leader in Web3 advertising, empowering users to take control of their data and earn rewards for engaging with brands. Leveraging blockchain technology, Permission enables advertisers to build trust, transparency, and value in the digital economy. Learn more at http://permission.ai.

About Impact

Impact is the leading partnership management platform, empowering businesses to scale and optimize their affiliate and partner programs. With a global network of developer partners and advanced technology solutions, Impact connects brands with new opportunities for growth. Visit www.impact.com for more information.

Media Contact:

Charlie Silver

CEO

media@permission.ai

‍

Tension exists in modern advertising. Cambridge Analytica, GDPR, and numerous breaches have prompted a privacy whiplash against brands who were careless with data, and for good reason, but users are also demanding more and more personalized experiences — requiring nuanced data.

Even when advertisers are working with the best they can get, modern data collection is littered with problems. Advertisers are often left with inferred and piecemeal data, resulting in a mismatch that frustrates consumers.

Fortunately, there are solutions being developed, and one such innovation is known as zero party data (or ZPD). Zero party data puts the power back in the hands of consumers and enables businesses to collect more accurate data by fostering genuine, opt-in interactions.

Before we go into why zero party data will define advertising in the 21st century, let’s cover what kind of data we currently use.

The Three Types of Data Commonly Used Today

First Party Data

First party data is proprietary data collected by companies directly from its customers.

This most commonly includes email addresses, birthdays, addresses, purchase history, etc. This is the data most of us are familiar with. From Facebook Pixel data to sales spreadsheets, first party data is relied upon for day-to-day activities across modern businesses. It’s collected and owned by the business rather than the consumer.

First party data is where issues are most prominent (Equifax’s staggering failure comes to mind), and it’s the reason we have regulatory bodies in place such as the PCI Security Council. User data is sensitive, and the transition into a technology-first economy has not been kind to the average consumer’s privacy.

Second Party Data

Second party data is first party data sold to other companies.

It’s collected the same way as first party data, and then it’s packaged up and sold. A common example is email lists. If you’ve ever received a random email from a company, then your email was sold as second party data. Shared internet browser cookie data and product preferences are also popular second party data, and these data sets can either be consumer-specific or anonymous.

Third Party Data

Third party data are large data collections gathered by companies who are not the original collectors of that data.

Think inferred data, psychographics, income based on zip codes, etc.

For example, in fashion, there are data reports that forecast color trends for upcoming seasons. These reports are compiled by a company that takes the time to buy or license data from a wide variety of sources, compile them, and then present them in a useful way.

More generally, third party data usually covers demographic information like estimated household income, purchase preferences, etc., and companies use this data to educate their marketing efforts and build statistical models.

What Is Zero Party Data, and Why Is It So Exciting?

Zero party data is consumer-owned data given voluntarily by the user to brands in return for a benefit.

This could be anything from:

1. Intention to buy
2. Preferences on types of ads
3. Demographic information such as gender, age, interests, etc.
4. How they identify themselves

Zero party data hands the reigns of control back to the consumer by giving them ownership of their data. Brands and third party platforms own first party data, and users own zero party data. Businesses cannot package and sell zero party data the way they sell first party data.

While self-reported customer data like email addresses, birthdays, etc. would be considered first party data in the past, the expectations consumers have around that data has forced a new distinction between data types.

Zero party data is proactive and functions as an ongoing conversation between consumers and advertisers. It’s the difference between implied interest and explicit interest, and the best ZPD is constantly evolving.

Users offer valuable information in return for better personalization or via value exchange marketing, which is when users answer an ad or survey in return for something related to their experience. For example, getting a free audiobook chapter in return for filling out a sponsored survey is an example of a value exchange.

In a way, ZPD is simply the next step in the stairs of permission marketing pioneered by thought leaders like Seth Godin. Opt-ins are the pinnacle of permission, and zero party data is exclusively opt-in. We know humans are habitually materialistic — we won’t stop buying good products if presented with the opportunity, so why shouldn’t we use technology to make the relationship between consumers and brands better?

Today’s Flawed Data Ecosystem Needs Solutions Like Zero Party Data

Zero party data wouldn’t be nearly as interesting if there weren’t problems worth fixing today. The issues with first party data and modern data exchanges are many, and here are a few of them:

Consumers have little control over their data and aren’t compensated whatsoever.

In today’s digital advertising world, consumers have limited control over their data and aren’t compensated for it monetarily. Most data is collected through user consent to join a platform, e.g. Facebook. Once a user decides to join Facebook, they are subject to ads, and that is the price they pay for using the platform. But users don’t have any choice or real control over their data — they aren’t rewarded in any way apart from being interrupted.

Businesses are often working with outdated data and are fighting against a tide of anti-advertising behavior.

Second party and third party data can be horrendously out of date and inaccurate, and even the best guesses in targeting are based on databases of old data. If a user expressed purchase intent for a car and then purchased a car, then any auto dealer using that data to push car ads to them is wasting their money. They aren’t likely to purchase two vehicles in a short time frame.

Ad blockers and private browsers are also becoming more and more mainstream, and the more sophisticated and ubiquitous consumer privacy tech becomes, the worse it is for advertisers. The best solution is to foster a voluntary exchange of data, and the best way to do that is to give ownership back to the users.

Businesses have repeatedly proven themselves incapable of protecting consumer data.

With breach after major breach, consumers are only becoming more protective of their data. This is accelerating the trend of consumer control, and consumers should have more choice in whom they trust with their data.

What Else You Need to Know About Zero Party Data

Zero party data is better for businesses too.

Zero party data isn’t all about consumers. ZPD allows businesses to:

1. Collect more accurate, relevant, and immediate data from consumers.
2. Better match products to consumer interests.
3. Build more brand loyalty and ad engagement by seeking permission instead of interrupting.

A consumer offering voluntary information is the most accurate form of data collection and engagement, and that’s already proven through existing first party data trends.

Zero party data isn’t perfect, yet.

It’s worth noting that the zero party data ecosystem is young, and that brings challenges for brands. For one, it’s difficult to scale, although that’s being solved by technologies like blockchain and cryptocurrencies that enable permission-based engagement.

There are also some best practices businesses need to keep in mind when collecting ZPD. For example, if someone collects zero party data clumsily, a user may feel incentivized to say what they think the brand wants to hear instead of what the consumer actually thinks. This isn’t a problem unique to zero party data, but it can distort data integrity.

Zero party data functions on trust, which will act as a natural filter for bad faith actors.

An interesting positive consequence of widespread ZPD adoption is a sort of natural selection throughout digital businesses. Predatory businesses currently rely on second and third party data sources to target and take advantage of consumers. ZPD, on the contrary, is only rewarding to advertisers if they are trustworthy (or at the very least compelling) enough to benefit from your data. This will empower consumers to reward the businesses most deserving of their data and make bad-faith actors less effective.

Getting Started and Best Practices for Collecting ZPD

Zero party data will continue to grow in this decade and beyond, eventually becoming the standard solution for transferring data between brands and consumers. If you work for a business, you can start reaping the benefits of ZPD right now.

Here are a few ways your business can start using zero party data:

1. Integrate more value-exchange ads into your marketing strategy.

Look for publishing partnerships and ways to incorporate value-exchange ads into your marketing strategy. Try partnering with a SaaS company to offer an additional day in their free trial to users who complete your survey or engage with your video. Or perhaps you take part in the robust world of value-based ads in mobile gaming, where users are rewarded with in-game currency or items for interacting with brands.

You could also look at giving away additional content or bonuses on your site for more information (this is already very popular in the inbound marketing world), with the explicit caveat that their data will never be sold. Your options are wide.

2. Set up a cycle of giving and receiving to succeed with ZPD.

Users shouldn’t be placed into static buckets. As consumers buy and grow with a brand through ZPD, there is two-way communication which results in better buying experiences for customers and more revenue for brands. Find ways to incorporate a natural refreshing of user data, whether that’s through accruable incentives or multiple opportunities over time to update their data.

3. Use blockchain to grow zero party data at scale.

One roadblock for businesses is the ability to achieve scalability when it comes to zero party data. Setting up a value-exchange marketing campaign or survey seems feasible, but when it comes to big data decisions, zero party data often falls short. That’s true, but that can be overcome with technology like cryptocurrencies that enable consumers to monetize their data and engagement.

Imagine a mobile app that’s powered by a cryptocurrency that rewards consumers in return for interacting with sponsored content. Users can then exchange or use that currency to spend it on whatever they’d like — perhaps gift cards or physical items. This lets brands collect zero party data to better serve a target demographic while giving consumers a cash equivalent for engaging with brands they are genuinely interested in. It’s a win-win.

Permission.io is building the ideal zero party data ecosystem for users, developers, and brands.

See what we’re building.

4. Use ZPD in tandem with first party data for the best marketing results.

Until a full-fledged permission-based internet and app ecosystem is available, combining first party data and zero party data is the best approach for smart advertising. Serve ads based on the most amount of ZPD data as possible and always respect the user.

The Bottom Line on Zero Party Data

Zero party data is voluntary data given by a consumer to a brand, and it’s owned by the user. While the world of ZPD is still young, it has the potential to revolutionize our modern web advertising model and create a more personalized, equitable, and profitable experience for both consumers and businesses alike.

Join us as we revolutionize the internet as we know it.

Whether you’re a brand, a developer, or a user, we’re building a new ZPD-based data ecosystem that will compensate users for their data and fundamentally alter how the internet economy functions.

Get involved.

If you work in marketing, chances are you use first party data every single day. Traditionally referred to as the most valuable of all data types, we use first party data to retarget consumers online, deliver specific products based on purchase behavior, and much more.

In the data economy, the smarter you are with your data, the more you will succeed. We’d also argue that the more respectful and permission-based your data collection practices are, the better experience your users will have. This positive experience turns into goodwill, which turns into loyalty and ultimately results in more sales.

Before we go into the details on first party data and how to best use it, let’s briefly cover all four major data types marketers use.

Defining the Most Commonly Used Data Types

What Is First Party Data?

First party data is any data collected by companies on their own customers.

This means any CRM data, purchase history, or demographic information you have within your system. If it was requested or collected by your company and is exclusive to your company, then it’s first party data.

Businesses collect first party data with forms, surveys, pixels, shopping records, shipping addresses, and more. This data is extremely valuable to businesses because it offers direction on how to message existing customers while giving companies a blueprint for attracting more of their best customers.

First party data is also where many privacy issues arise, with major breaches leaking sensitive information around the internet ecosystem and generally undermining the privacy of users.

What Is Second Party Data?

Second party data is any first party data sold to other companies.

If you collect data from your customers, package it up, and then sell it to another company, then that first party data becomes second party data. Conversely, if you purchase email lists, demographic information, or purchase history data directly from the company that collected that data, then you have purchased second party data.

What Is Third Party Data?

Third party data is any data that you use or buy from a company that isn’t the original collector of that data.

Third-party data is most commonly packaged into large data sets built off of first party and second-party data. It commonly includes demographic data, psychographic data, bulk email lists, and other expansive data sets.

What Is Zero-Party Data?

Zero party data is any consumer-owned data that is given up voluntarily by a consumer to a company in return for some benefit.

Meet the new kid on the block, zero-party data. This could be notification of buyer intent, shopping preferences, product feedback, identifying information, or ad preferences.

Zero-party data is the future of advertising data because users own their data in a zero-party data relationship. In first party data, companies own the data they collect.

Zero-party data is made possible through opt-ins on both sides of the advertising equation. Certain blockchain currencies require that companies pay consumers for their data. Zero-party data champions user rights while better matching users with brands, resulting in a win-win relationship that is mutually beneficial for both parties.

While zero-party data isn’t yet widely adopted, big changes are coming to the internet that will make it mainstream.

The Power of First Party Data: How Marketers Use It

Again, first party data is data you collect on behaviors and actions taken across your website, app, and/or product. This includes information in CRM profiles, your social media data, any survey responses, any email marketing data, and any other data your company has based on your users’ actions.

This is important data to advertisers and allows them to advertise with specificity and purpose. Here are a few ways you can use first party data:

1. To Build Accurate Customer Profiles

Customer-relationship-management software (CRMs) like HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, Salesforce, and others are really just software designed to utilize first party data that your company collects. FPD gives companies the opportunity to build unique customer profiles, which allows you to use product and demographic-specific messaging while keeping track of sales conversations at the same time.

2. To Segment Your Customer Base

Segmentation is an incredibly important tool marketers use to create a sense of specificity. Specificity is simply targeted actions based on what you know about a customer. This could be behavior information such as pages they have viewed on your website, demographic information like gender, age, and occupation, or any other first party data that you have collected.

Any time you differentiate one set of customers from another, you are performing segmentation. If you haven’t taken the time to create buyer personas and use those to dictate your decisions around the first party data you have, then that’s your first step.

3. To Create Personalized Retargeting Campaigns

Platforms like Facebook, Adroll, Google Ads, and Pinterest allow you to deliver ads to the same people who have interacted with your profile or site. This isn’t possible without first party data. When you install a pixel on your site and track user behavior, you are collecting first party data.

4. To Build Email Automations

Email automations are built on triggers based on buying behavior, demographics, website data, and surveys — all of which are types of first party data. Whether you’re building in ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, Drip, or WildMail, it’s all powered by FPD.

5. To Educate Your New Advertising Efforts

Marketers also use FPD to give them insight into potential customer pools. For example, if you know through surveys and collected information that your best customers are U.S.-based, 35-44 females interested in science and politics, and your company is about to expand in the U.K., your first campaign in that market should target 35-44 females interested in science and politics.

You can structure your entire U.K. marketing campaign around these facts, and while any new market is unique and deserves to be treated as such, FPD helps marketers make more educated decisions and refine their experiments.

6. To A/B Test Your Marketing Efforts

A/B testing occurs any time you compare the results of two assets over a time-bound period. Let’s say you had a new product that allowed users to put a physical picture inside an item of their choice, and you identified two major selling points: the ability to “capture a memory” and “personalization.”

You could construct two separate landing pages, one with “Collect Your Memories” as the headline and the other with ‘The Most Unique and Personalized Gift Ever!” By using tools to collect how often users click and buy — a type of FPD — you could figure out which headline is more profitable and use that information to improve your campaign.

7. To Collect Product Feedback

Requesting product feedback and reviews is another useful type of FPD. Because you are collecting information from your consumers, any recorded feedback or reviews fall under the umbrella of first party data. Marketers and companies can use this data to redesign their existing products, develop new sales, find inspiration for additional features, and more.

8. To Sell Your FPD to Other Companies

Again, any first party data that is sold becomes second party data, and some companies make all of their money this way. Social media companies do this most famously, but anytime you’ve heard of email lists being sold or purchase behavior information being given to complementary businesses, that’s an example of second party data.

And so much more…

First party data is a broad umbrella under which most major marketing ideas, functions, and best practices come from. It’s the first type of data most companies use, and it is often the most valuable, although zero-party data is set to become the next star-child.

5 Common Ways Businesses Collect First Party-Data

If you’re a business operating in any capacity, you’ve already collected some types of first party data — at the very least, the data collected when you make a sale. Here are a few of the most common ways businesses collect FPD:

1. Pixels

Pixels, or site tags, are bits of code that are dropped into the header of your website pages. Every time a user loads a particular page, there’s a bit of communication that happens between that code and whatever service the pixel or tag belongs to. This communication sends anonymous information about the user, including demographic information, the actions they took on the page, and more.

Pixels are most famously associated with Facebook and Google Ads, and they are essential to any business marketing themselves online. You can figure out how to get and install your Facebook pixel here, and you can learn more about Google remarketing tags here.

2. Email Captures

There are countless ways to collect email addresses, but the most common include:

1. Putting an email sign-up on key website pages like your homepage.
2. Collecting them in person.
3. Collecting them during an eCommerce or in-person checkout.
4. Collecting them as part of a rewards program.
5. Collecting them in return for a PDF or other type of free information.

All major website platforms support email captures and integrate with other major email service providers. Email service providers are the companies that act as a database for your emails and allow you to contact people through them. Major ESPs include:

1. Gmail
2. Outlook
3. HubSpot
4. ActiveCampaign
5. Drip
6. MailChimp

Your choice will depend on your needs, although we are partial toward Gmail for personal use and ActiveCampaign and Drip for businesses.

3. Point-of-Sale Systems (POS)

Your POS is what gives you the ability to accept payments. It is most often used in reference to the software that powers your terminal, although most POS systems include and communicate with an online payment gateway as well.

Each time a card is swiped, information about that customer is collected. Some of this information, like purchase amount, product purchased, etc. happens automatically, and other information like email addresses, preferences, etc. are collected voluntarily when requested by the business to the customer.

The best POS systems tie directly into your CRM, allowing you to use that data to educate your marketing decisions. For example, let’s say you have a product that expires every three months. You could export all of the customer email addresses who purchased three months ago, tag those addresses in your CRM or ESP, and send a targeted email to those customers with a discount because you know it’s around the time they should be purchasing again.

4. Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRM)

CRMs come in all types and variations, but they are fundamentally a way for you to centralize all the information you need to contact and interact with prospects and customers. CRMs usually include a combination of email sending and creation tools, SMS messaging tools, landing page tools, customer profile information, and email automation capabilities.

5. Manual Input via Call Centers and Employees

While first party data is much more efficient and effective when collected automatically, there is plenty of reason and opportunity to collect FPD when your team is working with your customers. Manual collection of FPD includes collecting email addresses at trade shows and writing down data from inbound sales calls.

Companies are always in pursuit of more FPD, and the best system for your company will inevitably change over time — look at data collection as a consistent effort. The cleaner, more refined, and more actionable your FPD, the better you will be to use it.

First Party Data: No Longer the Best for Marketers or Consumers

Here’s the issue. First party data is clearly one of the best tools marketers and companies have to grow their businesses, but it is a world away from perfect. For starters, users don’t own their data, meaning their personal information is constantly exploited by data-driven companies, and companies are stuck with patchwork data that doesn’t always integrate.

The solution? Give users back ownership of their data and use blockchain technology to pay users to interact with advertisers. This new model is a win-win for both users and advertisers because users have incentives to choose brands that they are genuinely interested in and advertisers eliminate ad spend and build loyalty and trust.

This gets to the heart of zero-party data — by creating an infrastructure that allows for opt-in ads to occur at scale, advertisers will have more complete, more active pools of users to engage. It eliminates so many of the headaches of targeting while giving users back control of their data that is currently harvested without their consent from internet barons like Google, Facebook, and Amazon.

Think it sounds too good to be true?

See how Permission is building that world right now.